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OUTLINE MAP 
 
 OF 
 
 ITALY 
 
 IN 
 
 ANCIENT TIMES 
 
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Men and Cities of Italy 
 
 THE ROMAN EMPIRE 
 
 THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS 
 
 MAKERS OF MODERN ITALY 
 
 IN THREE PARTS 
 
 NEW YORK CLEVELAND Chicago 
 
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I 
 
 THE ROMAN EMPIRE 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES RICHARD JOY, M.A. 
 
THE LIBRARY OF 
 CONGRESS, 
 
 Two CoPita Received 
 
 SEP. 9 1901 
 
 Copyright entrv 
 CLASS <^XXc. Na 
 
 / Oo^f 
 
 COPY 3. 
 
 Copyright, igoi. by 
 CHAUTAUQUA ASSEMBLY 
 
 The Lakeside Press, Chicago. III., U. S. A. 
 R R. Donnelley & Sons Company 
 
OLD ROME 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE ITALIAN PENINSULA 
 
 Italy is the central peninsula of the three which 
 Southern Europe thrusts down into the Mediterranean 
 Sea. The Alps wall it off from the continent, the 
 piers of their mighty arch resting on the gulfs of 
 Genoa and Venice. On the east is the Adriatic, which 
 the Romans called Mare Superum (the Upper Sea), so 
 distinguishing it from Mare Inferum, the Lower or 
 Tuscan Sea, which washed their western shores. The 
 Ionian Sea, on the south, rolls between the "sole of 
 the boot" and Greece, completing the natural bound- 
 aries. The extreme length of the peninsula is seven 
 hundred miles. The northern expansion is three hun- 
 dred miles broad, and the southern (from "heel" to 
 "toe") is two hundred. The average width of the 
 peninsula is not far from one hundred miles. The 
 area of Italy is about one hundred thousand miles, or 
 twice that of the state of New York. 
 
 Two mountain ranges, the Alps and the Apennines, 
 are the most conspicuous features of the Italian topog- 
 raphy. The former, rising to fifteen thousand feet in 
 height, present a difficult but not impenetrable barrier 
 
 5 
 
6 The Roman Empire 
 
 to foreign invasion. Where the Alps descend to the 
 Gulf of Genoa the Apennines originate. This long 
 and somewhat loosely linked chain at first trails east- 
 ward toward the Adriatic, then holds the middle of the 
 peninsula for several hundred miles, and finally dis- 
 solves in a network of low ranges. Isolated volcanic 
 peaks, Vultur, the Alban Hills, and Vesuvius, are also 
 to be noted. 
 
 Of Italian rivers the Padus or Po is easily chief. It 
 crosses the great plain of Northern Italy and enters 
 the Adriatic after receiving many affluents. The 
 Adriatic also receives the Rubicon, Metaurus, Frento, 
 and Aufidus, while the Macra, Arnus, Tiber, Liris, 
 and Volturnus, all small streams, fall into the Tuscan 
 Sea. 
 
 Northern or Continental Italy which lay north of 
 the Rubicon, differed radically from Italy proper. Its 
 three regions were Liguria on the west, Venetia on the 
 east, and between them Gallia Cisalpina or Hither 
 Gaul. Italy proper was made up of two main divi- 
 sions. Central and Lower Italy. Central Italy extended 
 from the rivers Macra and Rubicon southward to the 
 Silarus and Frento. Its subdivisions were Etruria, 
 Latium, and Campania on the east coast, backed by 
 Umbria, Samnium, and Picenum. The land of the 
 Sabines is sometimes reckoned as a seventh district. 
 
 Etruria lay in the well watered plain which was left 
 by the Apennines bowing toward the east. Just south 
 of it and almost midway of the peninsula a strip of hill 
 and plain between the Tiber and Liris was Latium, 
 the land of the Latins. Roma (Rome) was one of 
 their towns. About the beautiful bay of Naples was 
 
The Italian Peninsula 7 
 
 Campania, a region of sunny vineyards and luxurious 
 cities. The central highlands and remote Adriatic 
 shores furnished homes for the rude and hardy Umbri- 
 ans, Samnites, and Sabines. 
 
 Lower Italy embraced all of the peninsula south of 
 the Silarus and Frento. Its four districts were Lu- 
 cania, Apulia, Calabria, and Bruttium. Sicily (Tri- 
 nacria), Sardinia, and Corsica, with the islets of Elba, 
 Malta, Capri, Liparae, and yEgusae, are properly 
 reckoned with Italy. The three large islands were 
 long the granary of Rome, and the wealth and stra- 
 tegic value of Sicily made it the battle-ground of three 
 empires. 
 
 The northern boundary of Italy is on the parallel 
 of Quebec, and the southern is in the latitude of Rich- 
 mond. Yet the massive mountain walls and the never 
 distant seas greatly modify the climate. Central 
 Italy — the Italy of Latium and Rome — is in the lati- 
 tude of Boston, but both winters and summers are 
 mild. Little snow falls except in the highlands, and 
 the rivers seldom freeze. From Campania southward 
 the hillsides bask in almost perpetual summer. The 
 vine and olive come to perfection here, and in the 
 cooler portions, wheat, flax, and hemp are cultivated. 
 Orchard and forest fruits are abundant and various. 
 The chestnut was and is a staple product, and oranges, 
 lemons, figs, almonds, and even dates were plentiful. 
 The uplands were peculiarly adapted to the profitable 
 raising of sheep, goats, and horned cattle, and agri- 
 culture and grazing have always been the leading 
 occupations of the Italians. 
 
 Traces have been found in several parts of Italy, 
 
8 The Roman Empire 
 
 testifying to the presence in prehistoric times of a race 
 which have been called lapygians. They have been 
 lost under the successive waves of migration which 
 swept over the peninsula. We know little more of 
 them than that they were an early offshoot of that 
 Aryan stock to which most of the population of Europe 
 may be traced. The Italians proper are believed to 
 have sprung from the same mother race and to have 
 made their way westward from the Aryan homestead 
 in company with the Hellenes, who peopled the Greek 
 lands. Advancing overland by age-long stages, they 
 at length doubled the head of the Adriatic and entered 
 the valley of the Po, the gentle lapygian retiring 
 before the stern and hardy immigrant. 
 
 Even among the Italians, well-defined differences 
 were noticed, the Umbrians, Samnites, and other 
 tribes of the central and eastern highlands, being dis- 
 tinguished from the Latins by marked variations of 
 language and beliefs. Besides the vanishing lapygi- 
 ans and the conquering Italians there was a third great 
 people in Italy, the Etruscans, whose home between 
 the Tiber and Arnus is still called Tuscany. Here 
 they had a strong league of cities, and for a time held 
 in check the rising power of Rome. The Etruscans 
 were skilled artificers in metal, and the ruins of their 
 tombs and walls bear evidence to their engineering and 
 architectural progress. The study of their civilization 
 is one of the most fascinating departments of archae- 
 ology. 
 
 Two other nationalities appeared in Italy just as 
 Europe was emerging into the light of history. The 
 Celts or Gauls, an offshoot of the great race which at 
 
The Italian Peninsula 9 
 
 one time occupied nearly the whole of western Europe, 
 established themselves in the Po valley — thencefor- 
 ward Cisalpine Gaul. From the tenth to the seventh 
 century before Christ the overflowing population of 
 Greece came by sea to the harbors of the south and 
 west, planting the Greek language and civilization so 
 firmly that the name Magna Graecia (Great Greece) 
 long clung to that region of entrancing beauty. 
 
 SUMMARY AND QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 
 
 The Italian Peninsula: The Adriatic (Mare Superum), the 
 Tuscan Sea (Mare Inferum), the Ionian Sea (between Greece 
 and the "sole of the boot"). Length of peninsula, 700 miles; 
 300 wide at the north; average, 100; from heel to toe, 200. 
 Area, 100,000 square miles — twice that of the state of New 
 York. Rivers: Into the Adriatic flow the Po, Rubicon, Me- 
 taurus, Frento, and Aufidus; into the Tuscan Sea, the Macra, 
 Arnus, Tiber, Liris, and Volturnus. 
 
 Continental Italy: Liguria, Gallia Cisalpina, Venetia. 
 Central Italy: Etruria, Latium, and Campania, Umbria, Sam- 
 nium, and Picenum. Lower Italy: Lucania, Calabria, Brut- 
 tium. The islands: Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica, Elba, Malta, 
 Capri, Liparae, and ^gusae. Latitude: Quebec to Richmond. 
 
 The Races: lapygians, Etruscans, Italians, Gauls, and 
 Greeks. 
 
 I. Describe the geographical characteristics of Italy. 
 2. What was included in (a) Continental Italy, (b) Central 
 Italy, (c) Lower Italy? 3. What islands are reckoned with 
 Italy? 4. Compare the climate of Italy with that of this coun- 
 try. 5. What early races occupied Italy? 6. Who were the 
 Italians? 7. Why are the remains of Etruscan civilization of 
 peculiar interest? 8. Who. were the Gauls and where did they 
 settle in Italy? 9. What region was called Magna Graecia, and 
 why? 
 
lo The Roman Empire 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 History of Rome. Theodor jMommsen. 4 vols. 
 
 The Story of Ro?ne. Arthur Gilman. 
 
 Walks in Rojue. A. J. C. Hare. 
 
 Ave Roma Immortalis. F. M. Crawford. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE BEGINNINGS OF ROME 
 
 On a cluster of low hills in Latium, about midway 
 of the length of the peninsula of Italy, has stood for 
 nearly twenty-seven centuries a city called Roma by 
 its inhabitants and known to us as Rome. Twenty- 
 two miles from the Tuscan Sea the Tiber turns sharply 
 to the east "and then doubles back toward the west, 
 describing a rude S. In the upper loop on the broad 
 plain, once called the Campus Martius, is built the 
 modern capital of Italy. Just south of the lower bend 
 of the river are the seven hills of the ancient capital 
 of the world. By the riverside are the Capitoline, 
 Palatine, and Aventine, and farther away, like the 
 fingers of a mighty hand, are the Cslian, Esquiline, 
 Viminal, and Quirinal. At the base of the Capitoline, 
 in the hollow of that thumbless hand, was the public 
 square of the city, the Roman Forum, now choked 
 with the ruins of temples, law courts, and triumphal 
 arches. In the days of Roman greatness the pulse- 
 beat of the empire was in the Forum, to whose *'golden 
 milestone" all roads led. On the right bank of the 
 Tiber are two other hills, the Janiculan, once a Roman 
 fortress, and the Vatican, the residence or "prison" 
 of the pope. 
 
 One does not see most clearly at early dawn, and 
 the morning twilight of Roman history has perplexed 
 
 zi 
 
12 The Roman Empire 
 
 historians of the keenest vision. The Roman story 
 of the founding of their city and its development under 
 the rule of kings, was briefly this : 
 
 The Trojan prince ^-Eneas, escaping from the sack 
 of Troy, founded a colony in Latium. Three centuries 
 later a virgin princess of this line had by Mars twin 
 sons, Romulus and Remus, whom a she-wolf suckled 
 with her brood. The twins, grown to manhood, 
 gathered followers and settled on the Palatine, calling 
 their new town Roma, from Romulus, its leader and 
 lawgiver, who was translated by the gods after divid- 
 ing the people into "patricians" and "plebeians,'* 
 selecting an advisory council or "senate" and organ- 
 izinor a military force or leo:ion. The senate chose for 
 the successor of the deified founder a Sabine named 
 Numa Pompilius, who, guided by supernatural wisdom, 
 taught the people morals and religion. Under Tullus 
 Hostilius, the third king, the infant city began its con- 
 quering career among the neighboring communities. 
 Ancus Martins, like his kinsman Numa, was a man of 
 piety and valor, who improved his people and ex- 
 tended their borders. After his death an Etruscan, 
 to whom he had shown favor, was elected king. This 
 Lucius Tarquinius, called Priscus, "The Ancient," 
 fought successfully against the aggressive Etruscans, 
 built the massive sewer ("Cloaca Maxima") which 
 still drains the low ground between the hills, and set 
 apart the Forum for a market and meeting place. The 
 sons of Ancus had him assassinated, but the low-born 
 Servius TuUius forestalled their ambitions and made 
 himself king. In his reign the seven hills were first 
 enclosed by a ring wall. A military organization of 
 
The Beginnings of Rome 13 
 
 the people by "classes" and "centuries" was insti- 
 tuted, from which the popular assembly "comitia cen- 
 turiata" took its rise. Lucius Tarquinius, called 
 Superbus, "The Haughty," was the seventh and last 
 king. He overthrew his predecessor and, disregard- 
 ing the Servian reforms, exercised absolute sway like 
 the "tyrants" who were just then flourishing in the 
 cities of Greece. His tyranny and the villainy of his 
 sons provoked the wrath of the people who, led by 
 Brutus and other patriots, cast him out. The Etrus- 
 cans befriended the Tarquins, but the Romans, led by 
 their two chosen magistrates, called "consuls," and 
 later by a single "dictator," finally, by the favor of the 
 gods Castor and Pollux, prevailed, and cast out the 
 kings forever. For five hundred years Rome was ruled 
 by consuls, and the very name of king was forbidden. 
 Even when absolute power again came to the single 
 hand of a Caesar, the monarch shrank from assuming 
 the trappings of royalty. 
 
 In the writings of the Roman poets and historians 
 the bare narrative of the regal period which we have 
 given was enriched with those wonderful hero tales 
 which figure in the childhood of nearly every race. 
 The gods dealt directly with men; the Horatii and 
 Curiatii fought their battles; Scaevola thrust his hand 
 into the flame to prove his constancy ; the stern Brutus 
 condemned his false sons, and Horatius kept the bridge 
 in the brave days of old. Indeed, the modern student 
 is puzzled to distinguish fact from fable in all this 
 tangle of tradition, myth, and miracle. 
 
 The modern theory of the beginnings of Rome may 
 be sketched thus: 
 
14 The Roman Empire 
 
 The ancient people of Latium were farmers and 
 shepherds. The descendants of a common ancestor 
 lived together as a clan, and several neighboring or 
 kindred clans would find mutual advantage in com- 
 bining. Such a cantonal community would center 
 about a village fortress naturally suited for defense. 
 To such a hill-citadel the settlers would retire when 
 danger threatened. Some thirty of these Latin can- 
 tons existed in early times and formed a league of 
 which the mountain town Alba Longa was the head. 
 Here the annual religious festival of the race was held. 
 
 Rome was one of these hill-citadels. It is probable 
 that the consolidation of several such strongholds on 
 the Palatine, Capitoline, and Quirinal hills gave the 
 city-state its first impulse toward greatness. Three 
 neighbor-hills were better than one; a river town had 
 more resources than an inland village; and a frontier 
 post on the march of Etruria must needs look well to 
 its defenses. The rude Romans gained by their inter- 
 course with the Etruscans. Thus the fortified frontier 
 town on the hills by the Tiber gained a step or two in 
 the race for the primacy of Latium. 
 
 The dwellers in the little Rome were not politically 
 equal. Certain families, perhaps descended from the 
 original settlers, were called "patricians" ("children 
 of the fathers") and monopolized political, military, 
 and priestly power. They were the state, the populus 
 Romanus or Roman people, and their three tribes were 
 organized by households, clans i^gentes)^ and wards 
 [curicR). The patricians were jealous of their privi- 
 leges and excluded newcomers from political rights. 
 These later settlers were from the earliest times called 
 
The Beginnings of Rome 15 
 
 "plebeians" (the masses) and as they increased in 
 numbers and wealth, friction arose between them and 
 the ruling order. Beneath patrician and plebeian in 
 the social scale ranked the slave, the mere chattel of 
 his owner. 
 
 The government of the village commonwealth was 
 doubtless monarchical. Beside the king ranked a 
 senate composed of the elders of the patrician order. 
 On rare occasions the entire body of the patricians 
 met in the "comitia curiata" to determine great ques- 
 tions of state. The senate, to which in republican 
 times even plebeians became eligible, developed into 
 the world's greatest legislative assembly. 
 
 Toward the close of the regal period a liberal and 
 perhaps low-born king sought to broaden the political 
 foundation of the state by admitting plebeians to mili- 
 tary service and in some degree to political rights. 
 The army was reorganized by "centuries" (hundreds) 
 and enrolment was no longer limited to tests of birth, 
 a property qualification being introduced. Out of 
 the meeting of the army by centuries to decide pro- 
 posals of peace or war, grew in time the legislative 
 functions of the comitia centuriata in which the com- 
 moners effectively asserted themselves against the 
 aristocrats. 
 
 The republican revolution sprang not from the 
 oppression of the plebeians, but from the ambition of 
 the kings. The student of the legends must have 
 detected the strain of violence and despotism running 
 through the traditional accounts of the later kings. 
 The monarch is no longer the revered judge and priest 
 of his people but has become a military leader. The 
 
1 6 The Roman Empire 
 
 throne no longer descends peacefully to the senator 
 whom his colleagues elect and the curiae and the gods 
 approve. The monarch intrigues to control the suc- 
 cession. The Tarquins are unmistakably foreigners, 
 through whose disguise we think we see signs of a 
 period of Etruscan domination. Their concentrated 
 power and military genius made Rome the leading city 
 of the Latins, but their tyrannous neglect of the senate 
 and comitia hastened the revolt. Lucretia's dishonor 
 and Brutus's patriotism may be fictions, but we cannot 
 doubt the fact that the military despotism made itself 
 so odious that the citizens at length rose against the 
 tyrants and drove them out. The power of Etruria 
 failed to reinstate the exiled Tarquins, and an aristo- 
 cratic Roman republic was set up in place of the hated 
 throne. The principle of elective office was reasserted 
 and two consuls were chosen every year in place of 
 one king. 
 
 The Roman date for the founding of the city by 
 Romulus was 753 B. C. The reigns of the seven 
 kings lasted 244 years, and the republic began in 509 
 B. C. We do not pretend in our present state of 
 knowledge to fix these dates with accuracy. 
 
 SUMMARY AND QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 
 
 Rome: The Tiber, the Seven Hills— Capitoline, Palatine, 
 Aventine, C^elian, Esquiline, Viminal, and Quirinal; on the 
 right bank of the Tiber, the Janiculan and Vatican. Legends 
 of the city: ^neas and Latium, Mars, Romulus and Remus, 
 patricians and plebeians. Numa Pompilius, morals and re- 
 ligion. TuUus Hostilius, the city begins conquests. Ancus 
 Martius, a growing kingdom. Lucius Tarquinius, the Etruscan; 
 
The Beginnings of Rome 17 
 
 the Cloaca Maxima. Servius Tullius, a wall about the Seven 
 Hills; military organization "comitia centuria." Lucius Tar- 
 quinius "Superbus," overthrows Servian reforms and rules 
 like a Greek "tyrant"; expelled by the people under Brutus 
 and others. Approximate dates: Founding of the city, 753 
 B. C; fall of the kings and beginning of the republic, 509 B. C. 
 I. Describe the location of the city of Rome. 2. What was 
 the legend of the founding of the city? 3. What events are 
 associated with each of the seven kings? 4. What are some 
 of the famous hero tales belonging to this period? 5. Describe 
 the probable origin of the early city-state of Rome. 6. What 
 was the social organization of the community? 7. Describe the 
 general system of government under the kings. 8. What 
 caused the revolution which brought in the Republic? 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Rome of To-day and Yesterday. John Dennie. 
 
 The City of Ro77ie. Thomas A. Dyer. 
 
 The City-State of the Greeks and Romans. W. W. Fowler. 
 
 Early Ro7?ie. W. Ihne. (Epoch Series.) 
 
 Lays of Ancient RojJie. Macaulay. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE MAKING OF THE COMMONWEALTH 
 
 For two centuries and a half after the expulsion of 
 the kings (if we may accept the date 509 B. C, as 
 commonly given) Rome was engaged in working out 
 a double task. Step by step her armies were extending 
 her power throughout the peninsula and weaving the 
 network of military and administrative threads which 
 were to bind all Italy to herself. This was but half, 
 the smaller half it may be, of her work. Within the 
 city the irrepressible conflict between the two orders 
 was perpetually on. The patrician clung to his privi- 
 leges; the plebeian, ever gaining in numbers, and 
 already contributing his share to the success of Roman 
 arms, was clamoring for political and social rights. 
 
 In doing away with the monarchy Rome did not 
 substitute a democratic republic. The patrician sen- 
 ate looked well to the interests of its own order in 
 distributing to newly constituted officers the functions 
 which had been stripped from the deposed king. The 
 chief magistracy was bestowed upon two patrician 
 consuls, chosen annually. A "ritual king" {rex sac- 
 rorti?}i) was appointed to perform the religious services 
 of the crown. He must be a patrician. Two patri- 
 cian quaestors (or inspectors) succeeded to the royal 
 prerogatives as judge and chancellor. In time of 
 special peril when the safety of the state might be 
 
 18 
 
The Making of the Commonwealth 19 
 
 hazarded by the division of responsibility the senate 
 might commission a "dictator" or temporary king. 
 For a century and a half none but patricians were 
 entrusted with dictatorial power. 
 
 The patricians were thus largely gainers by the ex- 
 pulsion of the kings. The lot of the commoners was 
 in the way of becoming intolerable. Many of them had 
 been plunged into debt during the war, and the public 
 lands acquired by conquest were monopolized by the 
 great patrician families, who tilled these estates by 
 slave labor and drove the small plebeian farmers to 
 the wall. To bring the ruling order to terms the plebs 
 three times resorted to the extreme measure of seces- 
 sion. 
 
 The first secession took place in 494 B. C. An 
 army, largely composed of plebeians, returning from 
 a successful campaign, resolved to found a new and 
 free city. To win them back the government enacted 
 a law guaranteeing to them the right to have a board 
 of magistrates of their own, the tribuni plebis^ or "tri- 
 bunes of the people." These officials elected by the 
 commons from their own number had the right of veto 
 ("I forbid") upon the acts of all magistrates and 
 assemblies. They were immune from legal prosecu- 
 tion while in office, and their dwellings were a legal 
 refuge for persons accused of crime. 
 
 It is evident that these favors greatly ameliorated 
 the condition of the oppressed classes. To the ground 
 where they made their stand for liberty they gave the 
 name of Mons Sacer (Holy Hill) and the precious 
 charter of their first rights was called ever afterward 
 the Sacred Law. 
 
20 The Roman Empire 
 
 Half a century later the plebs again seceded. The 
 waste and ruin of frequent campaigns had greatly dis- 
 tressed them. They felt insecure in such rights as 
 they had wrested from the patricians and began to 
 demand that the laws which confirmed their liberties 
 be written out and posted where all might read them. 
 A board of ten (Decemviri) was appointed to do this, 
 and their codification, "The Laws of the Twelve 
 Tables," was engraved on brass and set up in the 
 Forum. But the Decemvirs themselves, led by the 
 foul Appius Claudius, refused to lay down their dicta- 
 torial authority when their task was completed. The 
 exasperated plebeians again seceded to the Holy Hill 
 and would have built a rival city there had not the 
 patricians yielded. The tribunes were restored with 
 enlarged power, and other concessions were granted. 
 
 Taught by these events that they were indispen- 
 sable to the city's welfare, the plebeians, on their 
 return, redoubled their agitation. They soon secured 
 the right of intermarriage with the patricians, and laid 
 siege to the consulship itself. Their opponents held 
 them off by compromises for a half century, but the 
 victory came in 367 B. C. It was enacted that one of 
 the consuls must be a plebeian. The ruling class 
 made futile efforts to save itself by transferring certain 
 important duties of the consul to newly created offi- 
 cials, who could not be of ignoble blood, but these 
 citadels of exclusiveness could not long hold out. 
 Dictatorships, censorships, quaestorships, and praetor- 
 ships were rapidly thrown open to both classes, and 
 after a third secession of the plebs (287 B. C), the 
 last point was yielded and their class assembly, the 
 
The Making of the Commonwealth 21 
 
 comitia tributa, was recognized as possessing equal 
 legislative authority with the older joint assembly, the 
 comitia centuriata. 
 
 This series of laws broke down the wall which had 
 divided the Roman freemen into two hostile camps. 
 The distinction still survived in pride of race, but 
 politically the orders were now on the same footing. 
 All the honors of state and religion were open to ple- 
 beians ; the resolutions of their assembly were the laws 
 of the land; their consuls and dictators might lead the 
 armies; their senators sat and voted with the repre- 
 sentatives of the immemorial houses. 
 
 The enormous changes which have been summar- 
 ized in this brief chapter were two centuries in the 
 consummation. Taken together they involve a com- 
 plete revolution in the constitution of the Roman state. 
 It is the spectacle of a subject class extorting not only 
 liberty, but privilege and power from its proud superi- 
 ors. Similar results have been achieved in other 
 countries and in recent times, but the Romans almost 
 alone have possessed the political genius which enabled 
 them to accomplish this revolution withoiit passing 
 through a period of anarchy. The Roman struggle 
 for the equalization of the orders was fiercely contested, 
 but it was fought in legal forms, not with fire and 
 sword, and the years consumed in the process were so 
 many years of education in those qualities of self-con- 
 trol, moderation, reverence for law, which enabled the 
 new Rome to master the world. 
 
22 The Roman Empire 
 
 SUMMARY AND QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 
 
 The Republic: 509 B. C. The patrician senate, patrician 
 "ritual king," and quaestors. In time of peril, a patrician 
 "dictator." Struggles of the plebeians. Conquered lands 
 monopolized by patricians. Debts and failure among ple- 
 beians. The first secession of the plebeians to Mons Sacer, 
 494 B. C, secures a Board of Magistrates, "Tribunes of the 
 People," with right of veto upon acts of magistrates and as- 
 semblies. A half century later, their rights being insecure, 
 confirmed by the Decemviri in " The Laws of the Twelve 
 Tables." Decemvirs refuse to lay down authority, and ple- 
 beians secede in 448 B. C. Tribunes given larger power and 
 other points yielded. Law requiring one consul to be a ple- 
 beian, 367 B. C; other offices follow. Third secession in 287 
 B. C. secures equal authority of comitia tributa with the older 
 comitia centuriata. Two centuries of struggle educate the 
 Romans in self-control, moderation, and reverence for law. 
 
 I. How did the patricians of the new republic keep the 
 power in their own hands? 2. In what way did the plebeians 
 suffer as a result? 3. What caused the first secession, and 
 what privileges were secured by it? 4. Describe the second 
 secession and the result. 5. What important offices at length 
 were thrown open to the plebeians? 6. What was secured by 
 the third secession? 7. What educational effect had tliese two 
 centuries c^ struggle? 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 History of the Ruman Reptiblic. Mommsen. i vol. 
 The Rums a?id Excavations of Ancient Rome, Lanciani. 
 Roman a7id Medieval Art. W. H. Goodyear. 
 Early Ronie. W. Ihne. (Epoch Series.) 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE SOVEREIGN CITY 
 
 While the plebeians were fighting their way inch by 
 inch to equality with the patricians in the conduct of 
 the government, the city was taking its place at the 
 head of Latium, Italy, the World. Indeed the success 
 of the commons in their contention was largely due to 
 their sagacity in taking advantage of these conditions. 
 They knew well that the governing classes would sur- 
 render something of their privileges rather than that 
 their great undertakings should be imperiled. The 
 several secessions of the plebs were as nicely calcu- 
 lated in point of time as the strike of a trades union 
 when important contracts hang in the balance. 
 
 In the first century after the expulsion of the kings 
 the rivalry with the Etruscan cities, and the resistance 
 of the Latin communities to the Roman effort to domi- 
 nate them, gave the little armed bands of Rome 
 enough to do. The name of Coriolanus looms up 
 through the dusk of that early day, the patrician con- 
 sul who, for assailing the liberties of the plebeians, 
 was driven into exile and led a hostile army to the 
 gates of Rome, sparing the city only at the tearful 
 entreaties of his wife and mother. The hero Camil- 
 lus, the second founder of Rome, belongs to the same 
 region where legend and history are commingled. 
 Rome was at death grapple with Veil, her Etruscan 
 
 23 
 
24 The Roman Empire 
 
 rival across the Tiber. P'or the first time in her his- 
 tory Rome kept her citizen soldiery in the field all 
 winter, and paid the men for their service, the foun- 
 dation as it proved of a military system which was to 
 last a thousand years. Camillus, the Roman leader, 
 performed prodigies of valor, and A'eii fell. Almost 
 in the hour of her triumph Rome was overmastered. 
 A horde of Gaulish barbarians pouring down through 
 Etruria, overwhelmed the Roman forces. The citi- 
 zens fled. The Gauls burned the city, murdering the 
 stolid senators in their places, but the temples on the 
 Capitoline were saved by the cackling of Juno's geese, 
 startling the drowsy garrison to arms. Bribes or the 
 exploits of Camillus, if the legend is well based, at 
 length took the besiegers away and left the citizens 
 free to rebuild the blackened city. 
 
 After establishing her headship of the Latins, Rome 
 had three races between her and the conquest of the 
 peninsula: The Etruscans, already weakened by the 
 loss of Veii and the raids of the Gauls; the Italian 
 mountaineers of the central region (Samnites, Sabines, 
 etc.); and the Greeks of Southern Italy. 
 
 The Samnites, hardy fighters, dwelling in a difficult 
 country — the Boers of their age — cost the Romans 
 nearly a half century of fighting, interrupted by several 
 truces. In the second stage of the conflict the Roman 
 arms received a check at "the Caudine Forks," both 
 the consular armies being entrapped and forced to 
 pass "under the yoke." The Gauls were afterward 
 brought into the field against Rome, but Roman stead- 
 fastness and Roman organization finally wore down 
 all opposition. After 290 B. C, the Roman sway 
 
The Sovereign City 25 
 
 was scarcely disputed from the Rubicon to Magna 
 Graecia. 
 
 The genius of Rome displayed itself not more in 
 the field than in the measures which were taken by 
 the city-state to secure her hold upon the overmastered 
 peoples. Scarcely had she begun her campaigning 
 against the Samnites when she had to face this prob- 
 lem. The men of the Latin cities, standing shoulder 
 to shoulder with the Roman citizen under the Roman 
 standard, demanded a share in the fruits of victory. 
 They watched the rise of the plebeians and demanded 
 political rights for themselves. But the fundamental 
 doctrine of the Roman republic restricted political 
 rights to actual inhabitants of the city. The rebellion 
 of the Latins (340-338 B. C.) w^as crushed, and the 
 existing league of which Rome had been the head 
 gave place to separate treaties between Rome and the 
 several Latin towns. Soon afterward a modified citi- 
 zenship was extended to them. They served in the 
 armies and were taxed, but were excluded from voting 
 in the city assemblies and from holding Roman office — 
 their condition thus resembling that of the plebeians 
 before the inception of the reforms. 
 
 Colonies and roads bound the newly conquered 
 domain to the ruling city. Lands near the conquered 
 towns were granted to Romans, usually citizens who 
 were encouraged to settle upon them. These colonists 
 forfeited none of their rights as Romans by their non- 
 residence. Such colonies w^ere not only military 
 strongholds, but were centers of Roman influence of 
 every sort, contributing directly and powerfully to the 
 diffusion of the Latin language and Roman law and 
 
26 The Roman Empire 
 
 customs, by which the races of the peninsula were 
 brought into union and their differences worn away. 
 To facilitate communication between these isolated 
 outposts, and to furnish means for the rapid concen- 
 tration of troops, the senate undertook the construc- 
 tion of a system of military roads, which eventually 
 bound not only Italy but the whole empire to the 
 capital. These magnificent highways, perfectly 
 graded, drained, and paved, some of which are in use 
 to the present day, were extended. as rapidly as con- 
 quests permitted. By the beginning of the third cen- 
 tury before Christ the Appian Way (Via Appia) "the 
 queen of roads," which was to connect Rome with the 
 southeast was built, and the great northern highways, 
 the Via Flaminia and the Via Valeria had penetrated 
 the fastnesses of the Samnite mountains. 
 
 The southward advance of the Roman colonists and 
 roadmakers aroused the pleasure-loving cities of 
 Magna Gr^cia from their luxurious ease. Tarentum 
 challenged Rome's advance and brought over Pyrrhus, 
 king of Epirus, from the Greek mainland with ele- 
 phants and the Greek phalanx to oppose the Roman 
 legions. The northerners were driven back by their 
 strange foe, but their historians loved to dwell upon 
 the stubborn resistance which they made and the 
 losses they inflicted. "Another such victory and I 
 am undone," said the Epirote king, when he surveyed 
 the bloody field and counted the myriads of the fallen, 
 all with wounds in front. And it was so, for at Bene- 
 ventum (275 B. C.) he was utterly routed and igno- 
 miniously abandoned the attempt. By the year 264 
 B. C, the Greek cities of Italy and those Italians who 
 
The Sovereign City 27 
 
 had broken their bonds to range themselves on the 
 side of Pyrrhus had been subdued. Between the 
 Rubicon and the three surrounding seas, all Italy had 
 bowed the knee to Rome. 
 
 The government of this Italy was exercised by the 
 citizens of Rome. Their senate and assemblies made 
 the laws, and their elected consuls and other magis- 
 trates attended to the execution. Outside of Rome 
 the Italian communities fell into three classes, the 
 colonies whose people were transplanted Romans, the 
 municipalities [jnunicipid) whose inhabitants bore the 
 burdens of military service and taxation without 
 the privileges of Roman citizenship, and the allies 
 {socii) whose relations to Rome were fixed by treaties 
 upon varying terms of dependence. 
 
 A glance at the map of the Mediterranean is suffi- 
 cient to suggest that the island of Sicily belongs politi- 
 cally to Italy. It was in this island that Rome, now 
 the mistress of Italy, found herself confronted by a 
 power more ancient and perhaps more civilized than 
 herself. This rival power was Carthage, and, once 
 these rivals grappled for the mastery of the Mediter- 
 ranean world, the destruction of one or the other was 
 inevitable. To this conflict which, with interruptions, 
 covered a century and a quarter, history has given the 
 name of the Punic Wars. 
 
 When Rome was no more than a huddle of shep- 
 herd huts on the Palatine one of many adventurous 
 expeditions from Phoenicia founded a trading post on 
 the northern coast of Africa near the site of modern 
 Tunis. Carthage became the head of a rich and popu- 
 lous commercial empire with its fleets on all seas, and 
 
28 The Roman E 
 
 m 
 
 pire 
 
 with trading posts in Sicily, Sardinia, Spain, and 
 Africa. Her government was an oligarchy, the state 
 being made up of a few rich and powerful magnates, 
 of landless freemen, and myriads of slaves. The 
 armies were manned by mercenaries and officered only 
 by Carthaginians. 
 
 Sicily, in the third century, had many Greek cities 
 and a score of Carthaginian trading posts. Rome 
 became entangled in the affairs of the island about 264 
 B. C. With the assistance of the Greek king of Syra- 
 cuse, she made havoc of the Carthaginian posts except 
 along the coasts where the superiority of the Punic 
 fleet baffled their efforts. This led the senate to con- 
 struct the first Roman navy, and soon she had one 
 hundred and twenty vessels afloat, crowded with fight- 
 ing men, and furnished with grappling hooks and 
 boarding bridges, equipments hitherto unknown. In 
 260 B. C, at Mylae, the Romans won their first sea 
 fight. Four years later a Roman expedition, under 
 the consul Regulus, landed in Africa and threatened 
 Carthage itself. But Hamilcar, the hostile general, 
 swooped down on him from Sicily, cut his legions to 
 pieces with cavalry and elephants, and captured the 
 consul himself. The Romans solaced their pride by 
 telling in after years how Regulus, having been des- 
 patched under parole to Rome to negotiate terms of 
 peace, exhorted the senate to fight on while he himself 
 returned to taunt his captors and die in torments. 
 His advice was taken, and Rome pressed her foe so 
 hard that in 241 B. C. Carthage evacuated Sicily and 
 agreed to pay the costs of the war. The peace was 
 but a lull between storms. Rome spent it in settling 
 
The Sovereign City 29 
 
 the government of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica, her 
 first provinces, in clearing the Adriatic of its pirate 
 hordes, and in carrying her conquests beyond the 
 Rubicon, where she chastised the turbulent Gauls and 
 took measures for their absorption by planting her 
 colonies, Cremona, Mutina, and Placentia, in the valley 
 of the Po, and pushing the Flaminian Way beyond the 
 Apennines. 
 
 Hamilcar, surnamed Barca, "the Lightning," the 
 conqueror of Regulus, foresaw the renewal of hostilities 
 with Rome, and bent his energies to prepare for it, by 
 building up a rich and resourceful Carthaginian prov- 
 ince in the Iberian peninsula (Spain). His son, 
 Hannibal, pledged from childhood to undying hatred 
 of Rome, took up the work after his father's death, 
 and conducted the affairs of the province with con- 
 summate ability. Under him an army was drilled and 
 hardened for a desperate campaign, and a great mili- 
 tary treasure was accumulated. His men were not 
 the usual medley of mercenaries who fought the 
 battles of Carthage. They were veterans of many 
 battles under his father and himself. They were well 
 paid and well fed veterans, devoted to their leader and 
 sharing his own lofty enthusiasm. Hannibal was him- 
 self the central figure of this Second Punic War. He 
 was one of the world's greatest soldiers, one whose 
 talent far transcended that of a mere leader of troops. 
 He was a statesman of foresight and energy, and until 
 his death his very existence was felt and feared at 
 Rome as a menace. 
 
 Hannibal's aggression in Spain provoked a declar- 
 ation of war by the senate in 218 B. C, when his plan 
 
30 The Roman Empire 
 
 of campaign was fully matured. He perceived that 
 Rome's strength consisted in her allies — that he must 
 dissolve the union of Italy in order to succeed. There 
 was certainly ground for hope. The Gauls were still 
 sore from their chastising. There yet lived Samnites 
 and Etruscans who had not forgotten the bliss of lib- 
 erty, and the Roman yoke in the cities of Great Greece 
 was but half a century old. Hannibal determined to 
 enter Italy as a liberator, summoning the disaffected 
 to his standards, and having shorn Rome of her allies, 
 would fling himself upon her with his splendid battal- 
 ions. Crossing the Alps by the pass of the Little St. 
 Bernard, he descended into the valley of the Po, where 
 the Gauls crowded eagerly to his camp. He defeated 
 the consul, and sneaking past the forces which were 
 sent to stop him, gained entrance to Etruria. Here 
 at Lake Trasimenus he lured the Roman army into a 
 trap from which few escaped. The city was in great 
 danger. Quintus Fabius Maximus was appointed dic- 
 tator, and every nerve was strained to put the capital 
 in an attitude of defense. But Hannibal being with- 
 out siege material did not press his advantage. Pur- 
 suing his old design he turned eastward toward the 
 Adriatic, gathering forage, and disciplining his Gauls. 
 Fabius, the commander to whom the senate had 
 entrusted the defense, had not studied in vain the 
 defeats of his predecessors. His army, deficient in 
 cavalry, could not cope with his enemy in the open 
 field, but he might hope to frustrate his plans by 
 avoiding an engagement. As yet none of the allies 
 except the Gauls had deserted from what must have 
 looked like a losing cause. The Roman political sys- 
 
The Sovereign City 3 i 
 
 tern and the colonies, ''patches of Rome," throughout 
 the peninsula held the subject countries to their 
 fealty. Hannibal's hopes depended upon their un- 
 faithfulness and, should they remain true to Rome, his 
 isolated position might become hazardous. So Fabius 
 continued to follow the invader at a safe distance in- 
 stead of facing him. The eager Roman populace 
 called him "Cunctator" (loiterer) and clamored 
 against his masterly inactivity. The two consuls who 
 superseded him (216 B. C), tired of his "Fabian" tac- 
 tics, gave battle to the invader, losing seventy thou- 
 sand men on the field of Cannae. The news brought 
 the Samnites to Hannibal's side, but scarcely another 
 treaty-bond gave way, while the Roman senate ex- 
 hibited an energy at this crisis which betokened in- 
 domitable courage and ultimate victory. Great armies 
 were levied, new commanders were appointed, foreign 
 alliances were negotiated. The young general Scipio, 
 having crushed the Carthaginian power in Spain, was 
 made consul. He conceived the project of dislodging 
 Hannibal from Italy, wbere he yet lingered in the fast- 
 nesses of the south, by "carrying the war into Africa." 
 The strategy proved successful. Scipio crossed to 
 Carthage, Hannibal was recalled in haste to save the 
 capital, but met defeat at Zama (202 B. C). 
 
 The price of peace was dear. The proud mistress 
 of the seas had to destroy her fleet, relinquish her 
 European provinces, and pay tribute to the conqueror. 
 The young Scipio was greeted in Rome with unprece- 
 dented honors, and was entitled Africanus, in com- 
 memoration of his achievement. Those Italian com- 
 munities which had proved false to Rome were 
 
32 The Roman Empire 
 
 deprived of lands and political rights, and the Spanish 
 dominion which Hamilcar had carved out was parceled 
 into two Roman provinces. 
 
 Hannibal devoted all his powers to the task of re- 
 habilitating his state, but the hostility of Rome drove 
 him into exile. He found refuge in the East in the 
 court of Antiochus (194 B. C), where he enlisted that 
 monarch in his projects of revenge. The long arm of 
 Rome reached him even here, and he retired to 
 Bithynia, but death was the only refuge from Roman 
 vengeance, and in 183 B. C. the great Carthaginian 
 took poison. 
 
 Carthage, though shorn of her empire, continued 
 to prosper in trade, and even began to raise her head 
 against the encroachments of Rome. Marcus Por- 
 cius Cato, the censor, urged the senate to remove this 
 standing menace by destroying the city. His reiter- 
 ated demand, "Carthage must be wiped out," 
 {^'' Delenda est Carthago!''^ at length had its effect. In 
 149 B. C, the Romans assailed the doomed city. 
 In this Third Punic War, the citizens defended them- 
 selves with the most heroic devotion, enduring the 
 horrors of a protracted siege until in 146 B. C. Scipio 
 ^milianus stormed the city, and put them to the 
 sword. The walls and buildings were leveled, and the 
 curse of the gods was pronounced upon the blackened 
 ruin of the once imperial city. Carthage was erased 
 from the map of the world, and its territory was 
 divided between Numidia and the Roman province, 
 Africa. 
 
 The crushing of Carthage at Zama left the western 
 horizon clear. No power was left in that end of the 
 
The Sovereign City 33 
 
 Mediterranean to resist the designs of Rome. In the 
 East, however, were the many kingdoms which had 
 been erected out of the conquests of Alexander the 
 Great (336-323 B. C). Macedonia, the Greek city- 
 federations, Egypt under the Ptolemies, Syria under 
 the Seleucids, Pergamon and Bithynia in Asia Minor, 
 abounded in populous and ancient cities, adorned with 
 the art of Greece and enriched with the spoils of the 
 far East. To Rome in the flush of conquest they 
 must have seemed easy and tempting prey. 
 
 Hannibal's attempts to harass Rome by a hostile 
 league of Mediterranean powers only hastened their 
 own destruction. Between 215 and 197 B. C., Rome 
 had fought two wars with Philip V. of Macedon, and 
 with the help of the Greek confederacies, had humbled 
 that state. Greeks and Macedonians aided Rome in 
 her resistance to the Syrian Antiochus (192-190 B. C). 
 The last effort of Macedon to assert its independence 
 was in 172 B. C, and after its fall four years later, 
 there was left no civilized state on the Mediterranean 
 shores of Europe, Asia, or Africa where the authority 
 of the Roman senate was not recognized as para- 
 mount. Kings still ruled in Asia Minor and in Egypt, 
 but their days were already numbered. Macedonia 
 became a province of Rome. Greece, its splendid 
 capital, Corinth, laid in ruins, became the province 
 Achaia. Rome had crushed and destroyed every 
 rival, and by 140 B. C. was the acknowledged sover- 
 eign of the world. 
 
34 The Roman Empire 
 
 SUMMARY AND QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 
 
 Growth of the city: Coriolanus, the patrician consul, exiled 
 from Rome, leads an army against it. Camillus, tlie Roman 
 general, overthrows the Etruscan city of Veil. The Gauls bum 
 Rome 390 B. C. Roman headship of the Latins. Struggles 
 with the Samnites, the " Caudine Forks," Rome finally con- 
 quers. Supreme from the Rubicon to Magna Graecia after 290 
 B.C. 
 
 Rome gives a modified citizenship to the conquered states, 
 similar to that of early plebeians. Roman citizens granted 
 conquered lands; the Roman roads; the Appian Way begun 
 313 B. C. The Greek colonies, under Pyrrhus of Epirus, chal- 
 lenge Rome's advance; routed at Beneventum ; Rome supreme 
 south of the Rubicon in 264 B. C« Italy governed by the citi- 
 zens of Rome. Roman colonies of Roman citizens; muncipal- 
 ities without citizenship; allies (socii). 
 
 The Punic Wars: Sicily with its Carthaginian trading 
 posts. Rome and the Greek king of Syracuse destroy these 
 posts except on the coast. Rome builds a navy and wins in 
 the sea fight at Mylae, 260 B. C. Regulus at Carthage defeated 
 by Hamilcar. Rome drives Carthage from Sicily. Roman 
 colonies in Northern Italy. Hamilcar in Spain. Hannibal's 
 campaign, 218 B. C; crosses the Alps. Lake Trasimenus a 
 Roman death-trap, Fabius, the "Loiterer." Other consuls 
 give battle, losing 70,000 at Cannae. Scipio carries the war 
 into Africa. Defeats Hannibal at Zama, 202 B. C. Hannibal 
 an exile. Cato and Carthage, 146 B. C; the city falls. From 
 215-146, Rome extends her conquests. Macedonia a Roman 
 province. Greece the province of Achaia. 
 
 I. With what two struggles of the early republic are the 
 names of Coriolanus and Camillus associated? 2. Describe 
 Rome's overthrow of the Samnites. 3. What caused tlie re- 
 bellion of the Latin cities, and how did it result? 4. What 
 conditions led to the building of the Roman roads? 5. Describe 
 the struggle of Rome with Magna Graecia. 6. How were 
 Rome's new possessions classified and how governed? 7. De- 
 scribe tlie rise to power of Carthage. 8. What led the Romans 
 
The Sovereign City ^^ 
 
 to build a fleet, and what was their first naval victory? 9. 
 Describe the expedition of Regulus. How did Rome follow 
 up this defeat? 10. What Roman colonies were planted in 
 Northern Italy at this time? 11. Describe the opening of the 
 Second Punic War and the events leading up to it. 12. De- 
 scribe the events which brought about the defeat of Hannibal. 
 13. What futile efforts did he make to escape Roman ven- 
 geance? 14. Give an account of the Third Punic War. I5» 
 What further Mediterranean conquests did Rome make up to 
 146 B. C? 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Walks m Rome. A. J. C. Hare. 
 
 Early Rome. W. Ihne. (Epoch Series.) 
 
 The Life of the G?-eeks and Romans. Guhl and Koner. 
 
 Rulers of the South. F. M. Crawford. 
 
 Roman and Medieval Art. W. H. Goodyear. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE OVERTHROW OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 The wealth and power which came to Rome in her 
 new position as the head of the civilized world brought 
 with them also the seeds of decay. The rugged sim- 
 plicity which had characterized the race was weakened 
 by the corrupting influence of foreign ways of life, of 
 Greek manners and thought, and by the luxury and 
 vice of the Asiatics. 
 
 The praetors and proconsuls, to whom the senate 
 entrusted the government of the conquered lands, took 
 advantage of their brief lease of authority to plunder 
 the luckless provincials without mercy. There was a 
 class of speculators at Rome who amassed wealth by 
 farming the provincial taxes, their agents, the publi- 
 cans, screwing the last farthing from the helpless 
 peasants and tradesmen. From Greece and Asia the 
 Romans took new conceptions of luxury, quite out of 
 keeping with their former rudeness. Shiploads of 
 paintings and statues came from Athens and Corinth 
 and other Eastern capitals to adorn the mansions of 
 the newly rich. Degenerate Greece sent its poets and 
 dramatists to Rome, to cater to the coarse Roman 
 taste. Greek became the speech of elegant inter- 
 course, as it was already the medium of polite litera- 
 ture, and Roman youths of the first families must needs 
 go away from home to complete their education. The 
 
 36 
 
The Overthrow of the Republic 37 
 
 myriads of slaves which were shipped to Italy from 
 every slave-mart about the Mediterranean, crowded 
 honest Italian yeomen out of every form of manual 
 labor, and sent them in droves to the city to become 
 the prey of demagogues and a standing menace to the 
 state. 
 
 The old strife between patrician and plebeian, 
 which had disturbed the early days of the republic, 
 had subsided upon the passage of that Hortensian law 
 (287 B. C.) which removed the political disabilities of 
 the plebeian. Another century brought the republic 
 to the first stage of a new form of party strife, more 
 virulent than the first and less happy in its outcome. 
 
 About the year 180 B. C, a law w^as passed restrict- 
 ing the higher or "curule" offices to those who had 
 served ten years in the army, and fixing a minimum 
 age qualification for each of the successive grades 
 (aedile, praetor, consul). The aedile was the controller 
 of the city festivals, and this officer was accustomed 
 to bid for votes by lavish entertainment of the popu- 
 lace at his own expense. This custom worked the 
 exclusion of all but wealthy men from the first step 
 toward the consulship. The aedile usually contracted 
 enormous debts during his term of office, and reim- 
 bursed himself from the profits of his administration 
 of the province to w^hich ex-magistrates were assigned 
 as governors. The corruption of the provincial courts 
 soon reached incredible proportions. 
 
 The once high-minded senate was tainted by the 
 admission of these venal and wealthy officials, and a 
 senatorial party grew up to maintain this condition. 
 Against these "optimates" were ranged the "popu- 
 
38 The Roman Empire 
 
 lares" or people's party — populists, one might venture 
 to say. This party had its stronghold in the comitia 
 centuriata, the assembly where the rich and poor met 
 on terms of political equality, and where the high 
 officers were elected. The class of small farmers 
 whose intelligence, frugality, and self-reliance are the 
 strength of any nation, had disappeared from Italy. 
 The corn and cattle kings, with their immense ranges 
 and sheep-walks, had forced them to the wall. The 
 spread of slavery had left them no resource. Such as 
 possessed the cherished birthright of the Roman fran- 
 chise flocked to the capital and, becoming infected 
 with the miasma of political corruption, made their 
 citizenship yield them a living. The offices of state 
 were for sale to the man who should bid highest in 
 cash or favor for the votes of the populace. 
 
 A third party w^as the equestrian order, the tax- 
 farming capitalists from whose ranks the "^enate was 
 chiefly recruited. These sided now with the optimates 
 and now with the populares, as interest or spite served. 
 Besides these factions, the city population included 
 many Italians who had not yet been admitted to the 
 citizenship which they demanded. 
 
 These, then, were the elements of danger in the 
 last century of the republic: a venal senate, a dis- 
 tressed and discontented citizen-body, and a large 
 non-citizen population seeking recognition. 
 
 The two brothers, Tiberius and Caius Gracchus, 
 were the first leaders of the populace in their assault 
 upon the privilege of the senatorial party. The Grac- 
 chi were grandsons of Scipio Africanus, and they were 
 the "jewels" which their mother Cornelia, had matched 
 
The Overthrow of the Republic 39 
 
 against the baubles of her boastful visitor. The elder 
 brother was elected one of the tribunes for the year 
 133 B. C. He sought to lay the foundations of reform 
 by recovering the public domain, which had passed 
 into the control of a few great families, and by grant- 
 ing these state lands in small homestead farms to the 
 citizens and Italian allies. It was a wise and just 
 proposition, but the senate, from self-interest, used 
 every means in its power to block it. The law was 
 finally "jammed through" and a commission appointed 
 to execute its provisions; but Gracchus himself, stand- 
 ing for reelection, was accused of ambition to be king, 
 and was killed by a mob of young nobles — the first 
 conspicuous victim of the conflict between the classes. 
 The younger brother, Caius, as a member of the land 
 allotment commission, consecrated himself to his 
 brother's work. His political vision looked beyond 
 the immediate relief of the dependent classes to far- 
 reaching political reforms. In the two years for which 
 he was tribune (123-122 B. C), he labored with tre- 
 mendous energy. The rabble was won over by a law 
 providing that the state should furnish grain at a 
 nominal price to all. This bait swelled the population 
 by thousands of idle citizens. The law of Tiberius 
 was reasserted, colonies were founded in Italy and 
 the foreign provinces, to relieve the crowded popula- 
 tion. Next the equestrian order was detached from 
 its natural ally, the senate, by the grant of special and 
 lucrative privileges. These acts aroused the senate to 
 fight for its life, and when Gracchus took the unpopu- 
 lar step of proposing to extend the full citizenship to 
 the Latin allies, the fickle populace, poisoned against 
 
40 The Roman Empire 
 
 him by the paid agents of the senate, grew cold and 
 threw him over. Defeated for reelection, and branded 
 as a public enemy by the senate, he was hunted out of 
 the city and killed himself to escape his foes (121 B. C. ). 
 
 Public affairs at Rome went on from bad to worse. 
 The case of Jugurtha (111-105 B. C.) is an example. 
 This prince usurped by foul means the throne of 
 Rome's subject kingdom of Numidia in Africa. His 
 gold first closed the mouths of the senatorial investi- 
 gating commission, and then turned back the consul 
 who came over with an army to chastise him. Sum- 
 moned to Rome to answer his accusers, he silenced 
 them with his bribes, and when at last the populace 
 forced the unwilling senate to take up arms against 
 him, he shook off the dust of Rome from his feet, 
 exclaiming, "O venal city, thou, too, art only waiting 
 for a purchaser!" 
 
 In one of the armies which were sent against Jugur- 
 tha were two men destined to a great place in history, 
 Caius Marius, the rough and hard-working son of an 
 Italian farmer, and Lucius Cornelius Sulla, a young 
 and reckless scion of an ancient patrician stock. 
 Marius, though not belonging to the office-holding 
 set, took advantage of the popular disgust with the 
 feeble conduct of the Numidian campaign, boldly 
 offered himself for the consulship, and was elected 
 (107 B. C). He raised an army from the city rabble, 
 perfected it by drill, and quickly crushed Jugurtha, 
 who could not stand against a man of honesty and 
 energy. The whole miserable business exhibited the 
 instability of the commonwealth. The highest places 
 in the state were filled with bribe-takers. Further- 
 
The Overthrow of the RepubUc 41 
 
 more the successful candidacy of Caius Marius, a *'new 
 man," without wealth or family connection, showed 
 how easily a successful general might ride to power 
 on the suffrage of the populace. There was work 
 enough for a strong arm in the defense of the Italian 
 frontier against the restless hordes from the northern 
 forests, which threatened to pass the Alpine barrier 
 and inundate the peninsula. The citizens, panic- 
 stricken by the inability of the senatorial generals to 
 check the advance of the Cimbri and Teutones, set law 
 and custom at defiance by raising Marius again to the 
 consulship and keeping him in office for five successive 
 years (104-100 B. C). Their confidence was justified 
 by a series of victories ending at Vercellse which made 
 Italy safe from Teutonic invasion for centuries. 
 
 The victor became the popular idol. He was hailed 
 as "the second Camillus," "the third Romulus. " His 
 very rusticity of manner, so hateful to the aristocrats, 
 commended him to the democracy as a Roman of the 
 good old sort. He had done brave service for his 
 country, but his military policy had altered the army 
 from a national guard of militiamen to a regular army 
 of professional soldiers — a dangerous weapon in the 
 hands of an ambitious commander. 
 
 In the interval of the foreign wars the old strife 
 betw^een the orders flamed out again, and in his sixth 
 consulship, Marius forfeited the favor of the populace 
 by using force to quell their turbulence. He left Rome 
 in disgrace, cherishing the soothsayer's prophecy that 
 he should live to be seven times consul. 
 
 Party strife waxed into civil war with Marius and 
 Sulla at the head of the opposing factions. In 88' 
 
4^ The Roman Empire 
 
 B. C, the army under Sulla, the senatorial general, 
 captured Rome, which had been held by Marius and 
 the popular party. No sooner had Sulla left Italy 
 again to chastise Mithridates, king of Pontus, who was 
 in full revolt, than the popular party again gained the 
 upper hand in the city. Marius emerged from his 
 hiding place and lent the prestige of his name to 
 Cinna, the popular leader. Together they recaptured 
 Rome and the chief men of the senatorial party paid 
 with their lives for the insults which they had heaped 
 upon "the third Romulus." He lived to see himself 
 chosen consul for the seventh time {S6 B. C.) and died 
 a broken old man. 
 
 The popular revolution at Rome made Sulla an out- 
 law. But an outlaw at the head of a devoted and vic- 
 torious army, and the representative of a great and 
 powerful political and social faction was a man to be 
 reckoned with. For four years he prosecuted his cam- 
 paign in Greece and Asia, leaving the consul Cinna to 
 glut himself with the blood and gold of the optimates. 
 In S^ B. C. , having finished his business in Asia, he 
 landed in Italy at the head of a veteran army. Cneius 
 Pompeius, a young knight (better known to the 
 world as Pompey the Great), came to his aid with 
 three legions. Conciliating the Italians by his guar- 
 anty of their citizenship, he raised the standard of the 
 senate and the restoration of the old constitution. 
 When, for the second time, in 82 B. C, the capital of 
 the world fell into his hands, Sulla's slaughters eclipsed 
 the political murders of Marius and Cinna. Lists 
 were prepared of all the leading men in Italy who had 
 taken sides against the senate, and more than five 
 
The Ov^erthrow of the Repubhc 43 
 
 thousand of the proscribed lost life and property in 
 this wholesale destruction. To reestablish the sen- 
 ate, its champion annulled the authority of the censors 
 to remove members, limited the ambition and influ- 
 ence of the tribunes, crippled the popular assemblies, 
 and left them subject to the senate. 
 
 When Sulla, called "Felix" (the fortunate), died in 
 78 B. C, the senate had its last opportunity of prov- 
 ing its right to rule. But its strength was gone. Its 
 own generals, Pompey and Crassus, who received the 
 consulship (70 B. C.) as a reward for ridding the state 
 of the outlaws Sertorius and Spartacus, themselves 
 curried favor with the populace by restoring the power 
 of the tribunes and sweeping away the safeguards of 
 the Sullan constitution. Pompey was on all sides 
 hailed as the coming man. In 67 B. C, he was 
 clothed by a special law with unlimited power to ex- 
 terminate the pirates of the Mediterranean. The next 
 year he took up the languishing war against the irre- 
 pressible Mithridates, and carried the Roman eagles 
 to victory, from the Black Sea to the Jordan. While 
 Pompey lingered in the far East, great events were 
 taking place at home. A deep laid conspiracy for the 
 overthrow of the government by the murder of certain 
 senators, was prepared by Lucius Sergius Catilina 
 ("Catiline") a profligate senator. It was believed 
 that behind the motley band of Catiline lurked such 
 respectable leaders of the democracy as Julius Caesar. 
 On the eve of its consummation the plot was laid bare 
 by the consul Marcus Tullius Cicero, in the most cele- 
 brated of all his speeches. The next great conspiracy 
 did not fail. 
 
44 The Roman Empire 
 
 Caius Julius Caesar was born in Rome, July 12, 102 
 B. C, of an old patrician family. To his Aunt Julia's 
 marriage with Marius, he probably owed his first office 
 in the state. He married Cinna's daughter and dared 
 refuse to put her away at Sulla's command. Though 
 numbered in the proscription, his friends saved him, 
 when Sulla is reported to have said, "In this young 
 Caesar there is many a Marius." After Sulla's death 
 he served as quaestor in Spain, and later, as aedile in 
 Rome, burdened himself with debts by the magnifi- 
 cence of his expenditure for the amusement of the 
 public. Caesar's clear vision saw the weakness of the 
 state, and how to cure it. He would stop this mur- 
 derous and lingering strife of the parties by crush- 
 ing both in his own mailed hand. To carry out this 
 plan he needed an army as powerful and as devoted as 
 that of Pompey. Accordingly he entered into a pri- 
 vate arrangement with the latter general and with 
 Crassus, the financier. This bargain, for such was 
 the First Triumvirate or "Committee of Three," 
 gave to Pompey a formal "triumph," to Crassus cer- 
 tain coveted privileges for his order, and to Caesar, one 
 year as consul (59 B. C.) followed by five years as 
 pro-consular governor of Gaul, where he might pay 
 his debts and prepare his army. The agreement was 
 carried out. In 56 B. C, the three magnates met at 
 Lucca to renew their compact. Caesar was to have 
 a second term in Gaul, and at its close to be consul at 
 Rome. Pompey and Crassus were to be consuls in 55 
 B. C, and then have Spain and Syria to govern for 
 five years. This agreement was never kept. Crassus 
 died in his Syrian province. Pompey let his lieuten- 
 
The Overthrow of the Republic 45 
 
 ants govern for him in Spain while he remained at 
 Rome. 
 
 Great and true reports reached the senate concern- 
 ing Caesar's masterly campaigns in Gaul and Britain. 
 The news brought apprehension rather than delight, 
 for the senators dreaded the day when this known foe 
 to their order, the kinsman of Marius, the son-in-law 
 of Cinna should return to claim the chief magistracy. 
 The senate insisted that if Caesar wished to stand for 
 the promised consulship he must resign his command 
 and present himself before the electors in Rome. 
 Caesar's friends at length agreed to this, provided that 
 Pompey should betake himself to his Spanish prov- 
 ince. The struggle, which was nominally between 
 Caesar and the senate, was actually a duel for the 
 supremacy which must end in monarchical power for 
 either Pompey or Caesar, When, in December, 50 
 B. C, Pompey assumed command of the army in Italy 
 at the request of the senate, Caesar's resolution was 
 taken. In January he crossed the Rubicon, which 
 separated his province from the territory of Italy. 
 Moving with rapidity and precision, within three 
 months Caesar was master of the peninsula. Pompey 
 and the senators crossed the Adriatic to gather head 
 against the usurper. Thither Caesar followed them, 
 and at Pharsalus in Thessaly, in August, 48 B. C, put 
 them to rout. Pompey was murdered in his flight. 
 It was the conqueror's policy not to build until he had 
 laid the foundations sure. The Romans heaped their 
 honors upon him, the consulship for five years, the 
 tribunate for life, the dictatorship for one year, but 
 he did not return to the capital so long as enemies 
 
4-6 The Roman Empire 
 
 remained abroad. He passed through the East rebuk- 
 ing rebellion and restoring order and peace with such 
 promptness and vigor that he might well announce his 
 success in his memorable formula "Veni, Vidi, Vici," 
 "I came, I saw, I conquered." From one end of the 
 Mediterranean to the other he pursued the fragments 
 of the Pompeian and senatorial armies. Within three 
 years he was the acknowledged master of the Roman 
 world. He was in fact king, though ancient prejudice 
 compelled him to forego the title and the crown. By 
 the forms of law he centered in himself unprecedented 
 power. He had himself made dictator for ten years, 
 censor and high priest for life. All responsible author- 
 ity converged in him. Candidates for office, like the 
 laws, must have his approval. In army, legislature, 
 and religion, he stood supreme and alone. The 
 ancient constitutional forms, senate, comitia, consul- 
 ship, remained mere simulacra. The life and virtue 
 had gone out of them. The senate was degraded to 
 the rank of an advisory counciL Caesar swelled its 
 membership with new men from Italy, Gaul, and Spain. 
 The full citizenship was extended to the Cisalpine 
 Gauls. The great body of Roman law was reduced to 
 a code and published for the guidance of the law 
 courts. Even the calendar was reached in these 
 reforms and the Julian solar year of 365 days and six 
 hours replaced the ancient Roman year of twelve lunar 
 months. Csesar curbed the plunderers of the provinces 
 by making their financial officers responsible to him- 
 self. Criminals had often escaped by possessing the 
 right of appeal to an easily swayed popular assembly. 
 Caesar, as the fountain of justice, now became the 
 
The Overthrow of the Republic 47 
 
 court of last resort. Looking out over the broad 
 domain of Rome, he endeavored to fix a scientific and 
 readily defensible frontier on the line of the Rhine, the 
 Alps, the Danube, the Caucasus, and the Euphrates, 
 recognizing the folly of fighting for a precarious foot- 
 hold beyond these natural boundaries. 
 
 Csesar stained his victories by none of those political 
 massacres which had made former revolutions a reign 
 of terror. But his pardoned enemies could not forgive 
 him. They refused to be conciliated, and continued 
 to intrigue against him. Cicero, the orator, was at 
 heart, at least, with this senatorial faction which 
 sought to restore the old constitution. The old re- 
 publican sentiment, in the breasts of honest conserva- 
 tives like Junius Brutus, was made the basis of a 
 counterplot. On the ides of March 44 B. C, a throng 
 of senators "the liberators" to use their own term, 
 struck Csesar down with their daggers in the senate 
 house. Brutus, the fanatic, dipped his blade in Caesar's 
 blood and brandished it in the face of Cicero, crying, 
 "Liberty is restored." 
 
 But liberty was not restored. Caesar's friend, Mar- 
 cus Antonius, (Mark Antony) supported by the army 
 and by the populace, who proved to be beneficiaries 
 under the dead man's will, aimed at the position which 
 Caesar had held. Caesar Octavianus, the adoptive 
 son of the great Roman, was taken up by the senate 
 under Cicero's leadership, as the champion of the 
 revolution, but the young politician sagaciously made 
 his peace with his father's friends, Antony and Lepi- 
 dus. This Second Triumvirate (43 B. C. ) partitioned 
 the world among its members and then routed the 
 
48 The Roman Empire 
 
 forces which the conspirators had assembled at Philippi 
 in Thrace (42 B. C). Brutus and Cassius killed them- 
 selves and the triumvirs were left the undisputed suc- 
 cessors to Caesar's dominion and power. Their alliance 
 soon fell apart. Lepidus was dropped ;^6 B. C, and 
 Mark Antony lingered in the East under the fascina- 
 tion of Cleopatra, while his young and strenuous col- 
 league was entrenching his position in Rome. In 32 
 B. C, Octavianus and Antony allowed their differences 
 to culminate in civil war. The fleets of the West and 
 the East met off Actium on the coast of Greece (31 
 B. C), with decisive results. Antony took his own life 
 and Octavianus Caesar was left the sole successor to 
 the empire which his greater kinsman had consolidated 
 and pacified. 
 
 SUMMARY AND QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 
 
 Effects of foreign conquest shown in growing luxury and 
 vice. Provincial taxes farmed out by speculators. Slaves 
 destroy free labor. About 180 B. C. higher offices (asdile, 
 praetor, consul) restricted to men of ten years' army service. 
 JEdile controls city festivals; enormous debts; becomes pro- 
 vincial governor and corruption reigns. Corruption of the 
 senate, the "optimates"; the people's party, "populares"; 
 the equestrian party, tax-farming capitalists. 
 
 Elements of danger: A venal senate, a distressed citizen 
 body, a large non-citizen population seeking recognition. 
 Tiberius Gracchus, 133 B. C; division of the public domain; 
 assassinated by the nobles. Caius Gracchus, 122 B. C; grain 
 law; colonies founded; equestrian order detached from senate; 
 proposes citizenship for the allies; defeated, and kills himself 
 to escape his foes. 
 
 Jugurtha usurps Numidia, buys off the senate commission 
 and the consular army. Caius Marius, a man of the people; 
 
The Overthrow of the Republic 49 
 
 offers himself for consulship; defeats Jugurtha; kept consul for 
 five years, 104-100 B. C; drives back the Teutonic invaders; 
 the army becomes a body of professional soldiers. Party strife 
 becomes civil war: Sulla with senatorial army captures Rome 
 from Marius and popular party, 88 B. C; he departs to crush 
 Mithridates of Pontus; Marius and Cinna recapture Rome. 
 Sulla an outlaw with an army; campaigns in Greece and Asia; 
 lands in Italy 83 B. C; joined by young Pompey; reign of 
 terror at Rome. Pompey gains favor with the people; exter- 
 minates Mediterranean pirates dy B.C.; conquers Mithridates; 
 Catiline and Cicero. 
 
 Julius Caesar, nephew of Marius, son-in-law of Cinna; sees 
 the weakness of the state; the first triumvirate with Pompey 
 and Crassus; Pompey a "triumph"; Crassus privileges for his 
 order. Csesar governor of Gaul for five years. Conference at 
 Lucca in 56 B. C; Crassus dies in Syria; Caesar's campaigns 
 in Gaul; crosses the Rubicon; struggle with Pompey; Phar- 
 salus; master of the Roman world in three years; Julian re- 
 forms; his enemies conspire against him; ides of March, 44. 
 B. C. The second triumvirate: Octavianus, Lepidus, and 
 Antony; the conspirators overthrown at Philippi; war between 
 Antony and Octavianus at Actium, 31 B. C; Octavianus sole 
 master. 
 
 I. Why did the Roman character deteriorate in the last 
 century of the Republic? 2. How did the provinces suffer 
 under Roman government? 3. What effect had slavery? 4. 
 How did the position of the aedile foster corruption? 5. De- 
 scribe the " optimates," " populares," and "equestrians." 6. 
 What were the elements of danger in the last century of the 
 Republic? 7. Describe the futile efforts of the Gracchi to 
 bring about reforms. 8. How does Jugurtha' s position show 
 the corruption of Rome? g. Describe the rise to power of 
 Caius Marius. 10, How did the army change under his leader- 
 ship? II. How did he regain his ascendency over Sulla? 
 12. Describe Sulla's return to Rome. 13. How did the senate 
 decline in power at this time? 14. How did popular favor deal 
 with Pompey? 15. What was the conspiracy of Catiline? 
 16. Trace the career of Caesar up to the battle of Pharsalus. 17. 
 
50 The Roman Empire 
 
 Describe his organization of the government. i8. Why was he 
 overthrown? 19. Describe the rise and fall of the Second 
 Triumvirate. 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 The Gracchi, Ma?'uis a7id Sulla. Beesly. (Epoch Series). 
 
 Taine's Italy : Rome and Naples. 
 
 Ancient Rome in the Light of Recefit Discoveries. Lanciani. 
 
 Roman Life in the Days of Cicero. A. J. Church. 
 
 The Roman Triumvirates. Merivale. (Epoch Series.) 
 
 The Early Empire. W. W. Capes. (Epoch Series.) 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE ROMAN EMPIRE 
 
 The accession of Caesar Octavianus brought peace 
 to the troubled Roman world. After the battle of 
 Actium, the bronze doors of the temple of Janus, 
 which always stood open in time of war, were closed 
 for the first time since the defeat of Hannibal. Aided 
 by his two great counselors, Agrippa and Maecenas, to 
 whose energy and sagacity as much as to his own 
 blending of subtlety and force the new master owed 
 his eminence, the new Caesar applied himself to the 
 uncompleted task of settling the government along the 
 lines marked out by Julius. Though inferior in most 
 respects to that "foremost man of all the world," his 
 uncle and adoptive parent, he must have the credit of 
 succeeding where the first of the Caesars failed. He 
 disguised the more obnoxious phases of the new des- 
 potism in the familiar robes of republican forms. By 
 scarcely noticeable gradations the time-honored polit- 
 ical institutions were transformed into the new empire. 
 
 Though Octavianus brushed aside the title and 
 trappings of royalty, he accepted the designation "im- 
 perator" and raised it to such a degree that it has 
 survived to this day in the form "emperor" as a loftier 
 name than king. Even his family name of "Csesar" 
 still lives as a title of the highest rank in the forms 
 "Kaiser" and "Czar." The emperor united in his 
 
 51 
 
52 The Roman Empire 
 
 own person all the functions of the ancient constitu- 
 tional officers, civil, military, and religious. To 
 comprehend such manifold dignities the new title, 
 Augustus ("consecrated by the Augurs") was devised, 
 and by this name he is best known to the world. Sex- 
 tilis, the sixth month, was henceforth called Augustus 
 (August) as the name of Quintilis had been changed 
 to Julius (July) in honor of his kinsman. 
 
 Under the early empire the government of the prov- 
 inces was brought to an unprecedented condition of 
 efficiency and honesty. The provincials grew proud 
 of the name of Roman, which stood for law, order, 
 and justice, instead of violence and greed. Gauls, 
 Spaniards, Greeks, Asiatics, Numidians, and Egyp- 
 tians acquired the Latin language, obeyed the laws, 
 and copied the architecture of Rome. The provin- 
 cials in great numbers settled in the Eternal City, 
 which now began to form its character as the mother 
 city (metropolis) of the world. 
 
 Averse to luxury himself, and living with almost 
 ostentatious simplicity, Augustus filled his capital with 
 magnificent structures. It was said that he "found 
 Rome brick and left it marble," so complete and so 
 splendid was the material transformation. His name 
 still stands for the encouragement of letters, so re- 
 markable was the literary production of the time. 
 Until now the practical Romans had paid little atten- 
 tion to literature, though the commentaries of Caesar, 
 the histories of Sallust, and the orations, essays, and 
 letters of Cicero take us back to the last gasp of the 
 commonwealth. Under the stimulus of Maecenas's 
 favor a chorus of poets burst into song: Vergil, whose 
 
The Roman Empire ^^ 
 
 y^neid glorifies the new dynasty; Horace, the master 
 of song and satire; the elegiac poets Tibullus, Pro- 
 pertius, and Ovid, not to mention Livy, the prose his- 
 torian of the republic. 
 
 The wars of the empire were for many years con- 
 fined to expeditions beyond the border. The Parthi- 
 ans in the East, and the northern barbarians of the 
 forests along the Rhine and Danube were the most 
 formidable enemies of the Roman power. The slaugh- 
 ter of three legions in the Teutoberg wood (9 A. D. ) 
 by Hermann, the German hero, embittered the last 
 years of the emperor. Aged and broken in health, 
 unhappy in his family relations, and given over to 
 gloomy reflections, from w^hich he would cry out, 
 "Varus, Varus, give me back my legions," he died in 
 his seventy-sixth year, after having exercised sover- 
 eign power for forty-five years. The senate proclaimed 
 his divinity and established a college of priests to con- 
 duct his worship. Upon the walls of one of his 
 temples have been found tablets recording what he 
 considered to be the great events of his reign. But 
 of the event which most profoundly influenced the 
 world he knew nothing. Yet in Bethlehem of Judea, 
 an obscure village of his realm in the twenty-seventh 
 year of his reign was born one Jesus, whose fame and 
 influence were to surpass Caesar's own, and whose 
 religion should outlive that of deified emperors and 
 all the gods of the Roman pantheon. 
 
 Tiberius Caesar, the adoptive son and heir of 
 Augustus, succeeded to the purple. Under him Rome 
 began to learn what it was to be under the sway of an 
 absolute monarch. For Tiberius was a vicious and 
 
54 The Roman Empire 
 
 cruel wretch. Parts of the threadbare forms of the re- 
 public were boldly cast off. The sovereign's authority- 
 was buttressed by the new laws against treason which 
 soon filled the world with spies and informers eager 
 to accuse the unwary of plotting against the august 
 head of the state. A fortified camp was established 
 just outside the city and there the praetorian troops, 
 the emperor's bodyguard, were quartered, to hold the 
 populace in check. The later emperors of the Julian 
 family are remembered by their follies and vices — the 
 crack-brained Caligula; the puppet Claudius, ruled by 
 his freedmen and his abominable wives; and Nero, 
 conspicuous even in such company for extravagant 
 folly and relentless cruelty. In 64 A. D., fire swept 
 the densest quarter of the city, and the report went 
 round that the emperor viewed the scene from the 
 palace roof "fiddling while Rome burned." To coun- 
 teract the rumor that the emperor had set the fire, the 
 poor followers of Jesus were accused, and Nero inau- 
 gurated the first persecution of the Christians, taxing 
 his ingenuity to devise strange modes of torture for 
 the innocent victims. The burned district he seized 
 upon for a private park, building there the Golden 
 House, which was a world's wonder. The troops 
 arose in rebellion against this monster and drove him 
 from the throne. Out of the confusion which fol- 
 lowed emerged a rough, plain soldier of high military 
 rank, but of common birth, Flavius Vespasianus. He 
 and his son Titus, the conqueror of Jerusalem, were 
 long known as "good emperors." They built the 
 great Flavian amphitheater, which still stands, the 
 best type of the solid strength of the Roman architec- 
 
The Roman Empire 55 
 
 ture. The arch which commemorates the great deeds 
 of Titus still bears the tablets which tell of the fall of 
 Jerusalem and the plunder of the holy places of the 
 Jews. The ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii, which 
 are being dug out of the Vesuvian lava and ashes, 
 reveal to us the luxury of Roman cities in the days of 
 the Flavians, for it was in the reign of Titus, 79 A.D., 
 that the appalling catastrophe of the eruption took place. 
 
 Domitian, the last of the Flavians, ranks with Nero 
 and Tiberius for cruelty and despotism. At his death 
 the praetorian guard compelled the senate to select a 
 good man, Nerva, for emperor, and he, dying soon, 
 passed the succession to Trajan, a provincial by birth, 
 a wise statesman, and a brave and energetic com- 
 mander. The Roman arms had little to boast of since 
 the day of Julius. But now the emperor led the vic- 
 torious legions beyond the Danube, and even to the 
 Euphrates and the plains of Babylon. He extended 
 the boundaries of the empire to their farthest limits. 
 The city he beautified and ennobled by his buildings. 
 His lofty aqueducts brought water from the moun- 
 tains to the Roman fountains. He enlarged and im- 
 proved the theater, the chief resort of the populace, 
 and his forum, adorned with his arch, his equestrian 
 statue, and his sculptured column, was perhaps the 
 most perfect achievement of Roman architecture. 
 
 Hadrian, whom Trajan chose to continue his work, 
 was worthy of the honor. He traveled through the 
 length and breadth of the Roman world inspecting and 
 strengthening defenses, inquiring into strange reli- 
 gions, and giving himself thoroughly to the vast task of 
 governing the realm which had fallen to his hand. It 
 
56 The Roman Empire 
 
 was but natural that such an administrator should take 
 measures to codify the Roman law. At his death 
 (138 A. D.) he left two legacies to his people, the 
 Mausoleum on the Vatican hill, now the papal fortress 
 of San Angelo, and his adoptive heir, the emperor 
 Antoninus, called "Pius" -or "the Good," whose long 
 and peaceful reign leaves little for the historian of 
 wars and tumults. His successor was the philosopher 
 Marcus Aurelius. There was little peace for this 
 peace-loving emperor. The prosperous realm was like 
 a house begirt with robbers. Its population of one 
 hundred and twenty million souls were happy and 
 prosperous, secure in the enjoyment of their religions, 
 and obedient to the code of Roman law. Beyond the 
 natural or man-made barriers of the empire from North 
 Britain to the steppes of Russia, dwelt other inchoate 
 nations as tough of thew and resolute of spirit as the 
 Romans of the early republic. They had reached 
 various stages of culture from savagery toward civili- 
 zation, but to the haughty Roman of the empire all 
 were accounted "barbarians." The wealth of the 
 provinces was a standing lure to these men of woods 
 and plains. By garrisoned fortresses, by unbridged 
 rivers, by long lines of ramparts (like Hadrian's wall 
 across Britain and the "Roman Limit" linking the 
 upper courses of the Rhine and Danube), Rome strove 
 to shield her riches, but her thirty legions did not 
 suffice to hold a thousand miles of exposed frontier 
 against an ever-present foe. The "philosopher" em- 
 peror lived in the saddle. Each year had its campaign 
 against the German hordes, pressing ever closer toward 
 Italy and the city whose fame filled the world. 
 
The Roman Empire 57 
 
 At times a strenuous soldier prince like Septimius 
 Severus (193-21 1 A. D.), or Aurelian (270-275 A. D.) 
 would hurl back the onrushing tide. "' Restitutor 
 Orbis^'' the "Reestablisher of the Universe," Aure- 
 lian was called, though his construction of massive 
 walls about his capital was a melancholy confession of 
 impending peril. Diocletian, who gained the throne 
 in 284 A. D., more clearly deserved the title. The 
 better to provide for the defense he raised a trusted 
 soldier to the rank of Augustus and entrusted to him 
 the western half of the realm with his headquarters at 
 Mediolanum (Milan). His own court he located at 
 Nicomedia in Bithynia, The plan was soon amplified 
 by the appointment of two other colleagues with the 
 title of Caesar. The partnership four harmonious 
 rulers infused fresh vigor into military and civil ad- 
 ministration. A final effort was made to rid the em- 
 pire of the troublesome sect of Christians by a general 
 persecution — the last which marred the history of 
 Rome. 
 
 SUMMARY AND QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 
 
 The Empire: Augustus Caesar; law and order in the 
 empire; Roman laws, language, and architecture; the city 
 beautified; Agrippa and Maecenas; Vergil, Horace, Ovid, 
 Livy; danger from the northern barbarians; Varus and Her- 
 mann; the birth of Christ. 
 
 Tiberius Caesar, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, 14-68 A. D.; 
 an age of despotic tyranny. Vespasian and Titus; the Colos- 
 seum; the fall of Jerusalem; Herculaneum and Pompeii, 79 
 A. D. Trajan, 98-117 A. D., leads die Roman legions into the 
 far East; builds aqueducts; his forum, column, and triumphal 
 arch. Hadrian, 117-138 A. D.; travels QxtQusively through his 
 
58 The Roman Empire 
 
 realm; Castle of S. Angelo. Marcus Aurelius, 161-180 A. D., 
 a peaceful empire of 120,000,000; pressure from the barbarians. 
 Rome's thirty legions to hold a thousand miles of frontier. 
 Later rulers struggle against the impending peril. Diocletian, 
 284 A. D., moves his court to Nicomedia in Bithynia; places 
 his colleague Maximian at Mediolanum (Milan); persecution of 
 Christians. 
 
 I. How did Augustus successfully establish his empire? 2. 
 What wars were still necessary at this period? 3. What was 
 the greatest event of the reign of Augustus? 4. How did the 
 empire degenerate under the emperors from Tiberius to Nero? 
 5. What great events occurred in the reigns of Titus and Ves- 
 pasian? 6. What buildings in Rome date from this period? 
 7. What did Rome owe to the Emperor Trajan? 8. What to 
 Hadrian? 9. What contrast appears between the character of 
 Marcus Aurelius and the life which he was obliged to lead? 
 10. Show how the pressure of the barbarians was constantly 
 felt by the later emperors? 11. How did Diocletian attempt a 
 more effective defense? 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 The Age of the Antotiities. W. W. Capes. (Epoch Series.) 
 Roman Life in Plijiys Time. 
 Society in Rome Under the Ccesars. Inge. 
 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Gibbon. 
 Fall of the Roman Empire. Sismondi. 
 Provinces of the Roman Empire from Ccesar to Diocletian. 
 Mommsen. 
 
 Pompeii. Thomas H. Dyer. 
 
 The Destruction of Ancie7tt Rome. Lanciani. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE BREAKING UP OF THE EMPIRE 
 
 For three and a half centuries Rome maintained 
 imperial sway over southern Europe, northern Africa, 
 and western Asia. Internal peace, a common language 
 and literature, and a universal law prevailed through- 
 out this vast assemblage of once independent states. 
 The rights of citizenship, once so exclusively reserved 
 for dwellers in Rome or its colonists, were thrown open 
 to all freemen by the Emperor Caracalla (211-217 
 A. D.). Many generations of men were born and died 
 under its beneficent rule, until the civilized world grew 
 into the habit of believing that the empire which had 
 outlasted all other governments was destined to be 
 perpetual. However harassed along its borders by 
 envious barbarians, however ruffled from time to time 
 by rival claimants for the great prize of its sover- 
 eignty, no thought of its possible overthrow had 
 entered the mind of man. 
 
 The partnership plan of administration devised by 
 Diocletian, did not long survive him. Out of the 
 scramble for power which ensued came up one general, 
 strong of arm and brain, to set the world again to 
 rights. At the head of his devoted legions Constan- 
 tine the Great fought his way from Britain to Rome, 
 crushed the rival Caesars, and about 323 A. D., made 
 himself master of the empire. To meet the changed 
 
 59 
 
6o The Roman Empire 
 
 conditions he introduced radical changes of adminis- 
 trative system, founded a new capital, and adopted 
 the new religion. 
 
 Having disbanded the praetorian guard, which had 
 made and unmade so many emperors, he divided the 
 realm into four prefectures: the East, Illyricum, Italy, 
 and Gaul, each greatly subdivided. He separated the 
 military from the civil power and covered the state 
 with a swarm of officials responsible to himself. His 
 court threw off the affected simplicity which had dis- 
 tinguished so many of his predecessors, and began to 
 accumulate the paraphernalia of royalty — robes, dia- 
 dems, and high-sounding titles of honor. Although 
 there is truth in the saying that Rome had unified the 
 world, it is not to be disguised that the empire was 
 really dual, Graeco-Roman. The Roman West, the 
 younger and more virile civilization, had bent the 
 Hellenized East to its power. The conquest had 
 extended Roman law and order over these Eastern 
 countries, and given a certain establishment to the 
 Latin language, but in other respects the Greek lands 
 remained Greek, while the Gauls and Britons, the men 
 of the Rhine and the Danube, owed to the Roman 
 conqueror all that they had of civilization. In lan- 
 guage and law, customs of life and habits of thought 
 they were Roman. Constantine's removal of the capi- 
 tal tended to deepen this shade of distinction into a 
 line of cleavage. 
 
 For his new capital (Nova Roma) Constantine the 
 Great chose the finest site in the ancient world. On 
 the shore of Europe, confronting Asia, he built the 
 city which has ever since borne his name. Constant!- 
 
The Breaking Up of the Empire 6i 
 
 nople. Forty thousand Goths are said to have been 
 employed in its construction, and at its completion 
 hundreds of the first families of Rome migrated 
 thither. In May, 330 A. D., the new Rome was 
 solemnly dedicated, not in the name of Roman Jupi- 
 ter or Greek Apollo, but to the Jewish Mary, the virgin 
 mother of that Jesus whom the procurator of Tiberius 
 Caesar had crucified between two thieves. 
 
 The religion of Jesus was zealously preached 
 throughout the empire within the generation after the 
 Savior's crucifixion, and struck root not only among 
 the slaves and common people, but even in Caesar's 
 household. The rising church was thought to be in- 
 imical to the empire, and was the victim of repeated 
 persecutions. Twenty years after Diocletian's boast 
 that he had annihilated this "superstition," Chris- 
 tianity was officially proclaimed as the religion of the 
 empire. 
 
 Constantine, converted by a vision of the cross, 
 saw in the new faith a means of consolidating his 
 power. He placed himself at the head of the Christian 
 community, and convened, in 325 A. D., the first 
 general church council at Nicaea (Council of Nice). 
 His death was followed by a reaction, but heathenism 
 as a system had received its death blow. Soon we 
 find mobs of Christians throwing down the statues of 
 the old gods. The Emperor Theodosius (379-395 
 A. D.) forbade the observance of the ancient heathen 
 rites. Expelled from the cities, heathenism was long 
 cherished by the rustics {pagani)^ "pagans." 
 
 Theodosius divided his empire between his two 
 sons. The eastern section, with its capital at Con- 
 
62 The Roman Empire 
 
 stantinople, continued to exist for another thousand 
 years, until its capture by the Mohammedan Turks. 
 The West, whose seat of government remained in Italy, 
 was whirled along the road to ruin, the ruin out of 
 whose wreckage rose the kingdoms of medieval and 
 modern Europe. 
 
 North of the Alps and the Danube the German 
 tribes had dwelt for centuries. They were men of 
 strong physique and of warlike and unconquerable 
 spirit. They practised agriculture rudely, but pre- 
 ferred the excitements of war and the chase to the dull 
 round of toil. Their settlements were mere hamlets 
 of wooden huts. They worshiped the forces of 
 nature, personified in many deities. Women among 
 them were held in high respect. Drunkenness was 
 their besetting vice. The Romans had come in con- 
 tact with their restless bands in the days of Marius 
 and Caesar, and had come fairly off in these encoun- 
 ters. But in the third century the dwellers in the 
 northern forests were thrown into great commotion by 
 the advent of the Huns, a "yellow peril" from Asia, 
 who crossed the Volga and attacked the Germans in 
 the rear. From this time dates that tremendous 
 migration of the nations before which the Roman 
 defenses at length gave way. 
 
 The West Goths were the first tribe to win a per- 
 manent foothold within the Roman pale. Aurelian 
 granted them residence in the Balkan peninsula, and 
 before the death, of; Constantine, they were serving 
 by the thousand under the Roman standards. Alaric, 
 the greatest of their kings, invaded Italy, and threat- 
 ened the capital. The Romans endeavored to save 
 
The Breaking Up of the Empire 6^ 
 
 the city by paying a ransom, but the respite was brief. 
 In August, 410 A. D., Alaric, king of the West Goths, 
 entered the Eternal City as victor. Rome was no 
 longer the capital, even of the Western Empire, for a 
 safer imperial residence had been found at Ravenna, 
 but its palaces and shops supplied rich booty, only the 
 churches being spared by these "Christian" marauders. 
 
 The pressure of the Huns, the successes of the 
 Goths in the southeast, or the general decay of the 
 Roman defense — perhaps all these causes together — 
 set on foot a confederacy of the western nations 
 (Sueves, Burgundians, and Vandals) about the time of 
 Alaric's raid. They were pagans, as yet unsoftened 
 by residence within the empire or by the influence of 
 the Church. The wing of their advance which threat- 
 ened Italy was thrown back (406 A. D.), but the main 
 body swept across the Rhine into Roman Gaul, which 
 had been stripped of its defenders in the supreme 
 effort to hold Italy. 
 
 From the Rhine to the Pyrenees, Gaul was a coun- 
 try of fertile fields and populous marts. Four centu- 
 ries and a half of occupation had made it scarcely less 
 Roman than Italy itself. The Christian faith espe- 
 cially had taken root among its people; the Gallic 
 churches were wealthy and the Gallic bishops power- 
 ful. The Rhenish frontier, long guarded by the steady 
 valor of the legionaries, had latterly been as faithfully 
 defended by the Franks, a well-disposed German 
 people, who, having lost some of their rudeness in 
 their dealings with the provincials, had been allowed 
 to settle along the lower course of the river. Into 
 this smiling quarter of the Roman world now burst the 
 
64 The Roman Empire 
 
 barbarians, plundering palaces, burning churches, mur- 
 dering priest and worshiper, and dragging citizen 
 and matron into slavery. The Burgundians settled 
 along the Rhone. The Sueves and Vandals pushed on 
 into the Spanish peninsula; the Vandals, under Gen- 
 seric, carried the terror of their name even into 
 Africa. The West Goths, coming up from Italy, 
 founded kingdoms in southern Gaul and in Spain, 
 which lasted until smitten by the Mohammedan inva- 
 sion from Africa in the eighth century.. Still other 
 German tribes, seafarers like the Jutes, Angles, and 
 Saxons, launched out upon the German ocean and came 
 to Britain, a serene and prosperous province of Rome, 
 where they established the group of petty kingdoms 
 which in time were brought under the scepter of one 
 Anglo-Saxon king. 
 
 The first half of the fifth century saw this dismem- 
 berment of the western empire of Rome. Midway of 
 that century Attila the Hun, whose nomadic hordes 
 had terrorized the north for a generation, rode through 
 the empire carrying dismay before him. Law and 
 order, Christianity and the vast fabric of Roman civili- 
 zation, in which the rudest German saw something to 
 admire and copy, meant nothing to this rough-riding 
 Asiatic. His almond eye saw in the empire nothing 
 more than a well-stocked warehouse to be pillaged, 
 a preserve for hunting slaves. His progress was 
 stopped in Gaul (451 A. D.) in a world-famous fight 
 at Chalons, that "battle of the nations," in which all 
 the friends of civilization, Roman and German, rallied 
 against the destroyer. The next year the Huns entered 
 Italy from the north. Fugitives from before his 
 
The Breaking Up of the Empire 6^ 
 
 advance founded Venice among the unapproachable 
 morasses of the Adriatic. Rome saved herself by 
 ransom, and death interposed to save Europe from his 
 further ravage. 
 
 The battle of Chalons was the last great effort of 
 the Western Empire for self-preservation. Even bri- 
 bery failed to save the once imperial city from her next 
 greedy foe. In 455 A. D. , the Vandal chieftain, Gen- 
 seric, stripped palace and church of gold and statuary, 
 and sailed back to Africa, his ships groaning beneath 
 their load of loot. The shadow of departed power 
 still clung to Rome, and the title was kept alive by 
 the series of so-called "phantom emperors" until in 
 476 A. U., the last of the line Romulus, nicknamed 
 Augustulus, "Augustus the Little," was deposed by 
 Odoacer, a German soldier, who was hailed as king 
 by his followers, and recognized as "patrician" of 
 Italy by the Roman emperor at Constantinople. 
 
 Theodoric, the East Goth, overthrew Odoacer after 
 a dozen years, and established a Gothic state in Italy. 
 By justice and liberality he endeavored to consolidate 
 the rival elements of his kingdom, the rude Goth and 
 the polished Italian. At Ravenna and Verona, where 
 he chiefly resided, at Rome, whose history he revered, 
 and in other cities of the peninsula, he fostered the 
 arts, education, letters, and religion, encouraged trade, 
 agriculture, and the handicrafts. A succession of such 
 princes might have hastened the transit of civilization 
 from the ancient to the modern world, but Theod- 
 oric's successors were not cast in his mold, and his 
 kingdom survived him barely a generation. Belisarius 
 and Narses, generals of the Eastern emperors, rees- 
 
66 The Roman Empire 
 
 tablished the authority of the new Rome on the Bos- 
 porus over the Italian peninsula. 
 
 The map of western Europe from 400 A. D., to 800 
 A, D., was changing rapidly. One after another the 
 barbarian states culminated and declined. Among 
 those whose rise to power was most gradual and per- 
 manent, were the Franks. From the mouths of the 
 Rhine they spread over all of northern Gaul, the 
 Francia ("France"), to which their name has clung. 
 Before the close of the fifth century they had accepted 
 Christianity, and become the mainstay of the bishop 
 or pope of Rome, who as "successor of St. Peter," 
 already enjoyed prestige among his fellow ecclesias- 
 tics. The Frankish monarchy expanded on both sides 
 of the Rhine. In 732 A. D., it was strong enough to 
 stand in the breach of Christendom at Tours and stop 
 forever the onrush of the Mohammedan Arabs, already 
 the masters of Africa and Spain. Great was the fame 
 won by their iron duke, Charles Martel, by this victory, 
 and when a few years later the pope of Rome found 
 his authority endangered by the growth of the Lom- 
 bard kingdom in Italy, he turned to "the hammer of 
 the Franks" for help. Charles' greater grandson, 
 Charlemagne, crowned king of the Franks in 771 A. D., 
 answered the summons. He crossed the Alps (773 
 A. D.) and annexed Lombardy to his wide Frankish 
 realm. Twenty-seven years later, at the height of his 
 fame, Charles came again to Italy. On Christmas 
 day of the year 800 A. D., before the high altar of the 
 old church of St. Peter at Rome, Pope Leo III. placed 
 the crown of the Caesars upon his German brow. The 
 head of the Christian Church in that act allied himself 
 
The Breaking Up of the Empire 67 
 
 with the most powerful prince of Christendom to re- 
 establish, in so far as it might be, the world-empire of 
 Rome, which, to the men of those times, was the only 
 conceivable framework for that unity and peace which 
 had vanished with the fall of the old regime. Charle- 
 magne, the Frank, reigned for fourteen years as 
 Roman emperor. All Italy save the southern prov- 
 inces was his, as was all Gaul and the greater part of 
 what is now Germany. His dukes and counts adminis- 
 tered its local government in his name. His com- 
 missioners traveled through its length and breadth. 
 Like his great forerunner Theodoric, so Charles per- 
 ceived that the hope of the world lay in cultivating the 
 best that remained of the Old Roman civilization. He 
 gathered scholars about him, patronized the monkish 
 schools, and made his court a center of such learning 
 and refinement as the West afforded. After his death 
 and burial at Aix the ballads and romances which 
 mark the beginnings of Norman and Italian literature, 
 magnified his exploits and gave him superhuman form, 
 intelligence, and prowess. And indeed his was no 
 common work. For his career — though the succeed- 
 ing age relapsed toward barbarism — had proved the 
 possibility of restoring order to a troubled world; it 
 had collected and conserved the remnants of the 
 Roman civilization for the future enlightenment of the 
 West; it had opened Germany to the influences which 
 were to lead it out upon a separate national existence, 
 and it had flung wide the door to the ambition of the 
 popes. 
 
 The seeds of a new Europe which had been sown 
 in the four centuries of Roman decline were already 
 
68 The Roman Empire 
 
 germinating. The world was indeed advancing, though 
 for generations after the fall of Rome it seemed to be 
 going backward. All things were unsettled by the 
 Teutonic migrations. Art languished and died; let- 
 ters and the love of them failed; the poets and ora- 
 tors of the classic era were forgotten; architecture, 
 cherished by the church, alone put forth new shoots 
 of life. Even handicraftsmen lost their cunning, and 
 all the operations of life were ruder than of old. 
 Superstition took the place of learning among the 
 clergy. Force counted for more than justice. The 
 Dark Ages — ages of violence and ignorance — were 
 upon the race, and thoughtful men looked back upon 
 the past as to a golden day whose sun had set forever. 
 But we of. to-day can see that men like Theodoric the 
 Goth, and Charles the Frank, were bringing a new 
 order out of the chaos, in which the virility and free- 
 dom of the Teuton combininor with the Roman srenius 
 for law and political organization were to produce a 
 civilization grander and richer for the human race 
 than the Greeks and Romans ever knew. 
 
 SUMMARY AND QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 
 
 The unwieldy empire once more finds a master in Constan- 
 tine the Great, 323 A. D. Four prefectures: The East, Illyr- 
 icum, Italy, and Gaul. The dual empire: Graeco-Roman; 
 Constantinople and Christianity; the Council of Nice, 325 A. D, 
 Theodosius, 379-395 A. D., divides the empire. Alaric and the 
 West Goths capture Rome, 410; the imperial residence at 
 Ravenna. Later tribes pour into Gaul. Attila, the Hun, 
 checked at Chalons, 451 A. D. The Huns advance upon Italy; 
 Rome is saved by ransom. The Vandals under Genseric sack 
 Rome in 455 A. D. Deposition of the last emperor, Augustulus, 
 
The Breaking Up of the Empire 69 
 
 476 A. D. Theodoric, 493-526 A. U., the East Goth, at Ravenna 
 and Verona founds an Italian kingdom. The generals Belisarius 
 and Narses again govern under the authority of Constantinople. 
 Spread of Christianity in Gaul. Charles Martel checks the 
 Saracens at Tours, 732 A. D. The pope of Rome fears the 
 Lombard kingdom, and appeals to Charlemagne, who is 
 crowned emperor, 800 A. D. 
 
 I. How was the unwieldy empire strengthened by Con- 
 stantine? 2. Show how the empire was dual in its nature. 3. 
 How had Christianity begun to be felt? 4. Describe the inva- 
 sion of Alaric. 5. What tribes followed close behind him? 
 6. Describe the advance of the Huns under Attila. 7. How 
 did Rome suffer from the Vandals? 8. What service did 
 Theodoric render to Italy? 9. What famous generals of the 
 Eastern empire governed it after his death? 10. Describe 
 the spread of Christianity in Gaul. 11. When was the battle 
 of Tours fought, and why was it of great importance? 12. 
 What events led to the crowning of Charlemagne as Roman 
 emperor? 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Theodoric the Goth. Hodgkin. 
 
 Decline a7id Fall of the Rojjiafi Euipire. Gibbon. 
 
 Fall of the Roman Ei7ipire. Sismondi. 
 
 Makers of Moder?i Rome. Mrs. M. O. W. Oliphant. 
 
 Paga7i and Christian Rome. Lanciani. 
 
 Marius, the Epicurean. Walter Pater. 
 
THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS 
 
 EDITED FROM THE ITALIAN OF 
 • J. C. L. DE SISMONDI 
 
 ELIZABETH WORMELEY LATIMER 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE 
 
 The compiler of this brief narrative of the rise and 
 fortunes of the Italian republics from A. D. looo to 
 A. D. 1500, wishes to say that the work done is greatly 
 indebted to the admirable abridgment of Sismondi's 
 History of the Italian Republics^ published by Harper 
 & Brothers, who kindly permitted free use of the 
 book. So much has been taken from it in scattered 
 sentences as well as longer paragraphs that quotation 
 marks have not been used. Acknowledgments are 
 also due to Russell's Modern Europe^ W. W. Story's 
 Roba di Rouia^ and an article on St. Francis d'Assisi, 
 in the Revue des Deicx Mo?ides. Some manuscript 
 lectures bearing on the same period have also been 
 freely used. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 CHARLEMAGNE — OTHO THE GREAT — POPE 
 GREGORY VHo — HENRY IV. 
 
 Italy was never a * 'united Italy" from the time of 
 the disruption of the Roman Empire, and its invasion 
 by barbaric tribes, until in our own day it became 
 united, as it had long wished to be, under the rule of 
 Victor Emmanuel. It is very doubtful if in heart it is 
 even now a "united Italy." The inhabitants of what 
 was once the kingdom of the Two Sicilies are believed 
 to be as little attached to the central government as 
 the peasantry in the south and west of Ireland are 
 to Great Britain. Any history of Italy must, there- 
 fore, be mainly a collection of fragments. To write 
 it during the age of the Italian republics is very like 
 endeavoring to write an early history of Scotland by 
 recounting the feuds and heart-burnings of the clans. 
 
 It seems better to interest the reader in personages 
 who shaped history in their day and generation, and 
 by grouping around them the events they shared and 
 influenced, we may secure pictures of the manners 
 and the politics of their times. 
 
 If we take the period from about the terrible year 
 A. D. looo to about 1500, when modern history begins 
 with the Reformation, the revival ^f learning, and the 
 discovery of the New World, these five hundred years 
 form a link in European history between the Roman 
 
 75 
 
76 The Italian Republics 
 
 empire of the west, and more modern times. This 
 period was formerly called the Dark Ages, and indeed, 
 during one half of it there are few gleams of light that 
 fall upon its history. Heretics and barbarians spoiled 
 and ravaged the coasts of Italy. In Northern Italy 
 wars between the Germans and the Lombards laid 
 waste that most beautiful and fertile country. The 
 Saracens, who had established themselves in Spain, 
 and conquered the islands of the Mediterranean, com- 
 mitted constant depredations on Italian coasts; the 
 Greek emperor claimed jurisdiction over Venice, 
 Genoa, Pisa, Ravenna, Bari, Gseta, Amalfi, and even 
 Rome itself. The gallant Normans (Danes or North- 
 men) who had set up their authority in what are now 
 the eastern counties in England, had placed Danish 
 kings upon the English throne, carved out a duchy 
 for themselves in the northern part of France, planted 
 a colony in Russia, and were so great a terror to the 
 Christian population of every country within their 
 reach, that a petition was added to the litany in the 
 church service: "P'rom the fury of the Northmen, good 
 Lord deliver us!" In Germany wild Magyar tribes, 
 the Huns and the Avars, wasted and despoiled as far 
 as Belgium. The seas were infested by pirates, and 
 life in those days must have been full of distress and 
 terror. Then, too, the relations of the church to those 
 within its fold were unsettled, and the great dispute 
 between the successors of Charlemagne and the popes, 
 destined to be carried on for three centuries, and to 
 divide Italy into Guelphs and Ghibellines, was ap- 
 proaching a crisis. 
 
 We call this the Age of Chivalry, and are delighted 
 
Charlemagne — Henry IV 77 
 
 to read about it in romances. "It was," says a writer 
 in Blackwood^ reviewing Mr. Gladstone's Juventus 
 Miindi^ "a world which certainly stands out in strong 
 contrast to our modern age, when damsels in distress 
 apply at once to their lawyers, and the only real con- 
 tests between knights and gentlemen are carried on 
 by a good deal of tall talk in the House of Commons. 
 But in order to have enjoyed life in the Age of Chiv- 
 alry we must all have been either beautiful ladies or 
 tall knights — six feet high and stout in proportion. 
 It would have been an uncomfortable world for some 
 of us dyspeptic moderns, whose stock of animal spirits 
 is limited and irregular; and there was a 'fat knight,' 
 whom we seem to remember in some of those circum- 
 stantial narratives, who was always coming to grief 
 quite undeservedly." 
 
 We have said that the year 1000 was "a terrible" 
 year. It was that in which the majority of people in 
 the Christian world expected the Day of Judgment. 
 Fields were left untilled, all private enterprises were 
 abandoned. The panic was worst in France, but it 
 spread into Germany and Italy. 
 
 When Charlemagne espoused the cause of the pope 
 in his quarrel with the Lombard monarchy, he com- 
 prehended the beauty of a civilization which his prede- 
 cessors had witnessed only to destroy. He made it 
 his duty and his glory to govern the country he had 
 conquered, and to promote the common good. He 
 did more. In concert with Pope Leo III. he made 
 out of his Italian conquests a western Roman Empire, 
 which he considered the representative of order and 
 justice in contrast to barbaric force, and on Christ- 
 
78 The Italian Republics 
 
 mas day, in the year 800, he received from Pope Leo, 
 with the full approbation of the Roman people, the 
 title of Roman emperor and the name of Charlemagne, 
 or Charles the Great, which no prince before him had 
 so well deserved. He governed Italy and all his other 
 states for forty years, establishing the reign of law, 
 and promoting civilization; but barbarism was too 
 strong for him, and when he died, in 814, it was re- 
 established throughout his late dominions. For seventy 
 years after his death, sovereigns, either Italian or 
 Burgundian, who were all allied to the race of the 
 Franks, disputed the crown of Italy and the empire. 
 
 Otho the Great, while only king of Germany (for he 
 had not received the golden crown at Rome) forced 
 Berenger, the last king of Lombardy, to be his vassal. 
 They were also rivals in love, for Berenger having 
 seized and imprisoned the beautiful Adelheid, widow 
 of Lothaire, Otho's predecessor, desired to marry her 
 to his son. But Adelheid, making her escape, placed 
 herself under the protection of the Count of Tuscany 
 at Canossa. The count appealed on her behalf to 
 King Otho, who espoused her cause, marched into 
 Italy, married her himself, and in 961 was crowned in 
 Rome with the title of emperor. He then banished 
 Berenger to Hamburg, where he died in captivity. 
 
 "When Otho conquered Northern Italy, he established 
 the feudal system, which was an institution hereditary 
 among his northern people. The soil of Lombardy 
 was soon covered with feudal castles, and its cities 
 began to rebuild their ruined walls. Then the power 
 of the towns rapidly increased. They had retained 
 their old municipal institutions; people from all parts 
 
Charlemagne — Henry IV 79 
 
 of the country sought refuge in them from oppression. 
 Such exiles everywhere were sure of a good reception, 
 for each city, feeling that it had strength only in pro- 
 portion to the number of its citizens, vied with its 
 neighbors in its efforts to augment its means of de- 
 fense, and in the cordiality with which it received 
 strangers. 
 
 The barons in their castles found it greatly to their 
 advantage to afford protection to their rural neigh- 
 bors, and to cultivate friendly relations with them. 
 The result was that the rural population in Lombardy 
 rapidly increased, and the country for a few years 
 enjoyed peace and prosperity. The cities enclosed 
 themselves with walls, and the bishops declared them- 
 selves independent of all feudal masters, except the 
 emperor. The latter made common cause with the 
 ecclesiastics and the citizens. The emperors, like 
 other rulers of the period, were anxious to break the 
 power of their great vassals. Many scandals had 
 arisen in Rome during the later years of the tenth 
 century. Popes who had been elected by bribery, 
 or through the favoritism of women, were found wholly 
 unfit for their high office. Otho the Great, in conse- 
 quence of these scandals, had deprived the Roman 
 people of their power to create popes. Rome, in 
 reprisal, tried to throw off her allegiance to the em- 
 pire, and asserted her right to become an independent 
 commonwealth. It was at this time that Cresentius 
 was made consul in Rome. He was of discreditable 
 parentage, his mother, a patrician lady, having been 
 the mistress of one of the popes. Cresentius was the 
 idol of the Roman people until Henry III. entered 
 
8o The Italian Republics 
 
 Rome in 1046 and found three popes disputing the 
 right to be chief pontiff. He deposed all of them, 
 appointed German prelates in their stead, and exe- 
 cuted Cresentius, who lives in our memory chiefly 
 because his fate was the subject of a touching ballad 
 by Mrs. Hemans. 
 
 Henry IV. succeeded his father as emperor of Ger- 
 many in 1056. During his long minority, opposition 
 was preparing for him in the person of Hildebrand, 
 the greatest personage of the eleventh century. Hil- 
 debrand was a native of Tuscany, and a man of obscure 
 origin. In those days there was no opening for a man 
 of commanding talent and plebeian birth but through 
 the doors of the church, where promotion was open 
 to all men, whether of high or low degree. Hilde- 
 brand at first entered a convent, but was sent by his 
 superiors to Cluny in France, a convent of the Bene- 
 dictines. There, heartsick at the abuses of the church, 
 he dreamed of a complete reformation, not of doctrine, 
 but of the ecclesiastical system. He thought that God 
 being the supreme ruler of all men. His kingdom should 
 be established upon earth, that His vicar or lieutenant 
 was the Roman pontiff, and therefore that all men 
 should be subject to his will. The whole church sys- 
 tem having become corrupt, Hildebrand planned earn- 
 estly the reformation of its head, its ministers, and 
 the whole body of Christian people. He cursed all 
 intervention of the secular power in the distribution 
 of church dignities. He called such intervention 
 simony. He even included in his anathema investi- 
 ture of ecclesiastics by temporal princes in temporal 
 dignities. In 1059 he obtained from the Council of the 
 
Charlemagne — Henry IV 8i 
 
 Lateral! a decree that the election of the popes should 
 thenceforth be vested in the cardinals, or rather in prel- 
 ates who were rectors of some church within the 
 walls of Rome, for which reason all cardinals are even 
 now appointed to some such parochial dignity. All 
 prelates were to be nominated by the chapters of their 
 cathedrals, and the nomination was to be confirmed 
 by the pope. He also insisted on the celibacy of the 
 clergy, that they might be detached from all the influ- 
 ences of human society. Previously, especially in 
 Lombardy, the rule of celibacy had not been enforced. 
 Finally he proclaimed that the pope, when properly 
 appointed, was a being infallible — a god upon earth, 
 who as the representative of the Deity could depose at 
 will rebellious princes, by releasing their subjects from 
 their oaths of fidelity, 
 
 A great part of this dream he actually accomplished ; 
 he put a new spirit into the popedom^, the clergy, and 
 the people. He enslaved kings. By his influence he 
 procured the election of four popes, who he expected 
 would carry out his views, but at length, in 1073, he 
 allowed himself to be elected and took the name of 
 Gregory VII. It was the first time a pope had adopted 
 a new name. 
 
 Then began his great struggle with the emperor, 
 Henry IV., a struggle known in history as the War of 
 Investitures. Henry IV. began hostilities by invok- 
 ing a diet at Worms and deposing and excommuni- 
 cating Pope Gregory, who responded by deposing 
 and excommunicating the emperor. Then began a 
 war between the papacy on the one hand and the 
 whole power of the empire on the other. The strug- 
 
82 The Italian Republics 
 
 gle lasted with an occasional interval for about fifty 
 years. 
 
 In this combat Pope Gregory received great aid 
 and comfort from Matilda, countess of Tuscany. She 
 was an heiress, whose fiefs stretched from Mantua over 
 the eastern plains of Lombardy, crossed the Apen- 
 nines, and included Tuscany with part of the duchy of 
 Spoleto. Her residence, as that of other rulers of 
 Tuscany, had been ever in the strong mountain castle 
 of Canossa. 
 
 Henry was a man of tender conscience. His con- 
 test with one who claimed to be God's vicar upon 
 earth, greatly distressed him. More than once he 
 made submission to the pope, but never thereby gained 
 any remission of Hildebrand's arrogant pretensions. 
 At one time he resolved to abdicate and become a 
 monk, and actually took the vows, when the abbot of 
 the convent he proposed to enter, after reminding him 
 that he had pledged himself to obey every command 
 laid on him by his superiors, ordered him to resume 
 his scepter, and fulfil his duties as an emperor. 
 
 The German bishops, terrified by the thunders of 
 the church, deserted the party of their sovereign, and 
 at last were willing to give up their emperor to be 
 tried by the pope, whom they requested to come to 
 Augsburg for that purpose. 
 
 This completed Henry's discomfiture. He took 
 the extraordinary resolution of suddenly passing the 
 Tyrolean Alps, and presenting himself before Gregory, 
 to implore pardon and absolution. The pope was in 
 the fortress of Canossa in company with his friend the 
 Countess Matilda. At the gates of this stronghold 
 
Charlemagne — Henry IV 83 
 
 the emperor presented himself as a humble penitent. 
 He was parted from his few attendants and admitted 
 alone into the courtyard. It was the month of Janu- 
 ary, 1077, and in the mountains the weather was, of 
 course, bitterly cold. In the courtyard of the castle 
 he was required to remain three days, stripped of his 
 robes, wrapped in sackcloth, barefooted, in the snow, 
 and fasting, until it was the pleasure of the pontiff to 
 admit him to his presence. 
 
 But this treatment exasperated not only Henry 
 himself, but his nobles, and their indignation was in- 
 creased when they found that the pope had incited the 
 two sons of their emperor to rebel. 
 
 Gregory did his best to raise all Germany against 
 the emperor, but the nobles and people of Lombardy 
 took Henry's part w^hile the Germans proceeded 
 to choose another emperor, and solemnly crowned 
 Rodolph, duke of Swabia, at Aix-la-Chapelle. But in 
 a battle with Henry's forces, Godfrey de BouUion, the 
 future hero at Jerusalem, cut off the hand of Rodolph 
 by one sweep of his sword blade. No medical assist- 
 ance was to be had promptly, and the unfortunate 
 Rodolph, bleeding to death, demanded that his severed 
 hand should be brought to him, when he addressed it, 
 saying that it deserved its fate, for it had taken the 
 oath of allegiance to Henry, which he, its master, had 
 violated perfidiously, aspiring to an honor that was 
 not his due. 
 
 The defeat of Rodolph must have been a great 
 blow to Gregory, who had issued a prophetic anathema 
 against Henry, depriving him by his authority as God's 
 representative on earth, of strength in combat; con- 
 
84 The Italian Republics 
 
 derailing him nevej^ to be victorious j and winding up by 
 appealing to St. Peter and St. Paul to make their 
 power felt by all kings and princes, that they might 
 not dare to oppose the orders of the church. It also 
 implored them that justice might be so speedily exe- 
 cuted upon Henry, that no man might doubt he fell a 
 victim to apostolic wrath and not by chance. 
 
 When the Countess Matilda died she left all her 
 dominions, as she had promised Pope Gregory, to the 
 reigning pope and his successors. A large part of her 
 lands became what has been since known as the States 
 of the Church, which though always a hotbed of 
 revolutionary fervor, were never alienated from the 
 papacy until Victor Emmanuel became ruler of Italy. 
 Dante, in his Pm^gatorio^ speaks much of this lady, 
 whom he makes the representative of those who do 
 much for the church in contrast with contemplative 
 women. Longfellow, in his notes on Dante, quoting 
 from Napier's History of Florence^ says: "Whatever 
 may be thought of her chivalrous support, her bold 
 defense, and her deep devotion to the church, it was 
 in perfect harmony with the spirit of that age. Her 
 unflinching adherence to the cause she conscientiously 
 embraced was far more noble than the conduct of 
 Emperor Henry, who, swinging between the extremes 
 of unmeasured insolence and abject humiliation, died 
 a victim to papal influence over superstitious minds." 
 
 Another great gift fell to the papacy, when the 
 pope was offered by the Norman adventurer, Robert 
 Guiscard, suzerainty over his conquests in Southern 
 Italy. When the Greek emperors ceded Lombardy to 
 the Lombard kings, they retained some cities on the 
 
Charlemagne — Henry IV 85 
 
 coast of the Adriatic and some upon the Mediter- 
 ranean, Among the former was Venice, which paid 
 tribute annually to the Greek emperor by sending him 
 a robe of cloth of gold ; others were Ravenna and Bari. 
 The southern coasts of Northern and Central Italy were 
 dotted by Greek colonies, each clustered around some 
 city governed by a nearly independent chief who owed 
 nominal allegiance to the emperor at Constantinople. 
 Early in the eleventh century some Norman knights 
 on a pilgrimage to an Italian shrine, chanced to en- 
 counter a Greek exile from the town of Bari. Moved 
 by his promises and the story of his wrongs, they 
 returned to Normandy and there collected a small 
 force for the deliverance of Apulia from its oppressors. 
 These Normans did not come in their long ships, but 
 crossed the Alps as pilgrims, and presented themselves 
 as knights when they reached Apulia. But they were 
 so few in number that they failed in their expedition 
 against Bari, and became a band of free lances, wan- 
 dering among the mountains and valleys of Southern 
 Italy. Their discipline and prowess were speedily 
 recognized, and their assistance was sought in every 
 domestic quarrel. They soon attracted to themselves 
 other Norman adventurers, among them the sons of 
 Tancred de Hauteville, grandfather of the crusading 
 hero of Tasso's Gerusalemme. These young men, on 
 arriving in Southern Italy, joined some Greeks who 
 were attacking some Saracens in the country. Pope 
 Leo IX., one of the predecessors of Gregory VII., 
 becoming alarmed at the vicinity of such formidable 
 and restless neighbors, made an alliance with the Ger- 
 man and Greek emperors to subdue them. Three 
 
86 The Italian Republics 
 
 thousand Xormans. under two of Tancred's sons, 
 utterly routed the force brought against them. The 
 pope, driven from the field, was pursued by the Xor- 
 mans, and when .overtaken, was to his surprise sur- 
 rounded by his late foes who implored his benediction. 
 Peace was made and friendship established between 
 the head of the church and the Xormans of Southern 
 Italy. 
 
 The most brilliant of the family was Robert, known 
 in history as Robert Guiscard. He remained a stanch 
 friend of the papacy, and in return for many favors 
 from Xicholas II. and Pope Gregory, proposed, for 
 greater security of title, to hold his conquests under 
 the nominal suzerainty of the Holy See. 
 
 In 1081, Henry IV., having subdued his enemies 
 in Germany, set out for Italy in order to settle his 
 appointee, Clement III., upon the papal throne. The 
 gates of Rome were closed against him, and he be- 
 sieged the city for two years. When at last it sur- 
 rendered he found that Gregory had taken refuge in 
 the castle of St. Angelo, whence he defied and again 
 excommunicated his conqueror. Henry, however, was 
 crowned emperor by a new pope with the consent and 
 concurrence of the Roman senate and people. Then 
 he proceeded to take the castle of St. Angelo, and to 
 make Gregory his prisoner, but when he was recalled 
 to Lombardy, Robert Guiscard took advantage of his 
 absence to release Gregory and carry him to Salerno, 
 where he died not long after, A. D. 10S5. His last 
 words were: ''I have loved righteousness and hated 
 iniquity; therefore I die in exile." 
 
 It only remains in this chapter to tell the fate of 
 
Charlemagne — Henry IV 87 
 
 Henry. The death of his great adversary brought 
 him no peace. New troubles and fresh rivalries dis- 
 tracted Germany, but everything yielded to the em- 
 peror's valor. 
 
 In Italy, however, enemies were embroiling his 
 affairs. Popes and anti-popes were elected, and Urban 
 II. stirred up Henry's son Conrad to rebel. The 
 death of Conrad did not relieve the situation, for Pope 
 Pascal I. induced young Henry to make war upon his 
 father. Through treachery the emperor fell into the 
 hands of his son. A diet was called, presided over 
 by the pope's legate, who again pronounced sentence 
 of excommunication against the captured emperor. 
 Two archbishops were sent to him to inform him of 
 his deposition and to demand that he should give up 
 the regalia to his son. After some remonstrance on 
 his part, and much insolence on that of the deputation, 
 the unhappy emperor retired, but soon reappeared 
 wearing his royal robes and ornaments. Then, seating 
 himself on his chair of state, he addressed the arch- 
 bishops thus: "Behold the marks of that royalty with 
 which I was invested by God and the princes of the 
 empire. If you disregard the wrath of heaven and the 
 eternal reproaches of mankind, so much as to lay vio- 
 lent hands upon your sovereign, you may strip me of 
 them. I am not in a condition to defend myself." 
 
 They took him at his word; they seized his golden 
 crown, tore off his royal robes, and dragged him from 
 his chair of state. As they did so, Henry, with tears 
 dropping fast down his cheeks, exclaimed: "Great 
 God! Thou art a God of vengeance; Thou wilt repay 
 this outrage! I have sinned, I own, and have merited 
 
88 The Italian Republics 
 
 shame by the follies of my youth, but Thou wilt not 
 fail to punish these traitors for their insolence, ingrati- 
 tude, and perjury!" 
 
 He was so ill provided for by the barbarity of his 
 son, that, having been already admitted into holy 
 orders, he attempted to procure a canonry in the 
 Cathedral of Spire, imploring, as it was prophesied 
 concerning the descendants of the wicked sons of Eli: 
 "Put me, I pray thee, into one of the priest's offices 
 that I may eat a piece of bread." 
 
 He escaped from confinement, however, and reached 
 Cologne, where he was once more recognized as the 
 lawful emperor. He was raising an army and was 
 opening negotiations with the pope, when he died at 
 Liege, A. D. 1106, in the fifty-sixth year of his age 
 and forty-ninth of his reign. 
 
 SUMMARY AND QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 
 
 Charlemagne, Roman emperor, 800-814. Otho the Great, 
 crowned 961; estabHshes feudal system. Walled cities; feudal 
 barons; increase of rural population in Lombardy. Age of 
 Chivalry; the " terrible year," 1000 A. D. Corruption of the 
 church; Hildebrand (Gregory VII., 1073-85); Matilda of Tus- 
 cany; Henry IV. and War of Investitures. Gifts to the papacy: 
 Matilda's Tuscan estates and Robert Guiscard's Norman pos- 
 sessions in Southern Italy. 
 
 I. Why does the history of Italy present peculiar difficulties 
 to the historian? 2. How was Northern Italy despoiled during 
 the period of the Dark Ages? 3. How did the country suffer 
 from the Saracens? 4. What cities were claimed by the Greek 
 emperor? 5. In what parts of Europe were the Normans 
 powerful at this time? 6. How did the condition of the church 
 add to the anarchy of this time? 7. What sharp contrasts does 
 the "Age of Chivalry" present? 8. Why was the year 1000 
 
Charlemagne — Henry IV 89 
 
 called the "terrible " year? 9. How was Charlemagne's influ- 
 ence felt in Italy? 10. How did Otho the Great establish his 
 power in Italy? 11. What followed the establishment of feudal 
 castles in Lombardy? 12, How did the emperors seek to cur- 
 tail the power of their vassals? 13. How did Rome try to 
 become an independent commonwealth? 14. Who was Hilde- 
 brand? 15. What reforms in the church did he accomplish? 
 16. Who was Matilda of Tuscany, and in what way did she 
 serve the church? 17. Describe the struggle between Gregory 
 VII. and Henry IV. 18. What temporal possessions came to 
 the church at this time? 19. What circumstances led to papal 
 control of Southern Italy? 20. Under what circumstances did 
 Gregory VII. close his life? 21. Describe the last years of 
 Henry IV. 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 History of the Italiatt Republics. Sismondi. 
 
 The Middle Ages. Hallam. 
 
 The Holy Ro?fian Empire. Bryce. 
 
 The City of Rome. Dyer. 
 
 Charlemagne. Hodgkin. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 FREE CITIES — THE CONQUEST OF SICILY — 
 FREDERICK BARBAROSSA 
 
 During the distracted years of storm and stress 
 which marked the course of the turbulent eleventh 
 century, the free cities of Italy were steadily growing 
 in wealth, in importance, and in a spirit that desired 
 self-government. It may be remarked that they had 
 no patriotic feeling for Italy as their fatherland. 
 Their patriotism, though intense, was limited to their 
 own city. Their aim was municipal autonomy. But 
 the mass of the people did not expect to be represented 
 in the government. The "parliaments" which met in 
 the open air were assemblies of burghers, summoned 
 by authority, and to them the word popolo was applied, 
 to the exclusion of the more numerous population of 
 the city — men of foreign or barbarian race, who were 
 expected only to obey. Each city elected chief offi- 
 cers, and called them consuls, but at first they had no 
 jurisdiction, they were only law officers, whose duty 
 was to plead the cause of the inhabitants of the city 
 in any cases that might be brought before the bish- 
 op's court, or that of his representative. But after 
 a century of struggle the burghers became independent 
 of lordship with a fully organized government, self- 
 guarded in its several assemblies. 
 
 The maritime cities, Genoa, Pisa, and Venice (the 
 90 
 
Free Cities — Frederick Barbarossa 91 
 
 latter still nominally owed fealty to the Greek em- 
 peror) were in advance of the inland towns and were 
 rapidly acquiring independent autonomy. 
 
 Having rebuilt their walls, the first object of the 
 citizens was to have a force to defend them. The 
 larger cities, as has been said, welcomed exiles and 
 strangers, and before long they attempted to form 
 leagues and confederacies. Every city soon had a 
 military force. When it went to war — and it was sel- 
 dom at peace — its soldiers rallied round the carroccio^ 
 a float drawn by oxen, dressed with flags, and accom- 
 panied by trumpeters. In its center was a high pole 
 bearing the standard of the city, beneath which stood 
 an altar on which a priest elevated the host and said 
 mass daily. The carroccio formed a rallying point 
 in battle, reminding the armed artisans that they had 
 a city and a church to fight for; and so great was the 
 enthusiasm they felt for that city, that we never hear 
 of an instance of panic or defection. 
 
 Haribert, archbishop of Milan in 1024, invented 
 the carroccio, which being speedily adopted by other 
 cities, played an important part in their continual war- 
 fare; animating the soldiers who followed it, and con- 
 solidating them into a formidable band of warriors, 
 very different in spirit from the semi-barbarian Ger- 
 mans and bands of mercenaries who made up the 
 armies brought by the emperors into Italy. 
 
 Besides the carroccio, Milan owed to Haribert the 
 idea of the commune. It was he who organized the 
 voiceless, defenseless population into a community 
 capable of expressing its needs, and an army ready to 
 maintain the rights of the people. He was himself 
 
92 The Italian Republics 
 
 the supreme ruler of Milan, but under him the citizens 
 first formed themselves into a parliamento^ and the 
 word popolo was applied to the governing or burgher 
 class. 
 
 Each city governed itself and had a little tract of 
 country over which it held sway. But the cities, when 
 they felt their strength, wanted to be stronger. The 
 larger ones, like Milan, Pavia, or Pisa, wanted to force 
 all neighboring villages and lesser cities to join in a 
 confederation, and when these objected, they were not 
 infrequently attacked and razed to the ground. 
 
 Milan became the chief city of Lombardy, and was 
 devoted to the church; Pavia was devoted to the em- 
 peror. In other words, Milan was Guelph and Pavia 
 was Ghibelline. These words came into use in Italy 
 shortly after the death of Henry IV., when a war broke 
 out in Germany between two rival candidates for the 
 imperial throne. One party (that of a Bavarian prince) 
 took his name, Welf or Guelph, the other, in compli- 
 ment to its leader, a duke of Swabia, who was born at 
 Waiblingen, took the name of Ghibellines. The 
 reader, unfamiliar with history, finds it somewhat un- 
 reasonable that the adherents of the pope should be 
 called Guelphs, and those of the German emperor 
 GhibellineSo But it was so, and we do well not to 
 forget it. 
 
 Before we take up the history of Henry, the un- 
 natural son of Henry IV., we may pause to say a few 
 words about the Norman race, who ruled in the Two 
 Sicilies. 
 
 Robert Guiscard, under especial protection of the 
 popes, pursued his triumphs in Southern Italy. The 
 
Free Cities — Frederick Barbarossa 93 
 
 Italian conquests of Robert accord with what was 
 called, subsequently, the kingdom of Naples. Pope 
 Nicholas II. invested him with all the lands his sword 
 might conquer "from schismatic Greeks or unbeliev- 
 ing Saracens." The enterprising little republic of 
 Amalfi, and Salerno, the chief seat of learning in 
 Christendom, acknowledged Norman Robert as their 
 nominal protector. He was at the height of his power 
 when Roger, his youngest brother, arrived from Nor- 
 mandy. Roger had set his heart on conquering Sicily 
 from the Greeks and Saracens. He invaded it with 
 only sixty followers, but Robert came over to his help, 
 when assured that the enterprise would be successfuL 
 When that was certain, the pope put forth a bull not 
 only investing Roger and his heirs with temporal 
 sovereignty over Sicily, but making them in that island 
 hereditary legates of the Holy See. 
 
 Robert Guiscard was not succeeded by Bohemund, 
 his eldest son (whose mother he had divorced), but by 
 a younger son, named Roger, on whose death the 
 great Roger, conqueror of Sicily, became heir to the 
 kingdom of Naples and was father of a long line ot 
 kings of the Two Sicilies. That model of all 
 knighthood, Tancred the Crusader, was nephew to 
 Robert Guiscard on the mother's side, and grandson 
 of Tancred de Hauteville, the founder of his family. 
 
 Henry V. the unnatural son, whose cause Pope 
 Pascal had espoused, turned against the priests after 
 he had received the golden crown. For sixteen years 
 he made war against the church to maintain the rights 
 of secular sovereigns. 
 
 The war of the investitures, which lasted sixty 
 
94 The Italian Republics 
 
 years, brought with it a long train of woes and ruin, 
 but it made the people of Italy more patriotic, so far 
 as each man's love for his own city was concerned; it 
 taught men how to fight, and it trained them to self- 
 government. It also broke up the feudal system. 
 Nobles were compelled to leave their castles part of 
 the year to become burghers, and to reside in their 
 own cities. They also formed the cavalry in the army 
 of citizens. 
 
 The inhabitants of Pisa and Genoa, hardy mariners 
 accustomed to fight pirates and Saracens in their pur- 
 suit of commerce, attacked the Mohammedans in Sar- 
 dinia and the Balearic Isles. Venice, Pisa, and Genoa 
 had more vessels on the Mediterranean than all 
 Christendom besides. They seconded the crusaders 
 with enthusiasm. The A'enetians assert that in 1099 
 they sent two hundred vessels to aid the First Crusade. 
 The Pisans sent out their archbishop, with an escort 
 of one hundred and twenty vessels; the Genoese could 
 send only twenty-eight galleys and six other vessels, 
 but all were animated with the crusading spirit. 
 
 In A. D. mi, Henry V. entered Italy with a large 
 army, but failing in his attempt to intimidate Pope 
 Pascal II., he proceeded to make him prisoner. After 
 defeating the Romans in a battle outside their walls, 
 where the waters of the Tiber ran blood in conse- 
 quence of the carnage, he brought the pope to terms, 
 and received the golden crown. But the solemn 
 reconciliation of the church to the empire did not 
 last, the war was renewed, the emperor entered Rome 
 in triumph, and the pope sought refuge in Apulia. 
 At length the princes and people of Germany, weary 
 
Free Cities — Frederick Barbarossa 95 
 
 of such strife, besought Henry to offer terms of peace. 
 A diet was held at Worms in 1122, which put an end 
 to the dispute concerning investiture. Henry gave 
 up his pretensions to invest bishops by the ring and 
 crozier (symbols of ecclesiastical authority), and the 
 pope conceded him the right to invest them as tem- 
 poral princes, by giving them the scepter. 
 
 Henry died at Utrecht two years later. He had 
 married Matilda, daughter of Henry II., of England, 
 but it was a childless marriage. A contest rose in 
 Germany for the imperial succession. On the death 
 of Conrad III., the crown was offered to Frederick 
 Barbarossa, duke of Swabia, A. D. 1152. He was 
 connected with both the rival factions in Germany, 
 the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, and his elevation 
 gave general satisfaction. There have been two Bar- 
 barossas (or Red Beards) in the history of modern 
 Europe, one the emperor, the other a celebrated pirate 
 in the fifteenth century. 
 
 When Frederick Barbarossa had somewhat composed 
 the disturbances in Germany, he marched into Italy, 
 determined to punish the free city of Milan, which 
 had boldly asserted its independence. He marched 
 his army, with no base of supplies, expecting food, 
 forage, and lodging for his troops according to dues 
 owed by his vassals to their feudal lord. Milan agreed 
 to furnish these things, but the march of the Ger- 
 mans through Milanese territory being delayed by 
 heavy rains, they found themselves one night without 
 rations; and the soldiers avenged themselves on the 
 rural inhabitants by pillaging and burning their vil- 
 lages. 
 
96 The Italian Republics 
 
 Postponing the punishment of Milan for a time, 
 Frederick marched to Rome. The pope at that day 
 was Adrian IV. — Nicholas Breakspear, the only Eng- 
 lishman ever promoted to the papal chair. He was of 
 peasant birth, and had been a mendicant for some 
 years, when a convent received him, educated him, and 
 his great talents and strength of character did the 
 rest. He had been much annoyed by the preaching 
 of a young monk, a pupil of Abelard, called Arnold of 
 Brescia, whose addresses had stirred the people of 
 Rome into sympathy with Milan, and a desire to make 
 Rome also a free city. Frederick and his army, when 
 they reached Rome, did not enter the gates of the 
 city. They encamped beyond the Tiber in what is 
 called the Leonine City, a suburb which surrounds the 
 Vatican. There Frederick was crowned by the pope, 
 while his soldiers were fighting the Roman populace, 
 who crowded over the bridge of San Angelo to disturb 
 the ceremony. This consisted not only of bestowing 
 the crown, but Pope Adrian insisted that in the char- 
 acter of his vassal the emperor should kiss his feet, 
 hold his stirrup, and lead his horse. Frederick had 
 great difficulty in bringing himself to accept these 
 terms, but when all was over, being anxious to pro- 
 pitiate the pontiff, he gave up to him Arnold of Bres- 
 cia, who had fallen into his hands. Arnold was tried 
 for heresy — not what is usually known by that name, 
 but for "political heresy." He was hanged, and his 
 body was burned opposite the gate of the castle of 
 St. Angelo. 
 
 After this Frederick marched back to Lombardy. 
 His troops had suffered much from sickness and fa- 
 
Free Cities — Frederick Barbarossa 97 
 
 tigue, and many had deserted him. The attack upon 
 Milan was postponed, but the city was put under the 
 ban of the empire, and all the lands of the surround- 
 ing territory laid waste. His soldiers mowed down 
 the corn, destroyed all prospect of a harvest, cut down 
 the vine-stocks, and barked the fruit trees. The 
 Milanese saw clearly that they must perish, but if they 
 did it would be for the honor and liberty of Italy. 
 They were resolved to leave a good example to their 
 countrymen, and to future generations. 
 
 For six months Crema, a small city in Milanese 
 territory, otherwise little known to history, defended 
 itself with extraordinary bravery. At length famine 
 forced it to capitulate, and the heroic inhabitants 
 evacuated their city, abandoning their wealth to pil- 
 lage and their houses to the flames. 
 
 But this kind of tedious warfare wore out the pa- 
 tience of the German soldiers, who claimed that they 
 had completed their terms of feudal service, and the 
 army of Frederick melted away. The emperor, how- 
 ever, determined to remain in Italy and trust to the 
 fidelity of his Ghibelline soldiers until a new army 
 should arrive from Germany to his aid. In the sum- 
 mer of 1 161 these fresh troops joined him, the new 
 recruits being far more ferocious than their more ex- 
 perienced predecessors. It was three years since 
 Milan had been placed under the ban of the empire, 
 and its heroic inhabitants who had been under arms 
 all that time were at length forced by an accidental 
 hre, which destroyed their magazines of grain, to sur- 
 render at discretior. Frederick was not cruel, accord- 
 ing to the standard of cruelty in his time. He spared 
 
98 The Italian Republics 
 
 their lives, but required tliat every living being should 
 quit the city; then he summoned all the Ghibelline 
 soldiers from the neighboring cities and gave them 
 orders to raze to the earth the houses as well as the 
 walls of the town. The more wealthy inhabitants 
 sought hospitality in neighboring cities, where their 
 sufferings, their sacrifices, and their valor made prose- 
 lytes to the cause of liberty. That cause, too, was 
 strengthened by general indignation at the system of 
 government established by the emperor. The foreign 
 podestas, whom he made rulers in every city, excited 
 widespread hostility by their injustice and exactions. 
 Taxes were augmented sixfold. The Italians, whether 
 Guelph or Ghibelline, were reduced to a state of suf- 
 fering and humiliation. 
 
 A new pope had to be elected in 1 159 ; the church's 
 candidate was Alexander III., the people's candidate 
 Victor III. The emperor favored Victor. Almost all 
 Christendom, however, declared for Alexander. A 
 new city was built in Lombardy and called Alexan- 
 dria, while the emperor desired it should bear the 
 name of Caesaria in his honor. 
 
 In 1 1 63 Frederick came back to Italy, accompanied 
 not by an army, but by a brilliant train of German 
 nobles. He took up his residence at Lodi, where he 
 assembled a diet, and promised the Lombards to 
 redress their grievances. He wanted to separate their 
 cause from that of the pope and his ally, the Norman 
 king in Southern Italy. 
 
 In July, 1 167, Frederick again marched on Rome. 
 Meantime, Italian feeling brought about a union of 
 the Guelphs and Ghibellines. They formed a con- 
 
Free Cities — Frederick Barbarossa 99 
 
 federation, which was called the League of Lombardy. 
 The consuls of the cities took an oath, and the citi- 
 zens afterward repeated it, that every Lombard should 
 unite for the recovery of their common liberty, that 
 the league should be in force for twenty years, and 
 that the cities entering into it should aid each other 
 in repairing any damage sustained in the cause of lib- 
 erty. In consequence of this the cities of the league 
 prepared to rebuild Milan. Bergamo, Brescia, Cremona, 
 Mantua, Verona, and Treviso sent their contingents. 
 
 After the rebuilding of Milan, Venice, Placentia, 
 Parma, and Modena voluntarily joined the League of 
 Lombardy. 
 
 For some years after his expedition to Rome, which 
 proved unsuccessful, Frederick himself did not reenter 
 Italy, but he sent a certain archbishop named Christian, 
 arch-chancellor of the empire, as his representative. 
 The first effort of this ecclesiastic was to establish 
 peace between Pisa and Genoa, rivals for the com- 
 merce of the East. The Pisans being unwilling to 
 adopt his views, he threw their consuls into a dun- 
 geon, and did the same with the consuls of Florence, 
 promising the nobles of other towns in Tuscany, Ro- 
 magna, and Umbria to revenge them on their enemies 
 if they would first cooperate in crushing the enemies 
 of the emperor. By this he meant assisting him in the 
 subjugation of Ancona. For ages the citizens of that 
 beautiful town, favored by their situation, had repulsed 
 the attacks of the barbarians, and maintained their 
 independence. 
 
 The archbishop, with an army of Ghibellines, laid 
 siege to it, and hunger proved his ally. But great as 
 
 L..fC. 
 
lOO The Italian Republics 
 
 was the distress of the inhabitants of Ancona, they 
 disdained to capitulate. The Guelphs of Ferrara and 
 the Romagna sent them assistance, and the archbishop, 
 seeing their succors about to arrive, gave up the siege 
 and retreated. 
 
 After an absence of seven years Frederick, with an 
 army, again entered Italy. The new city of Alexan- 
 dria, called after the pope, but which the Germans, in 
 derision, called a city of straw walls, was so gallantly 
 defended by its citizens that it held out four months 
 against the power of the emperor, and on Easter day, 
 1 1 75, Frederick, with his troops, discouraged and ex- 
 hausted, marched back to Pavia. 
 
 This last check disheartened the emperor. He was 
 ready to negotiate. His enemies all expressed an 
 ardent desire to reconcile the prerogatives of the em- 
 peror and the rights of the Roman Church, with those 
 of liberty. But the pretensions of Frederick could not 
 be reconciled with more of the cities, which demanded 
 independence. The negotiations were broken off, and 
 in the spring of 1176 war was resumed. Frederick, 
 indignant at the recovered prestige and power of 
 Milan, marched into Milanese territory; there he en- 
 countered the Milanese army fifteen miles from Milan. 
 An impetuous charge of the German cavalry made the 
 Lombards give away, but in their army there was a 
 company of nine hundred young men from Milan, who 
 had devoted themselves to the defense of their city, 
 and called themselves the Company of Death. Seeing 
 that the carroccio was in danger, they all knelt down 
 for a moment, invoking the protection of God and the 
 patron saint of their city, then, rising, they advanced 
 
Free Cities — Frederick Barbarossa loi 
 
 with such impetuosity that the Germans were pressed 
 back. Their whole army was put to flight, and the 
 emperor and his knights were compelled to seek safety 
 by hiding. For some days Frederick was reported 
 dead, and he reached Pavia to find his wife mourning 
 for him. 
 
 This defeat at Lugano determined Frederick seri- 
 ously to seek for peace. Negotiations were opened at 
 Venice, and finally signed at Constance, June 25, 1183. 
 The negotiations bore upon three different points: i, 
 the reconciliation of the emperor with the church, thus 
 closing the schism; 2, peace between the emperor of 
 the East, the emperor of the West, and the king of 
 the Two Sicilies; 3, reconciliation of the cities that 
 joined the League of Lombardy with those that had 
 refused to join it. 
 
 By this treaty of Constance the emperor acknowl- 
 edged the right of the confederated cities to levy 
 armies, to enclose themselves with walls, and within 
 their own limits to exercise civil and criminal juris- 
 diction Consuls acquired the same power as if they 
 had been the emperor's lieutenants, and the cities of 
 Lombardy were further authorized to extend their 
 confederation. They in return agreed to maintain the 
 just rights of the emperor, defined by the treaty, but 
 to avoid disputes it was stipulated that these rights 
 might at any time be bought off by an annual payment 
 of two thousand marks of silver. 
 
 "Thus terminated," says Sismondi, "in the estab- 
 lishment of a legal liberty the first and most noble 
 struggle which the nations of modern Europe have 
 ever maintained against despotism." 
 
I02 The Italian Republics 
 
 SUMMARY AND QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 
 
 Free cities; Milan, Archbishop Haribert, the carroccio and 
 the commune. Protection or oppression of smaller communi- 
 ties by the larger cities. Milan allied to the church; Pavia to 
 the emperor; Guelphs and Ghibellines. The kingdom of the 
 Two Sicilies ; Roger the Conqueror, Tancred the Crusader. 
 Pisa and Genoa attack the Mohammedans in Sardinia and in 
 the Balearic Isles. Venice sends 200 vessels on the First Cru- 
 sade in logg. Henry V. and diet at Worms, 1122. The em- 
 peror retains temporal sovereignty, the pope ecclesiastical 
 authority. Effects of the long War of Investitures, feudal 
 system broken up, cities trained in self-government. Frederick 
 Barbarossa, 11 52, Pope Adrian IV. (Nicholas Breakspear), and 
 Arnold of Brescia. Frederick's long struggle with the Guelph 
 cities. The League of Lombardy. The Peace of Constance, 
 1 183; rights of the cities secured. 
 
 I. What was the nature of Italian patriotism in the eleventh 
 century? 2. What kind of self-government did the free cities 
 enjoy? 3. Of what importance was the car?'occio? 4. What 
 did Milan owe to Archbishop Haribert? 5. What was the 
 attitude of the strong cities toward their weak neighbors? 6. 
 How did the terms Guelph and Ghibelline arise? 7. Describe 
 the conquest of Sicily. 8= How did the wars between pope 
 and emperor affect the people of Northern Italy? 9. What 
 part did Italy play in the crusades? 10= How was the quarrel 
 over investitures finally settled? 11. Who was Frederick 
 Barbarossa? 12. Describe the events attending his coronation 
 at Rome. 13. What was the siege of Crema? 14. Describe 
 the overthrow of Milan. 15. What Wd,s the League of Lom- 
 bardy and what its object? 16. What efforts did Archbishop 
 Christian make to subdue the Lombard cities? 17. What 
 battle finally brought Frederick to terms? 18. What rights did 
 the cities secure by the Treaty of Constance? 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 M Oder 71 Europe. Russell. 
 
 Roba di Roma. W. W. Story. 
 
 Castle St. Ajige/o. W. W. Story. 
 
 Rulers of the South. F. Marion Crawford. 
 
 Cities of Southern Italy and Sicily. Hare. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 EFFECTS OF THE PEACE OF CONSTANCE — DEATH 
 OF FREDERICK BARBAROSSA — ST. FRANCIS OF 
 ASSISI — FREDERICK II. — TUMULTS AND DIS- 
 ORDERS IN THE CITIES 
 
 As a result of the Peace of Constance, the Italian 
 cities grew proud of their new position. They became 
 confederates of the emperor, whose recent concessions 
 had not failed to make him popular. And it is due to 
 the princes of his house to say that for sixty-seven 
 years after the Peace of Constance they made no 
 attempt to infringe its conditions. 
 
 Yet it was not long before the cities, though they 
 fought no longer for independence, fought fiercely in 
 the dispute between theemperors and pontiffs ; affection 
 for the church or loyalty to the emperor continuing to 
 influence men's minds for more than half a century. 
 The popes had no wish to be reduced to the position 
 of first bishops of the church of Rome, which would 
 speedily have been the case, if the suzerainty of the 
 kingdom of the Two Sicilies had passed over to the 
 emperor; for this end Frederick had married Henry, 
 his son and heir, whom he had already crowned king 
 in Germany, to Constance, a Norman princess, sole 
 heiress of the house of Robert Guiscard. 
 
 When news reached Europe that Saladin had taken 
 Jerusalem, in October, 1187, all Christendom was 
 
 103 
 
I04 The Italian Republics 
 
 struck with consternation, and Frederick Barbarossa 
 placed himself at the head of the Third Crusade for the 
 liberation of the Holy Land. 
 
 This was the crusade made memorable by the chiv- 
 alrous deeds of Richard Coeur de Lion. When Fred- 
 erick took the cross his example was followed by his 
 younger son, Frederick of Swabia, and by many of the 
 most distinguished German nobles, and ecclesiastics, 
 as well as laymen. Their rendezvous was at Ratis- 
 bon, and to prevent the misfortunes which had befallen 
 previous crusaders, Frederick decreed that no man 
 should take the cross who could not afford to spend 
 three marks of silver. In spite of this precaution, his 
 army swelled to one hundred and fifty thousand fighting 
 men, well armed and well provided with necessaries. 
 
 Before leaving Europe, Frederick made a progress 
 through the chief cities of his dominions, accompanied 
 by Henry, his eldest son. Then selecting thirty thou- 
 sand of his best men, he marched by way of Vienna 
 into Hungary, and was there joined by the rest of his 
 army. The Greek emperor, Isaac Angelus, was found 
 to be by no means friendly, he was more favorable to 
 Saladin than to the crusaders. Frederick attacked a 
 body of his Greek subjects who attempted to take him 
 by surprise, and laid the surrounding country under 
 contribution. Having wintered at Adrianople he 
 crossed the Hellespont in the spring of 1190, fought 
 several battles with the infidels in Asia Minor, and 
 filled the followers of Mahomet with terror. He 
 seemed to be among the soldiers of the cross what 
 Saladin was among his people — an able politician and 
 a good general often much tried by fortune. 
 
Effects of the Peace of Constance 105 
 
 When nearly seventy years of age he met his death, 
 in June, 11 90, by plunging into the cold river Cydnus 
 in order to refresh himself after a sultry day's march 
 in the height of summer. A stroke of apoplexy seized 
 him as he came out of the water, and his immense 
 army made no figure in the crusade after it lost its 
 leader. 
 
 But German tradition thinks that Frederick Barba- 
 rossa is not yet dead, that he is only sleeping until 
 some great catastrophe menaces the empire, when he 
 shall be called to life again and rescue Germany. He 
 sits within a hill near Salzburg, say the peasants, their 
 fancy excited by strange noises in the heart of the 
 mountains. A peasant, once stumbling into his place 
 of burial, saw him seated at a marble table, leaning on 
 his elbow, apparently but half asleep; in the course 
 of centuries his beard had grown through the stone 
 itself and streamed out upon the floor. He looked at 
 the peasant, asked him what time it was, and then 
 closed his eyes again in sleep. It was not his hour to 
 awake just then. 
 
 Henry VI., his son and successor, received the 
 news of his father's death almost at the time he learned 
 that of his father-in-law, and thus was led to consider 
 himself at once emperor of Germany, king of Lom- 
 bardy, and by right of his wife, king of the Two Sici- 
 lies. He marched into the latter country and distin- 
 guished himself by his cruelties. But his career was 
 short. He died suddenly in 1197, leaving an infant 
 son, whose mother, Constance, died a year later. 
 
 The child, Frederick II., was placed under the pro- 
 tection of the pope, and acknowledged king of the 
 
io6 The Italian Republics 
 
 Two Sicilies. He was crowned king of Germany at 
 Aix-la-Chapelle with great magnificence in 1215, after 
 humbling his rival, Otho, who in his turn, during his 
 minority, had usurped the empire. 
 
 But before we enter on an account of his reign, or 
 take up the struggle that began between the burghers 
 and the nobles of Italy, we will turn aside from wars 
 and tumults to relate the history of a man born in 
 T1S2, who was destined to exert a mighty influence 
 on Christianity. 
 
 His name was Francisco Bernadone. We know him 
 as St. Francis of Assisi. Pietro Bernadone, his 
 father, lived in that beautiful Umbrian city through 
 all the disturbed period of Italian history of which we 
 have been treating.* He was a prosperous cloth-mer- 
 chant who kept a shop in his own city, but traveled 
 with his goods to neighboring countries. On one of 
 his journeys he met and married Pica, a young girl of 
 noble origin in Provence. Pietro Bernadone may be 
 taken as a type of the well-to-do tradesman and bur- 
 gher of his times. He had engrafted on the rough 
 faults of the plebeian the smoother defects of the 
 parvenu. He adored pomp and pretension; he was 
 eager for gain; not much given to courtesy; and at 
 times he could give way to fits of brutal anger. On 
 the other hand, he was active and energetic, not sloth- 
 ful in business, and he did his duty as it was under- 
 stood by his class in his community. 
 
 In his disputes with his oldest son (who by no 
 means turned out as he had hoped) we see that he 
 
 'This account of St. Francis is abridged from an interesting article in 
 the Revue des Deux Mojtdes, by Arvede Barine, translated for the Living 
 Age, May 21, 1892. 
 
Effects of the Peace of Constance 107 
 
 never objected to the lad's schemes for going to the 
 wars, or for social advancement, but he did his best 
 to hinder him from following out his tendency to 
 mysticism, from developing in short into what in 
 the eyes of a burgher of those days was a "ne'er do 
 well.'' 
 
 It was not thought unreasonable in those days that 
 young men should comport themselves like unbroken 
 colts, and Francisco Bernadone's conduct was of that 
 description, but it is only just to say that for his follies 
 every one in his city admired him. He was always 
 "so lovable," said one of his biographers. 
 
 Francisco's schooling did not amount to anything. 
 He was a bad scholar, nor did he remain long at 
 school, his father wanted him to measure cloth, and 
 cared nothing for his studies. The young man applied 
 himself steadily to business, and soon become a favor- 
 ite with his father's customers. Meantime he was ac- 
 quiring much knowledge that was wholly unknown to 
 the priests of San Giorgio, who had had charge of his 
 education. His mind had received an impress from 
 Provencal poetry, that nothing in after life ever effaced, 
 and he also had Nature for his teacher; long as he 
 lived he loved her with unvarying affection, above all 
 he desired that the very humblest of God's creatures, 
 plant, insect, or bird, should enjoy its share of earthly 
 happiness so far as it was capable of doing. 
 
 This did not prevent him in early youth from assist- 
 ing in an attempt made by the citizens of Assisi to get 
 rid of a certain German count whom the emperor, 
 Frederick II., had imposed on them as their ruler. 
 
 At that period of Francisco's life he was a warlike 
 
io8 The Italian Republics 
 
 stripling, impatient for adventure, for conquest, and 
 for glory — above all for knighthood, which, although 
 he was not of noble birth, he made up his mind he 
 could and would attain. 
 
 One of the nobles of Assisi gave out that he was 
 about to start on an expedition of adventure, in which, 
 according to the piratical ideas of that day, he pro- 
 posed to win either wealth or glory. Francisco, with 
 his father's consent, offered to join his company, and 
 started with it from Assisi. But very soon he was laid 
 low by malarial fever, during which he fancied he 
 heard a voice calling to him to return to Assisi. He 
 did so, and soon found himself selling rich wares in his 
 father's shop to his father's astonished customers, who 
 had fancied him on his way to win knighthood, if not 
 a princedom. 
 
 There is not space here to tell the history of his 
 conversion. He believed himself to be entrusted with 
 a mission to restore poverty to a place of honor, and 
 make her cease to be a shame, though she might never 
 cease to be considered a misfortune. His preaching 
 seems to have amounted to this: that the sadness and 
 the hopelessness of Christendom proceeded from two 
 causes. He preached that life had been misunder- 
 stood — and so had heaven. Men's mistake as to this 
 life had been desire to possess things that are worth- 
 less, such as riches, honors, vanities, and superfluities, 
 instead of eagerly desiring that treasure beyond all 
 price which can be found by all who seek for it — the 
 treasure of true liberty! He realized that only a God 
 of love could meet the needs of a world made bitter 
 by suffering. It was necessary that men should under- 
 
Effects of the Peace of Constance 109 
 
 stand as a first step to liberty of soul, that the foolish- 
 ness of the Gospel is true wisdom. 
 
 Vaguely from the time when, proud of his prancing 
 steed and his glittering panoply of war, Francisco had 
 set forth from Assisi to win knighthood, and had been 
 turned back by a voice from heaven, he began to ap- 
 prehend the causes of the mass of grief he saw around 
 him. The groans of those who seemed without hope 
 had always troubled him. He now saw that many 
 sorrowed because the words of the merciful Jesus had 
 been falsified for ages by those whose interest it was 
 to misinterpret the Gospel rather than submit to its 
 restraints. The tender friend of sinners, the man 
 poor but divine, who had not where to lay his head, 
 had in the popular faith given place to a being pom- 
 pous and severe, whose crown was not of thorns but 
 of gold, who spoke to his people only by the mouths" of 
 high ecclesiastics who ranked with counts and barons. 
 Primitive Christianity had fallen into discredit, and 
 the proud system that had taken its place was power- 
 less to offer consolation to the miserable. The moment 
 Francisco perceived this was the turning point of his 
 life. 
 
 He was not the first man in Italy who had sus- 
 pected the origin of the evil. For more than" two 
 hundred years protesting voices had been heard from 
 obscure haunts of the indigent, and from humble 
 monasteries; nay remonstrances had sounded occa- 
 sionally from the pulpit. 
 
 There had been always, even in evil times, poor 
 priests and monks full of charity and kindness, whose 
 souls were stirred when they saw an abbot who com- 
 
no The Italian Republics 
 
 ported himself like a robber baron, or a bishop engaged 
 in factious strife, and their indignation increased when 
 they turned their eyes upon the Roman hierarchy, and 
 saw how the popes, with some noble exceptions, set 
 the lower clergy an example of violence and iniquity. 
 The popular conscience rebelled against such things, 
 and all around Francisco could hear murmurs of- male- 
 diction which only wanted occasion to break into 
 revolt — a revolt which occurred later in the Refor- 
 mation. 
 
 The evils of the times which shocked good men 
 were lamentable, yet one does not well see how in 
 those days they could have been avoided — how the 
 popes could have remained faithful to the traditions 
 of primitive Christianity, and have preserved intact 
 their evangelistic virtue in the centuries that followed 
 the irruption into Rome of the barbarians, when the 
 head of the church was exposed like any other man to 
 the danger of being carried off by ruffians or murdered 
 by a rival. In the western world in those days no 
 place was more infested by robbers than Rome itself, 
 no population was more brutal than the Roman people. 
 The Holy City, whether with or without a pope, would 
 have been the lair of greedy cut-throats and of evil- 
 doers, but the presence of the pontiff increased the 
 disorder. The city became the rendezvous of foreign 
 conquerors and successful soldiers of fortune. The 
 holy father lived in the midst of plots and disturb- 
 ances, and could not even say a mass in security. 
 
 From A. D. 897 to A. D. 985 (less than a century) 
 one pope had been poisoned, two had been strangled, 
 and four had died under suspicious circumstances in 
 
Effects of the Peace of Constance 1 1 1 
 
 prison. Toward the end of the eleventh century, 
 Gregory the Great, having ventured to attack certain 
 great men guilty of simony, was carried off one Christ- 
 mas night from the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore. 
 In 1118 Gelasius II. was assaulted with stones and 
 arrows while saying mass in another church in Rome. 
 A state of things like this was unendurable, and there- 
 fore it came to pass that the papacy shut up the Gos- 
 pel, and learned to prize before all things wealth, 
 which would buy power and men-at-arms. 
 
 The doors of the temple were once more opened to 
 traffic. The pope trafficked himself, and sold every- 
 thing that men would buy, ecclesiastical dignities, 
 spiritual immunities, temporal sovereignty, things 
 sacred and things profane, without much concern as 
 to who would be the buyer, provided only he would 
 pay for what was sold him. 
 
 What was to be expected then took place. Nobles 
 bought bishoprics for men unworthy, or dowered their 
 daughters by the sale of abbeys; great families com- 
 bined to place some man selected from their own 
 houses on the pontifical throne, hoping thus to secure 
 for themselves the hen that would lay for them eggs 
 of gold. 
 
 Under this system the weak could expect no help, 
 the suffering found no pity. Saint Francis founded 
 an order that aimed to help them both; but it never 
 occurred to him to suggest a reformation outside of 
 the church — he never doubted the power of the church 
 to work out her reformation from within. 
 
 St. Francis and the twelve converts who first adhered 
 to him, had no idea that they were going to found a 
 
112 The Italian Republics 
 
 religious order. The little band that joined the 
 preacher intended only to do as he had done, embrace 
 poverty and bear a message of peace and good will to 
 all who would hear them. 
 
 They went forth two and two, preaching repentance 
 and the remission of sins. Happy was the brother 
 who had St. Francis for a comrade on a journey. As 
 they walked he was continually discovering interesting 
 and beautiful things along the road, and he talked of 
 them so eagerly that his fellow-traveler would be at 
 last persuaded that to dine on a crust under a tree was 
 great enjoyment. The gaiety of St. Francis on these 
 journeys was charming. It was one of his sayings 
 that the devil has small chance with a man who is in 
 good spirits, while the man who bemoans himself, who 
 is sour and sad, runs great risk from the arch enemy. 
 
 At length, as the number of his followers increased, 
 St. Francis saw the necessity of drawing up some sim- 
 ple rules to govern them, and decided to submit these 
 rules to the pope. He left Assisi with his eleven dis- 
 ciples and was astonished at the ease with which his 
 object was accomplished. He met the bishop of Assisi 
 on the way, who conducted him to the pope, then 
 Innocent III., who saw at once what important serv- 
 ices might be rendered to the church by the proposed 
 order of Mendicant Friars. 
 
 The brethren and their leader returned joyfully to 
 the little hut that they inhabited at Postioncule near 
 Assisi. Their numbers increased rapidly. The talk 
 of St. Francis was like a strain of poetry. He taught 
 his friars to love and admire nature. He taught them 
 sympathy with birds and brutes. He loved God with 
 
Effects of the Peace of Constance 1 13 
 
 a child-like adoration which had its influence even 
 upon commonplace people and inspired them with 
 heroism. 
 
 About three years after their organization, he said 
 to his disciples: "Let us go forth in the Lord's name 
 and preach the Gospel." The rules he gave them 
 were: Never 1o sit in judgment upon any man; to be 
 invariably respectful to the clergy whether rich or 
 poor, good or bad ; to preach everywiiere peace and 
 good will; to love God and to love each other. 
 
 New convents of these Minorite Friars, as they were 
 called, sprang up in all directions. There were soon 
 thousands of the brethren who had never seen St. 
 Francis, and had never learned from him how to be 
 gentle and generous without impairing their author- 
 ity. As his friars swarmed over Italy, St. Francis 
 grew alarmed at their numbers, and was heard to say, 
 "One meets too many of them." 
 
 Their most powerful friend and patron was Cardinal 
 Ugolino, who became Pope Gregory IX., in 12 16. 
 He gave them a few lessons in worldly wisdom, and 
 also wrote letters to the higher clergy in foreign coun- 
 tries that under their protection preachers of the new 
 order might do their work. Soon "the sect of St. 
 Francis" was spread over all Europe. 
 
 Women joined the order under Santa Clara of 
 Assisi, who by the direction of St. Francis, founded 
 the sisterhood of Saint Claire. 
 
 At length a third order was established, an order of 
 laymen. INIembers might lead their ordinary lives. 
 They were not vowed to celibacy, or bound for life, 
 but they pledged themselves not to bear arms, except 
 
114 The Italian Republics 
 
 in defense of the church, of the faith of Jesus Christ, 
 or of their country, unless by permission of their 
 superiors. This struck a heavy blow at the power of 
 the nobles, which was founded on the service in war 
 of their vassals. The third order was instituted in 
 1222, and six years later began a great struggle in 
 Italy against the feudal system. 
 
 St. Francis undertook the work of a missionary in 
 the latter part of his life, and went to Egypt to con- 
 vert the sultan, while the crusaders were besieging 
 Damietta. He effected no conversion, but the sultan 
 was so delighted with him that he offered him great 
 possessions if he would remain at his court. The 
 saint and his companion were persecuted to accept all 
 manner of favors, but this was the only persecution 
 they endured. 
 
 The last years of the noble saint's life were clouded 
 by the insubordination of some of his followers. When 
 in bad health he endured a fast of forty days on Mount 
 Alverno, and soon after coming down to his convent 
 he died, broken in spirit, for he felt that however great 
 was his popularity among the people, the cause he had 
 at heart had been betrayed. Finding his death hour 
 approaching, he asked those around him to sing his 
 o^-n beautiful "Hymn of the Creation" — a sort of 
 adaptation of the Benedicte; a flock of birds, as he 
 was dying, were chirping on the roof over his head. 
 He died in 1226, but no man knows at this day where 
 he was buried. As his funeral procession was on its 
 way to the mausoleum made ready to receive his corpse, 
 it was assaulted by archers, and in the tumult the 
 coffin disappeared. 
 
Effects of the Peace of Constance 115 
 
 But wherever his remains may rest, the work was 
 great that he accomplished. It was not all the work 
 that he expected to achieve, but he left an impress on 
 all forms of intellectual life in Italy. His "Hymn of 
 the Creation" was the first poem in the language of his 
 country. His friars, by his direction, preached in the 
 vulgar tongue. Dante was inspired by his example 
 to write his great poem in Italian, after he had com- 
 posed many cantos in Latin, and thus Italian literature 
 received its first impulse from St. Francis. Science 
 even profited by his thoughts, though he conceived 
 himself to be an ignorant man. He pointed out the 
 universal harmony which pervades God's creation, 
 and this idea inspired Duns Scotus, of the University 
 of Paris, to commence a revolution in metaphysics 
 which subsequently extended to all sciences. But the 
 highest glory of St. Francis lies in this, that he found 
 the world unhappy, and that he left it less sad. 
 
 Yet out of his noble work sprang some of the deep- 
 est sorrows and worst sufferings that darken the pages 
 of modern history. Inspired by his example, St. 
 Dominic, at Toulouse, in 1226, established an order 
 of preaching friars to attack and confound heresy, and 
 thence arose the holy office, the terrible institution of 
 the Inquisition. 
 
 The contest of the free cities with the emperor to 
 gain their independence having been brought to a 
 conclusion by the Peace of Constance, there was com- 
 parative peace in Italy for fifteen years, during which 
 the new republics (or communes) increased in power 
 and prosperity; and then began a terrible struggle 
 between the nobles and the burghers. The nobles felt 
 
ii6 The Italian Republics 
 
 the change made in their position when the emperor 
 abandoned his contest with the cities. They, in some 
 measure, no longer had a country, their only security 
 was in their own strength, for the Emperor Frederick, 
 while authorizing the organization of cities, had not 
 thought of giving organization to nobles dispersed in 
 ca'stles. Nearly all the great families, during a cen- 
 tury of warfare, had become extinct. While the cities 
 of Lombardy were subject to the emperor, its marches 
 or frontier were guarded by marquises, under whom 
 were counts, etc., according to the feudal system. 
 Of these powerful and princely marquises only four 
 remained, the Marquis d'Este on the Veronese 
 border, and three others in Piedmont. But their 
 feudal power had ceased to exist. Their attachment 
 was solely to the faction which was supported by their 
 family. Some were Guelphs for the popes; some 
 Ghibellines for the emperor. Those who felt them- 
 selves secure in their strong castles, possessing still 
 vassals and wealth, were for the most part, attached 
 to the Ghibelline party. Those who lived on acces- 
 sible eminences, upon plains, or near great towns, with 
 which they were too weak to support a contest, entered 
 into alliance with their citizen neighbors. They de- 
 manded to be made citizens, and very soon they took 
 a large share in the administration of the towns that 
 had accepted them. As war was their sole occupa- 
 tion, they and their followers were welcomed in the 
 republics which stood in need of experienced soldiers. 
 Before long they rose to consideration, and thence to 
 power. But if these nobles displayed more talent for 
 war and politics than plebeian burghers, they showed 
 
Effects of the Peace of Constance 117 
 
 far less subordination to the laws. They built palaces 
 in the cities which they fortified like castles, from 
 which bands of bravos might emerge at any moment 
 to rob or murder citizens who chanced to be accounted 
 enemies by their master. 
 
 The power of the consuls proved insufficient to sup- 
 press such disorders, and before long all the cities 
 revived the institution of \.\i^ podestas^ which owed its 
 origin to Frederick Barbarossa. Th^podesta was chosen 
 every year. He was an official who was at once a 
 military commander and a judge. Some counselors 
 were associated with him, and his government was 
 called the signoria. The system was soon adopted in 
 all the leading cities, and as it was supposed that any 
 citizens promoted to ht podesta^ would be influenced by 
 family or party ties, it was the custom to choose some 
 knight who was either an independent nobleman, or 
 belonged to some other city. But he rarely escaped 
 participation in the deep hatred raging between 
 Guelphs and Ghibellines. And as authority in those 
 times was always exercised with violence and cruelty, 
 and injustice accompanied the enforcement of law, the 
 citizens almost universally conceived great hatred for 
 the nobles who were accused of having introduced 
 disorder within their walls. 
 
 Pope Innocent III. was a Roman noble, and was 
 only thirty-seven years of age when he was raised to 
 the papal chair by his reputation for sanctity and 
 learning. But though he never seemed to desire 
 power for himself, the power of the church he served 
 was of supreme importance in his eyes. He founded 
 the order of Dominicans or Black Friars, and sent 
 
ii8 The Italian Republics 
 
 them forth to preach against heresy. He confided 
 to them in the country of the Albigenses the power 
 of the Inquisition, though the holy office at that time 
 had not been so fully organized as it was a century 
 later. 
 
 But while Innocent III. aimed to increase the 
 authority of the church over the sovereigns of Europe, 
 he permitted the Romans under his own eye to estab- 
 lish a republican municipal government. Rome, like 
 the other Italian republics, soon had a foreign mili- 
 tary chief, chosen for one year, and assisted by civil 
 judges, dependent on himself. He bore the name of 
 seiiator instead oi podesta. 
 
 Pisa, at this time, had become a very powerful city. 
 It had sixty-four castles or fortified towns on the coast 
 of Tuscany. It was a strictly Ghibelline city. The 
 emperors had conferred upon it Corsica, Elba and 
 other islands which it wrested from the Saracens. 
 
 Florence was of the Guelph party; it was attached 
 to the pope, whoever occupied the papal chair, and it 
 invariably opposed the emperor. Many illustrious 
 Ghibelline families, however, lived in Florence, ap- 
 parently on good terms with their Guelph neighbors, 
 when on an unhappy day in 1215 an affront offered to 
 a daughter of the Donati in Florence by a Guelph 
 nobleman, to whom she had been promised in mar- 
 riage, and who broke off the engagement, stirred up the 
 Ghibelline families who were numerous in the city. 
 The young man was killed as he was crossing the 
 Ponte Vecchio. Forty-two families of the Guelph 
 party met, and swore that blood must atone for blood. 
 Every day some new murder or some new fight dis- 
 
Effects of the Peace of Constance 1 19 
 
 turbed the peace of Florence, and this feud lasted 
 during the space of thirty-three years. 
 
 Frederick II., grandson of Barbarossa, and king of 
 the Two Sicilies, was crowned emperor in 1220. The 
 young king then set himself to restore order in his 
 hereditary dominions. He was thoroughly Italian, 
 born in Italy, and the Italian language was his native 
 tongue, though he also spoke fluently Latin, German, 
 French, Greek, and Arabic. He had a taste for phi- 
 losophy, and was independent in his opinions. He \vas 
 believed to be the author of an infidel book, but 
 although this was never proved against him, he was 
 known to be opposed to much that was held sacred by 
 strict adherents to the Roman Catholic form of 
 Christianity. He married Yolande, daughter of Guy 
 de Lusignan, titular king of Jerusalem, and went sub- 
 sequently to the Holy Land, where he recovered Jeru- 
 salem by treaty, not by force. 
 
 It was at this time that the spirit of reformation 
 that had manifested itself among the Albigenses spread 
 throughout Europe. Those whom we might call Puri- 
 tans in the church, disgusted with the corruption of 
 the clergy or revolted by the violence and disorder 
 that raged around them, renounced all ambition and 
 the pleasures of the world and devoted themselves to 
 a life of contemplation and holiness. They called 
 themselves cathari^ or the purified ; paie?'ini^ or the re- 
 signed, though possibly the name implied that they 
 put their trust in the fatherhood of God. The free 
 cities endeavored for a time to protect them from the 
 Dominicans armed with the powers of the Inquisition, 
 but Gregory IX. threatened to cast them off as allies 
 
I20 The Italian Republics 
 
 of the church if they continued to show indulgence to 
 those whom the head of the church had denounoid as 
 its enemies. jNIany of the /^//vV// were therefore burned 
 in Milan, and numbers also suffered in other cities of 
 Lombardy. 
 
 The most powerful ally of Freaerick II. in Italy was 
 Eccelino, a chief who was the same age as himself. 
 He was popular in the north of Lombardy, where he 
 had strong castles and commanded many soldiers. 
 The inhabitants of Verona were induced by Frederick 
 to name him captain of the people in their city, but 
 his cruelty and rapacity soon made his name odious 
 in every part of Italy. 
 
 Frederick had a number of Saracen troops in his 
 pay, drawn from colonies cf Saracens who had settled 
 in his kingdom of Naples. A body of these men he 
 left in Verona under the command of Eccelino, to- 
 gether with a body of German soldiers to overrun the 
 other cities of Lombardy. Eccelino used his author- 
 ity with the utmost ferocity, and at length being joined 
 by Frederick, who brought a reinforcement of ten thou- 
 sand Saracens, a great battle was fought with the 
 people of Milan. The citizen soldiers fought bravely, 
 but their valor was no match for the experience and 
 discipline of Frederick's trained forces. In the battle, 
 which is known as that of Cortenuova, the Guelphs 
 were defeated and the remnant of their army was only 
 saved from utter rout by Pagano della Torre, a moun- 
 tain chief who, as they fled through his defiles, pro- 
 tected them by his castles. 
 
 It is of little use to enter minutely into military 
 movements at this period in Northern Italy. It seems 
 
Effects of the Peace of Constance 121 
 
 better to say merely that the pope became greatly 
 alarmed when he found the States of the Church 
 hemmed in between Lombardy and Tuscany, under 
 Frederick in the north, and in the south, Naples, his 
 hereditary possession. He endeavored to obtain sup- 
 port from the two maritime republics, Genoa and 
 Venice, which had hitherto kept aloof from Italian 
 politics. But the enthusiasm and vehemence of Pope 
 Gregory roused them. He promised his supporters 
 that the emperor should be excommunicated and de- 
 posed by an ecumenical council, which he convoked 
 not in Italy but at Lyons, placing himself under the 
 protection of St. Louis of France. The council de- 
 clared that for Frederick's iniquities God had rejected 
 him, and all his subjects, under threat of excommuni- 
 cation, were forbidden to obey him; and after this, 
 now old and broken in health, he was in constant fear 
 of assassination. His lieutenant, Eccelino, daily com- 
 mitted new crimes, and the obloquy of his atrocities 
 fell upon the emperor. 
 
 Frederick's attempt to subdue Florence, still dis- 
 tracted by the feud between the families of Guelph 
 nobles and the Ghibellines, resulted disastrously for 
 that city. The republic was supposed to lean toward 
 the Guelph party. Frederick wrote to the Uberti, chiefs 
 of the Ghibelline faction, orders to assemble secretly 
 in their palace on the night of Candlemas, 1248, all 
 the Ghibelline leaders; while his son, the king of 
 Antioch, should present himself at the gates and 
 assist in expelling the Guelphs from the city. This 
 was done, thirty-six palaces belonging to illustrious 
 Guelph families were demolished, and then the fierce 
 
122 The Italian Republics 
 
 soldiers of Frederick, over-running Tuscany, compelled 
 the Guelphs in other cities to follow the example of 
 those in Florence. Frederick's relation to the church 
 and to the Crusades added to the elements of friction 
 in his distracted life, and the later months of his ca- 
 reer were devoted to restoring order in the kingdom of 
 the Two Sicilies. In December, 1250, he died, in the 
 fifty-sixth year of his age, forty of which he had spent 
 in almost uninterrupted strife. 
 
 SUMMARY AND QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 
 
 Frederick Barbarossa and the crusade; his tragic death, 
 1 190. St= Francis of Assisi. His home surroundings. De- 
 moralization of the church. His conversion. The mendicant 
 friars, Order of Santa Clara, order of laymen. Influence on 
 Europe. His death, 1226. His influence upon Italian litera- 
 ture and science. St. Dominic (1226) and the Dominicans; 
 Innocent II L; heresy and the Inquisition; struggles between 
 nobles and citizens; the podestas. Spirit of the Reformation; 
 " cathari " and " paterini " burned in Milan and other cities by 
 order of the Inquisition. Frederick II. crowned Emperor of 
 Rome and King of the Two Sicilies, 1220. Wars with the 
 cities; his lieutenant Eccelino. Gregory IX. convokes an 
 ecumenical council at Lyons and excommunicates Frederick. 
 Gregory dies, and Frederick, with the Ghibelline faction in 
 Florence, drives the Guelph families from the city; other Tus- 
 can cities also suffer. Proposed crusade with St. Louis of 
 France, but dies 1250. 
 
 I, How did the emperor ally himself with the Kingdom of 
 the Two Sicilies? 2. Describe his crusading expedition. 3. 
 What tragic fate awaited him? 4. Of what myth is he now 
 the central figure? 5. Describe the home surroundings of 
 Francis of Assisi. 6. In what stirring events was he concerned 
 as a young man? 7. What was the nature of his conversion? 
 8, Hpwbad the church fallen into disrepute among the people? 
 
Effects of the Peace of Constance 123 
 
 9. What protests had been made against these conditions? 
 
 10. How had tlie barbarism of the times been felt by the 
 church? II. What was the result? 12. How did St. Francis 
 begin his work of reform? 13. Describe the growth of the 
 order. 14. What adverse influences did it meet? 15. Describe 
 the close of the life of St. Francis. 16. How did his work 
 influence Italian literature? 17. How did the nobles fare as 
 the free cities grew in importance? 18. What was a /(?(f<?^/a .? 
 iQ. How did the nobles become objects of distrust to the citi- 
 zens of a city? 20. What two orders of friars did Pope Inno- 
 cent III. encourage? How did their work differ? 21. How 
 did Rome compare with other Italian cities at this time? 22. 
 How did Frederick II. increase his power in Lombardy? 
 23. How did he incur the enmity of the pope? 24. How did 
 he succeed in humbling Florence? 25. What help at different 
 times did he try to secure from St. Louis of France? 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Giotto. Harry Quilter. (Biographies of Artists.) 
 St. Francis of Assist. Mrs. Oliphant. 
 Cities of Southern Italy and Sicily, Hare. 
 The Holy Roman Empire. Bryce- 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 MANFRED — CONRADIX — ECCELIXO 
 
 Frederick's son. Conrad IV.. who succeeded him as 
 king of Germany, felt himself too weak to continue 
 the conflict between emperor and pope in Italy. 
 
 It was now the middle of the thirteenth century. 
 The three hundred years had done little to civilize 
 central Europe, and we know very little about the 
 social conditions that prevailed there; something 
 we know of victories and defeats, of quarrels with the 
 church, and of changes of dynasty, but what concerned 
 the plebeians of Europe in those days was not con- 
 sidered worthy of history. During these three centu- 
 ries, however, from the invasion of Otho the Great in 
 951 to the death of Frederick 11. , 1250, the towns of 
 Italy had prodigiously advanced in wealth, intelli- 
 gence, energ}-, and independence. From 1150 to 11 83 
 they fought to obtain the Peace of Constance ; from 
 1 183 to 1250 they preser^'ed the privileges they had so 
 gloriously acquired ; now we are to see how they lost 
 their liberty. The Ghibellines, thinking only of at- 
 tachment to a family that had given them so many 
 great sovereigns, and wishing to own a more central 
 authority ruling a united Italy, were ready to ven- 
 ture their all in the cause of the emperor; the 
 Guelphs, alarmed for the independence of the 
 church and for the liberty of their towns, placed 
 
 124 
 
Manfred — Conradin — Eccellno 125 
 
 themselves on all points in opposition to the imperial 
 power. 
 
 By 1 3 10 the cities of the League of Lombardy had 
 reached the summit of their power when Henry VII., 
 of Germany, invaded Italy after an interregnum of 
 sixty years. The republican cities, each one of them 
 a prey to the spirit of faction, had submitted them- 
 selves to the military power of nobles, to whom they 
 entrusted the command of their militia, and thus one 
 after another they lost their liberty. 
 
 Conrad died three years after his accession, leav- 
 ing a young son, known in history as Conradin, whose 
 story is a tragedy. Manfred, a natural son of Fred- 
 erick II., was a young man of great promise, who set 
 his heart on recovering the kingdom of the Two Sici- 
 lies, which Innocent IV. had invaded, and in his own 
 person preserving it for descendants of the Norman 
 race. The Saracens settled in the country, stanchly 
 stood by Manfred in opposition to the pope, and for 
 some time it appeared as if under so energetic and 
 popular a leader, the Ghibelline party was likely to 
 prevail. The suffrages of the electors in Germany 
 were divided after Conrad's death between two 
 princes. The claims of the infant Conradin were set 
 aside, half the electors voted for Richard, duke of 
 Cornwall, an English prince, son of Henry III., 
 the other half voted for a Spaniard, Alphonso of 
 Castile. Neither of these candidates had ever been in 
 Germany. 
 
 Pope Innocent IV. was in France when he heard of 
 the death of his enemy, Frederick II. He gave bound- 
 less expression to his joy, and hastened back to Italy, 
 
126 The Italian Republics 
 
 where he entered Milan with great pomp, as if he had 
 returned in triumph. That city had just confided to 
 its podesta the power to levy new taxes; for long wars 
 had exhausted its treasury, and when the citizens 
 found themselves treated by the pope with great arro- 
 gance, threatened with excommunication for some 
 supposed infringement of papal power, and were called 
 on to spend money in his behalf, they became indig- 
 nant. The Guelph spirit in their city was weakened 
 from that hour. 
 
 We of the twentieth century have to lament the 
 struggles that took place in Rome during the thir- 
 teenth, which was a period of faction and fighting in 
 the history of the Eternal City, for its classical monu- 
 ments, arches, gates, and tombs suffered greatly in 
 these disorders. They were turned into fortresses, 
 where fighting men, belonging to the great houses, 
 entrenched themselves. The streets seethed with 
 perpetual tumult; the people were terribly oppressed 
 by the nobles ; these issuing from their strongholds, 
 pillaged shops and houses, seized upon any persons 
 whom they might meet, exacting large ransoms from 
 them, braving the authority of the senate, and laugh- 
 ing at the ineffectual rage of the people. 
 
 In 1253 the Romans, wearied with these disorders, 
 called upon Brancaleone d'Andolo, of Bologna, him- 
 self a noble, to become senator to take command of 
 their militia, to put an end to these outrages, and, as 
 justice in those days meant violence and summary 
 punishment, Brancaleone proved worthy of the trust 
 imposed in him. He stormed the strongholds of the 
 nobles, massacred their bravos, hung many men of 
 
Manfred — Conradin — Eccelino 127 
 
 high birth from the windows of their palaces, and 
 razed to the ground the towers they had built as super- 
 structures on the tombs and arches they had converted 
 into fortresses. The pope, to be out of the way while 
 this reign of terror was doing its work, retired to 
 Assisi, but Brancaleone sent him word that he must 
 come back, for it was not decent for the head of 
 the church to be wandering like a vagabond. He 
 added that if he did not obey this message, he would 
 send his soldiers to Assisi and burn him out of the 
 town. Saint Francis happily was dead, or what might 
 have been his feelings! 
 
 One by one the cities learned that when order could 
 only be maintained by the iron hand, the iron hand 
 would soon crush liberty. The only city in Italy in 
 those days that seemed to value justice more than 
 peace, and the security of the citizen more than the 
 punishment of the guilty, was Florence. When, how- 
 ever, the Ghibelline nobles expelled the Guelphs in the 
 last year of the reign of Frederick II., these men began 
 to imitate the example set them by nobles in other 
 cities, but their powder soon became insupportable to 
 the proud, intelligent, and wealthy citizens of Flor- 
 ence, amongst whom were such men as Brunetto Latini 
 and Guido Cavalcanti, whom Dante celebrates for the 
 simplicity of their manners, the sobriety of their 
 habits, and their bodily strength. 
 
 The citizens of Florence, under the leadership of 
 such men, made an almost bloodless insurrection, 
 established a tribunal in which twelve magistrates, 
 under the podesta^ sat as judges, attacked and demol- 
 ished the towers which served as the refuo^e for the 
 
128 The Italian Republics 
 
 nobles, and thenceforward made all men equally 
 amenable to the common laws. 
 
 Shortly after this, when news was received of Fred- 
 erick's death, the Guelphs who had been expelled from 
 Florence by his order, were recalled. But Florence, 
 though at peace within her walls, soon engaged in 
 other warfare. The year 1254 is called in her history, 
 "the year of victories," but it better deserves remem- 
 brance as being the year in which Florentine citizens 
 refused to profit by an act of treachery, and restored 
 to their enemies the citadel of Arezzo. Florence 
 alone coined honest money. All other sovereigns, 
 cities, and republics tampered with the currency. 
 
 A conspiracy of Ghibellines in 1258 endangered the 
 liberties of Florence, and they were expelled from the 
 city. They took refuge at Sienna. Their most es- 
 teemed leader was Farinata degli Uberti, whom Dante 
 says he met afterward in the circle of the inferno 
 reserved for heretics. Farinata had been an epicu- 
 rean, who having no belief in another world, was de- 
 termined to enjoy himself in this. But the Dominicans 
 and the Inquisition took no notice of his opinions. 
 
 After his expulsion from Florence, he joined Man- 
 fred, who had established himself on the throne of 
 the Two Sicilies, and persuaded him that it was 
 necessary for the security of his kingdom to secure 
 Tuscany, and to assume the leadership of the Ghibel- 
 line party. 
 
 By intrigue Farinata contrived that the sigiioria of 
 Florence should send their soldiers to surprise Sienna, 
 but he took care that Sienna should be fully prepared 
 to receive them. The battle of Monte Aperto took 
 
Manfred — Conradin — Eccelino 129 
 
 place September 4, 1260. It was the Guelphs who 
 were surprised by an attack from Farinata. They 
 were in much stronger force than the Ghibellines, but 
 the latter had reason to expect that a large band of 
 German troops who served in the Florentine army 
 would desert when the battle began. Then Bocca 
 degli Abbati, placing himself at the head of the trai- 
 tors, suddenly seized from the carroccio the great stand- 
 ard of the republic and threw it to the ground. The 
 Guelphs were panic-stricken and fled. It is said that 
 they left ten thousand men dead upon the field. Dante 
 met Bocca degli Abbati afterward in the lowest hell, 
 where traitors met their punishment. But he deals 
 far more gently with Farinata, who when the Siennese, 
 after the battle, wanted to demolish Florence, opposed 
 them with all his eloquence. He protested that he 
 loved his country far better than his party; and that 
 he would with those same companions in arms, whose 
 bravery they had witnessed in the battle of Monte 
 Aperto, join the Guelphs and fight for them sooner 
 than consent to the ruin of what was in the world 
 most dear to him. 
 
 Eccelino was now the leading man of the Ghibel- 
 line party, and as such the leading man in Lombardy. 
 The republics of Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Feltre, and 
 Belluno made him their captain, but his authority 
 soon became a frightful tyranny ; any one whomi he sus- 
 pected was thrown into prison, and there, by the most 
 excruciating tortures, made to make confessions of 
 crimes, real or imaginary, that might justify the tyrant 
 for his treatment. 
 
 We need not recount all the horrors historv records 
 
130 The Italian Republics 
 
 of the administration of Eccelino. He died at last, 
 when at a critical moment, his ancient associates 
 deserted him, being disgusted with his crimes. 
 
 The defeat of this man was the last great effort 
 made by the Lombards against the establishment of 
 tyrannies in these cities. It became the custom to 
 confide absolute power to a single person. The nobles 
 had acquired new power by learning to fight on horse- 
 back, and in armor. This obliged the citizens to enlist 
 roving adventurers, called bands of free companions 
 to be a match for the satellites of the nobles, who were 
 bravos to whom they gave shelter in their palaces, 
 and who took advantage of any tumult to plunder the 
 shops and houses of the citizens. 
 
 As the podesta was general-in-chief of all the forces 
 in a city, as well as chief judge, his power was absolute 
 and became dangerous to liberty. In Milan, Pagano 
 della Torre was made captain of the people, and four 
 of his family succeeded him; among them was one 
 called Napoleone. But the pope, growing jealous of 
 the family of Della Torre, appointed a Visconti to be 
 archbishop of Milan, who, after some years, procured 
 the appointment of one of his own family as head of 
 the state. Mantua chose the Count de Bonifazio as 
 its general and judge. Verona chose Mastino della 
 Scala, Ferrara the Marquis d'Este, and so on in other 
 cities. These nobles so firmly established their power 
 that it at length came to be considered hereditary in 
 their families. 
 
 The Guelph party, since the offense given by Inno- 
 cent IV. to his adherents in Milan, had become weaker. 
 The party of the Ghibellines was all-powerful in North- 
 
Manfred — Conradln — Eccelino 131 
 
 ern Italy, and Manfred, who called himself king of 
 Apulia, seemed on the point of making the whole pen- 
 insula a united monarchy. 
 
 In 1 26 1 a Frenchman was elected pope and took 
 the name of Urban IV. He proposed to offer the 
 crown of Sicily to a prince capable of defending the 
 patrimony of the church and Southern Italy from 
 the encroachments of Manfred. That prince was 
 Charles of Anjou, the brother of Saint Louis of France. 
 Charles had already signalized himself in war. He was, 
 like his brother, a faithful believer, fanatical in his 
 opposition to the enemies of the church. He accepted 
 the offer of the pope, and his wife, Beatrice of Pro- 
 vence, was so eager to be queen of the Two Sicilies, 
 (for that kingdom was the prize for which Manfred, 
 the leader of the Ghibellines, and Charles, leader of 
 the Guelphs, were to contend), that she pawned her 
 jewels to assist in levying an army of thirty thousand 
 men, whom she led herself through Lombardy. 
 
 Charles is described by Villani, a contemporary his- 
 torian, as "wise and prudent, valiant in arms, but 
 rough, and much feared and redoubted by all kings in 
 the world; magnanimous, and of a high spirit; stead- 
 fast in carrying on every great enterprise; firm in 
 every adversity and true in every promise, speaking 
 little and doing much. He laughed but seldom, was 
 chaste as a monk. Catholic, harsh in judgment, and of 
 a fierce countenance; large and muscular in person, 
 with an olive complexion, and a large nose. He sat 
 up late at night, and was in the habit of saying that 
 much time was lost in sleeping. He was generous to 
 his knights, but eager to acquire land, lordship, and 
 
132 The Italian Republics 
 
 money wheiever he could, to furnish means for his 
 wars and enterprises." 
 
 Having gone to Rome with one thousand knights 
 by sea, he made his entry into it in May, 1265; the 
 year and the month of Dante's birth. 
 
 Charles was at once invested with the kingdom of 
 Sicily, and made senator of Rome. It was stipulated, 
 how^ever, that the crown of Sicily should never be 
 united to that of the empire, or to the sovereignty of 
 Lombardy and Tuscany. In 1266 Charles, having 
 entered the kingdom of Naples, fought a battle near 
 Benevento. The cause of Manfred was bravely sup- 
 ported by his German and Saracen troops, but the 
 Neapolitans fled at once from the field, and the gal- 
 lant Manfred perished. 
 
 Malespina, in his history, tells thus of his death 
 and burial: 
 
 "Being left with but few followers he behaved like 
 a valiant gentleman who preferred to die in battle 
 rather than escape with shame. And putting on his 
 helmet, which had on it a silver eagle for a crest, the 
 eagle fell on the saddle-bow before him. Seeing this 
 he was greatly disturbed, and said in Latin, to the 
 barons who were near him: 'This is a sign from God, 
 for this crest I fastened on with my own hands in such 
 a way that it could not fall.' Yet he was not discour- 
 aged, but took heart and went into the battle like any 
 other baron without the royal insignia. It lasted a 
 short time, for his forces were already in flight; they 
 were routed, and Manfred was slain in the middle of 
 the enemy." 
 
 Search was made for his body. For three days it 
 
Manfred — Conradin — Eccelino 133 
 
 was not found. Then one of his own camp-followers 
 discovered it, flung it across an ass, and entered Bene- 
 vento, crying: "Who will buy Manfred!" For this 
 a French noble beat him with a cane. Deep was the 
 grief of the barons who had been taken prisoners when 
 they were called on to identify the body, and the 
 French and Bretons in King Charles's army besought 
 him that the corpse might have honorable burial. "I 
 would do it willingly," said Charles, ''were he not 
 excommunicated." So his grave was made close to 
 the bridge of Benevento, and every soldier in the 
 French army threw a stone on it. 
 
 So long as he lived, his kingdom, notwithstanding 
 the wars he waged with the church, rose greatly in 
 wealth and prosperity, and in power, both by sea and 
 land. 
 
 The French proceeded to restore order in the king- 
 dom of Naples, which meant, in their hands, extermi- 
 nation and pillage. 
 
 The victory at Benevento restored the Guelph party 
 in Italy. The nobles who were captains of the people 
 in the great cities, went openly over to the pope's 
 party. But while the burghers of Florence changed 
 their party, they safeguarded their civic liberties, they 
 increased the power of their various councils, from 
 which they excluded the nobles and Ghibellines, and 
 they gave the corporations of trade, into which all the 
 industrial population of the city was divided, a direct 
 share in the government. 
 
 It was about the end of the year 1267, ten months 
 after the defeat of Manfred, that Conradin (son of 
 Conrad and grandson of Frederick II.) arrived at Ver- 
 
134 The Italian Republics 
 
 ona, with ten thousand cavalry. The Ghibelline aris- 
 tocracy, which had fought for his grandfather and 
 uncle, hastened to join his standard; so did the repub- 
 lics of Pisa and Sienna, always in opposition to the 
 Florentines. The Romans who were dissatisfied with 
 Pope Martin for having changed his residence to 
 Viterbo, opened their gates to Conradin, but gave him 
 little aid in withstanding the French. 
 
 The young prince (only sixteen) met Charles of 
 Anjou, the usurper of his hereditary kingdom, in Au- 
 gust, 1268; a desperate battle was fought in which 
 Charles of Anjou came off victorious. Conradin, who 
 had been confident of victory, escaped, and was about 
 to embark for Sicily when he was taken prisoner. He 
 was brought to Charles, who, without pity for his 
 youth, esteem for his courage, or respect for his 
 hereditary rights, exacted from the iniquitous judges 
 before whom he subjected him to the mockery of 
 atrial, a sentence of death. Conradin was beheaded 
 in the market-place of Naples on the 26th of October, 
 1268, and an uninterrupted series of executions long 
 continued to fill the Two Sicilies with dismay and 
 horror. 
 
 Pope Clement IV. died one month after the execu- 
 tion of Conradin. Germany had been many years 
 without an emperor, and after the death of Clement, 
 the papal chair remained unoccupied for thirty-three 
 months, during which time Charles of Anjou remained 
 head of the Guelph party, ruling over the whole of 
 Italy, which had neither pope nor emperor. At length 
 Pope Gregory X., a Visconti, induced the electors of 
 Germany to choose another emperor. Their choice 
 
Manfred — Conradin — Eccelino 135 
 
 fell on Rudolph of Hapsburg, ancestor of the present 
 ruler of Austria-Hungary. 
 
 In 1277 a new pope, Nicholas III., forced Charles 
 of Anjou to renounce his title of imperial vicar as well 
 as those of other offices and obliged the new Emperor 
 Rudolph to give up all pretensions to suzerainty in the 
 States of the Church, since which time until the Italian 
 revolution in 1859, those states have been under the 
 pope as their temporal ruler. 
 
 At this time Otho Visconti, the archbishop of 
 Milan, who had been driven from that city by Napo- 
 leone della Torre, came back with many nobles and 
 Ghibellines. Napoleone was surprised and taken 
 prisoner by the archbishop, who was received back by 
 Milan with enthusiasm, and thenceforward the city 
 and its surrounding territory became no more than a 
 principality governed always by a Visconti and recog- 
 nized in Europe as a sovereign state. 
 
 Nicholas III. was actively engaged in reconciling 
 Guelphs to Ghibellines, and Ghibellines to Guelphs, 
 w^hen he died suddenly after having been pope only 
 three years. 
 
 Charles, now king of the Two Sicilies, not only 
 exerted influence but force to procure the election of 
 a pontiff favorable to himself. He succeeded in that 
 by carrying off three cardinals from the conclave and 
 striking terror into the rest, who elected a Frenchman, 
 a native of Tours. He took the name of Martin, in 
 compliment to the patron saint of that city. 
 
 Martin IV. labored to give the prince who patron- 
 ized him the sovereignty of Italy. He reinstated him 
 in all the posts of dignity and honor from which Greg- 
 
136 The Italian Republics 
 
 ory X. had deposed him, and he encouraged him to 
 make war on the Greek emperor, and take possession of 
 towns in Italy. The son of the last Latin emperor 
 of Constantinople, whose dominions had been wrested 
 from him in 1261, had married a daughter of Charles 
 of Anjou. 
 
 Great preparations were being made for this expe- 
 dition when an outbreak took place in Sicily, which 
 upset all the plans of Charles, and threw him into such 
 a rage that he swore that if he could live a thousand 
 years he would never cease razing the cities of Sicily, 
 burning its lands, and torturing his rebellious subjects. 
 He would leave Sicily, he said, "a blasted, barren, 
 uninhabited rock, as a warning to the present age, an 
 example to the future." 
 
 John of Procida the friend, confidant and physician 
 of Frederick II. and of Manfred, heartsick at the cruel- 
 ties of the French, had made his way to Sicily in 
 disguise, and did his best to stir up a rebellion among 
 the inhabitants. It probably did not take the form he 
 would have wished, but he prepared men's minds for 
 what was coming. 
 
 On March 30, 1282, a bride was on her way to the 
 church of Montreal in Palermo to be married. She 
 was leaning on the arm of her bridegroom when one 
 of the French garrison came up and insisted on search- 
 ing her person, claiming that she might have concealed 
 weapons. This outrage roused not only her relatives 
 but the whole population of Palermo. The bells were 
 ringing for vespers, when a shout arose: "To arms! 
 death to the French." The French soldiers, taken 
 by surprise, were at once overmastered by the exas- 
 
Manfred — Conradin — Eccellno 137 
 
 perated Sicilians. Some tried to escape by passing 
 themselves off as Italians, when at once they were 
 ordered to pronounce two words : ^m and ciceri. In all 
 cases their mispronunciation betrayed them, and they 
 were instantly massacred. In a few hours more than 
 four thousand French were slain. Every town in Sic- 
 ily followed the example of Palermo, and thus the 
 Sicilian Vespers overthrew the tyranny of Charles of 
 Anjou, and of the Guelph party, separated the king- 
 dom of Sicily from that of Naples, and transferred the 
 crown of the former to Don Pedro of Aragon, the son- 
 in-law of Manfred, whose wife was considered the 
 heiress to the house of Hohenstaufen, whose claims 
 to these kingdoms came through the Normans. 
 
 SUMMARY AND QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 
 
 The cities of Italy increased in weahh and power from 951; 
 fought to secure Peace of Constance, 1150-1183; preserved 
 their privileges until 1250, then fell under the power of the 
 nobles. Reign of terror at Rome in 1253. Florence secures 
 justice to her citizens. The treason of Farinata degli Uberti. 
 Fall of Eccelino; the nobles increase in power. Charles of 
 Anjou becomes king of the -Two Sicilies. Death of Manfred at 
 Benvenuto. Death of Conradin. No pope, no emperor. Popes 
 Gregory X. and Nicholas III. humble Charles. The States of 
 the Church separated from the Empire. The French Pope 
 Martin IV., a tool of Charles. The Sicilian Vespers, 1282. 
 Don Pedro of Aragon, King of Sicily. 
 
 I. How were the efforts of Pope Innocent IV. to secure the 
 Two Sicilies frustrated? 2. How did he weaken his cause 
 with Milan? 3. What reign of terror took place in Rome in 
 1253? 4. How did the affairs of Florence contrast with those 
 of other cities at this time? 5. In what Ghibelline conspiracy 
 was Farinata degli Uberti concerned? 6. Describe the battle 
 
The Italian Republics 
 
 of Monte Aperto. 7. How was Florence saved from destruc- 
 tion? 8. Give an account of the decline and fall of Eccelino's 
 power, g. Show how the nobles gradually strengthened their 
 hold on the cities. 10. How did French influence come into 
 Italy with Pope Urban IV. in 1261? 11. Describe the over- 
 throw of Manfred at Benvenuto. 12. How did this aflfect the 
 Guelph party in Italy? 13. What did the Florentines do to 
 safeguard their liberties? 14. What was the fate of young 
 Conradin? 15. How was Italy ruled during her thirty-three 
 months without pope or emperor? 16. How did Pope Nicholas 
 III, hold in check both Charles of Naples and Rudolph of 
 Hapsburg? 17. In what way was Pope Martin IV. the t<jol of 
 Charles of An jou? 18. What were the "Sicilian Vespers?" 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Italy: Rome and Xaples. Taine. 
 Makers of Florence. Mrs. Oliphani. 
 Italy : Florence and Venice. Taine. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 ROME AND RIENZI — FLORENCE AND DANTE 
 
 That from this time the history of Italy becomes 
 still more incohesive and difficult to relate is the com- 
 plaint of all historians. 
 
 Charles of Anjou lived only two years after the 
 Sicilian Vespers. He died in the winter of 1285 not 
 seventy years old. Besides his fury against the Sicil- 
 ians for the massacre of all the French in that island, 
 soldiers, priests, laymen, women, and children, his 
 last years were embittered by the captivity of his son 
 and heir, who was held prisoner by the Sicilians. In 
 1288 an accommodation was brought about by the 
 good offices of Pope Nicholas IV., who drew up a 
 treaty in which Charles II., in consideration of being 
 set at liberty, agreed that the Guelph kingdom of 
 Naples should be given to the house of Anjou, while 
 Sicily, which was Ghibelline, should receive as its 
 sovereign Pedro of Aragon. The two kings swore not 
 to make war upon each other, but Pope Nicholas re- 
 leased Charles from this oath, and authorized him to 
 begin the war anew. It lasted twenty-four years, and 
 occupied the whole reign of Charles II. 
 
 The German emperors during this period ceased 
 
 apparently to take any interest in Italy. Rodolph of 
 
 Hapsburg and his three successors, never visited it. 
 
 The Ghibelline party was transformed from an im- 
 
 139 
 
140 The Italian Republics 
 
 perialist party into a faction of the aristocracy; and 
 relied on the nobles who were acknowledged rulers in 
 the cities, for support, and not upon the emperor. 
 The popes, too, seemed weary of Italian quarrels. 
 Martin IV. died two months after Charles of Anjou, 
 and the popes who succeeded him were chiefly occu- 
 pied by endeavoring to aggrandize the noble families 
 to which they belonged. 
 
 One pope, however, Celestine V., was elected for 
 his piety and his Christian virtues, but these proved 
 unequal to sustain him in the struggles which at that 
 time awaited every man promoted to the papal chair. 
 His chancellor, Cardinal Benedict Caietan, soon con- 
 vinced him of his incapacity, and induced him to 
 resign; after having intrigued to succeed him. He 
 w^as Boniface VIII. Dante assigned him his place in 
 hell while he was still living, and is more bitter against 
 him than against any other sinner mentioned in his 
 poem. Saint Peter, in the Paradiso, utters a terrible 
 invective against him, "which," says the poet, "caused 
 heaven and earth to redden with sympathetic anger." 
 The early English poet, Gower, also calls him "That 
 proud clerk, misleader of the papacy." 
 
 Before he had quite succeeded in frightening Pope 
 Celestine into resignation, he went secretly by night 
 to Charles of Naples, and said to him, "King, thy 
 Pope Celestine had the will and the power to serve thee 
 in thy Sicilian wars, but did not know how, but if thou 
 wilt contrive with thy friends the cardinals, to have 
 me elected pope, I shall know how, and shall have the 
 will and the power. 
 
 This quotation is from Villani, who says afterward, 
 
Rome and Rienzi — Florence and Dante 141 
 
 **He was very lordly and demanded great honor, and 
 knew well how to maintain and advance the cause of 
 the church, and on account of his knowledge and 
 power was much dreaded and feared." 
 
 His inauguration is said to have been the most 
 magnificent show that Rome had seen since the days 
 of the emperors. In his procession from St. Peter's to 
 the Lateran, he rode a splendid white horse nobly 
 caparisoned, and not a humble ass, as was the usual 
 custom. King Charles of Naples held his bridle on 
 one side, the king of Hungary on the other. The 
 great Roman nobles followed in a body. The proces- 
 sion could hardly force its way through the masses of 
 kneeling people. But suddenly a furious storm broke 
 over the city, and extinguished every lamp and torch, 
 leaving all in darkness. 
 
 Boniface began by endeavoring to augment the 
 power of the Guelphs through the aid of France, but 
 he ended by quarrelling bitterly with Philip le Bel. 
 "He was," says Mr. Story, author of Roba di Ronia^ 
 "cruel, avaricious, and tyrannical, and, by means 
 of his lavish indulgences, provoked the reaction 
 which finally led to the Reformation." In his quarrel 
 with Philip le Bel he found himself no match for the 
 French king, who drove him back to Rome a prisoner. 
 Too proud to yield he stood at bay, and menaced his 
 enemies. Contemporary historians draw a piteous 
 picture of him in his extremity, gnawing the top of his 
 staff in his despair. At last unable to endure misfor- 
 tune, in a fit of fury he dashed out his brains against 
 a wall, in 1303. 
 
 His successor, Benedict IX., reigned only eight 
 
14- 
 
 The I-: 
 
 R: 
 
 .»i "^ J_1_L1 
 
 VII. endeaT- 
 
 landed the 
 
 : '2st to be 
 
 r irch of 
 
 r -rUCe 
 
 rr ±re 
 
 :;- :- .: :he 
 r : >nt 
 
 ad- 
 
 Ye: 
 
 But, after the : t . Avig- 
 
 g in Rome that co-iild jastlj be 
 
 C-_ 
 
Rome and Rienzi — Florence and Dante 143 
 
 It was in those days of outbreaks, terror, and con- 
 fusion that Cola di Rienzi, son of an inn-keeper, began 
 to address the populace. He attacked the nobles who 
 were devastating Rome by their quarrels, and roused 
 enthusiasm among the people. His story is a romance, 
 ending in tragedy. When yet a young man he was 
 sent as a deputy to Avignon to beg the pope to return 
 to Rome. His associate in this embassy was the poet 
 Petrarch, but Rienzi seems to have been the spokes- 
 man. Next we find him in the Forum standing on 
 some ancient fragment, and by his eloquence rousing 
 his countrymen to shake off their apathy, cast off the 
 tyrannous rule of the nobles, and restore their country 
 to its ancient glory. The people listened, and the 
 nobles smiled. But Rienzi was eloquent and in ear- 
 nest, and carried his hearers with him. 
 
 On May 20, 1347, when the popes had been forty 
 years in Avignon, he summoned the people of Rome 
 by sound of trumpet to the Church of San Giovanni 
 to pray for the triumph of what he called "the good 
 estate." 
 
 With shouting, and with banners waving, he was 
 escorted by an enthusiastic crowd, which, however, 
 formed into an orderly procession, to the foot of the 
 capitol, where pausing before two ancient basalt lions, 
 he read aloud the constitution he proposed for "the 
 good estate." The people accepted it with acclama- 
 tion, and named him their tribune. 
 
 His first triumph as tribune was over the great 
 Colonna family, to whose chief, Stefano Colonna, he 
 sent an order to leave the city. The prince, furious 
 at his presumption, tore the order to pieces, and 
 
144 The Italian Republics 
 
 vowed he would throw Rienzi from the windows of the 
 capitol. Then the great bell of the capitol rang out, 
 summoning the people to arms. They answered the 
 appeal, and Colonna and other most powerful nobles 
 in Rome were forced to seek safety in flight. 
 
 From the first the rule of Rienzi was distinguished 
 by justice, energy, and decision of purpose. Peace 
 was again secured, authority established, law resumed, 
 and liberty seemed about to be restored. But few 
 men can bear the sudden acquisition of supreme 
 power. Rienzi's head was turned by it. He assumed 
 the pomp and state of a long-descended sovereign. 
 The follies he committed through his love ^of show, 
 and his desire for distinction, were worthy of some 
 semi-insane emperor of Rome or Russia. 
 
 He was made a knight with great pomp and cere- 
 monial, and after hearing mass was endowed by the 
 syndic of the city with a sword, girdle, and golden 
 spurs, after which he addressed the people, citing the 
 pope, the emperor, and Charles, king of Sicily, to give 
 reason for any claims they had in Rome. Then, 
 pointing his sword north, south, and east, he cried: 
 "This is mine! this is mine! this is mine!" 
 
 Irritated by a remark made to him by Stefano 
 Colonna, who had returned to Rome, to the effect that 
 more humble garments were befitting a tribune of the 
 people than a regal cloak covered with embroidery 
 and fringed with gold, he conceived the notion that 
 the nobles were about to play him false. He seized 
 the chief men of all the princely families of Rome, and 
 made preparations for their execution, vowing that 
 nothing should induce him to spare their lives; when 
 
Rome and Rienzi — Florence and Dante 145 
 
 suddenly, without reason, he not only released all of 
 them, but promoted some to important charges and 
 offices in the state. 
 
 The nobles after this left Rome, and began in truth 
 to form a conspiracy to overthrow the tribune. They 
 assembled their soldiers, devastated the country 
 around the city, and threatened to march on Rome. 
 Rienzi was no soldier. When Colonna advanced to 
 the city gates he only rang the bells of the capitol, and 
 recounted to the people his dreams, which had been 
 full of good augury. The soldiers without the city 
 hearing the bells ring, and supposing the Romans were 
 preparing to attack them in the streets, were on the 
 point of drawing back, when a young son of Stefano 
 Colonna rode, unopposed, into the city. Finding him- 
 self alone and unsupported, he was turning his horse 
 to rejoin his soldiers, when he was thrown to the 
 ground, and the people, rushing upon him, killed him 
 on the spot. His father and his relatives with the 
 troops that they commanded, rushed in to save or to 
 avenge him. They were repulsed, and the tribune 
 celebrated his triumph so vaingloriously, and with so 
 little decency that he lost the esteem of the people 
 who had hitherto supported him. 
 
 At last when exhorting the populace to rise and 
 expel a certain count, who had set his authority at 
 defiance, he found no response to his eloquent words. 
 Then he cried, passionately: ''After having governed 
 you for seven months, I now renounce my authority!" 
 But not a voice protested. He then retired to the 
 castle of St. Angelo. The nobles returned to Rome. 
 His power had vanished. 
 
146 The Italian Republics 
 
 Rome next fell into a state of anarchy and confu- 
 sion even worse than it had been before Rienzi became 
 head of the government. The people stoned, assaulted, 
 and expelled every noble who attempted to assume the 
 reins of power. 
 
 In 1353 Rienzi, who had been in hiding, protected 
 by the pope's delegate and by some of the Orsini 
 family, returned to Rome and was received with en- 
 thusiasm by the repentant people. But he was no 
 longer a free agent, the legate sought only to make 
 use of him. All things that he attempted went badly, 
 and ill-success is not forgiven by a Latin mob. A 
 sedition broke out in Rome. The people rushed to 
 the capitol with cries of "Death to the traitor Rienzi!" 
 Abandoned by his guards and by nearly all his friends, 
 his courage rose, and he showed his better self again. 
 
 He put on his armor as a knight and stood on a bal- 
 cony praying to be heard, while the populace below 
 howled at him and pelted him. At last they set fire 
 to the woodwork of the capitol, and Rienzi, putting the 
 cloak of a porter over his armor, rushed down the 
 flaming stairs and through the blazing chambers. Just 
 as he reached the open air he was stopped. Then, 
 seeing all was lost, with a flash of his former courage 
 he flung off his disguise and said: "I am the tri- 
 bune!" He was led by his captor into the crowd. 
 At sight of him the mob drew back and became silent. 
 Firmly he walked to the base of the basalt lions, where 
 he had made his first appeal to the people, folded his 
 arms, and looked down on the raging crowd. He was 
 beginning to address the people, when an artisan near 
 him plunged a pike into his heart. Then the cruel 
 
Rome and RIenzi — Florence and Dante 147 
 
 populace fell upon his corpse and in every way mal- 
 treated it. Finally in the Mausoleum of Augustus, the 
 stronghold of the Colonna family, they burned it to 
 ashes. 
 
 We will now turn from Rome to the history of 
 another great city during the same period, premising 
 that the story of the lesser towns, if there were space 
 to tell it here, was invariably of the same pattern: 
 Nobles raised to power, and kept in it by bands of 
 foreign mercenaries taken into their pay; people ex- 
 asperated and turbulent, quarrels between Guelphs 
 and Ghibellines, and between cities who called them- 
 selves Ghibelline or Guelph. Florence, though she 
 went through many of these experiences, preserved 
 her liberty during the fourteenth century, and all the 
 glory of Italy must be looked for in those days within 
 her walls. 
 
 Among all the terrors, tumults, and distractions of 
 those times, everyday life went on with its human feel- 
 ings, human interests, amusements, and anxieties. 
 We have seen something of this in the household of 
 the burgher Pietro Bernadone; we may now catch a 
 glimpse of social life among the nobles of Florence at 
 the same period, through the medium of the loveliest 
 love story that has yet been unfolded to the world. 
 Dante or Durante Alighieri was born in Florence in 
 the month of May, 1265, the year and month in which 
 Charles of Anjou was entering Rome. He came into 
 the world when civic strife was raging in Florence, 
 and it is generally thought that his father, a Guelph 
 nobleman, was at the time of his birth one of tht fuori- 
 usciti ox turned out ojies^ expelled from his city in one 
 
148 The Italian Republics 
 
 of the political changes of that time. Nothing more is 
 heard of him, however, in connection with his son's 
 history, and the only thing we know about his mother 
 is that "she was a woman of a disdainful soul." 
 Dante seems, therefore, to have had no tender influ- 
 ences around him in his early boyhood. He was care- 
 fully educated, however, under the care of Brunetto 
 Latini, an excellent man and learned scholar, who 
 wrote a species of encyclopedia in French about this 
 time. 
 
 On May-day, 1274, when Dante was but nine years 
 old, an entertainment was given in one of the palaces 
 of Florence, to which all the great houses in the city 
 sent their representatives, including their children. 
 We might well desire a glance into those lofty halls 
 and chambers, a glimpse, however brief, into medieval 
 sociability. In the Italian free cities, it is evident, 
 from contemporary memoirs, that young people en- 
 joyed a liberty of social intercourse, not accorded to 
 them elsewhere. In a corner of one room stood the 
 future poet, a boy of dark complexion and very promi- 
 nent features. He was gazing at the groups of Floren- 
 tine maidens, among them, possibly Gemma Donati, 
 his future wife, when his eyes lighted on one peerless 
 o^irl whom he had never seen before. She was eis^ht 
 years and four months old — we know her age exactly — 
 and she was nine months younger than the boy who 
 had quite recently completed his ninth year. From 
 that moment the number nine had for him a peculiar 
 significance. He worked it mysteriously into all his 
 writings; to this day scholars are still discovering the 
 mvstic number in all his verses. As he gazed at her 
 
Rome and Rienzi — Florence and Dante 149 
 
 he felt himself in the presence of a revelation. "The 
 glorious mistress of my soul appeared to me," he 
 tells us, "called Beatrice, even by those who could not 
 know her blessedness, but who felt instinctively that 
 she was blessed. She was dressed in rich colors, crim- 
 son predominating, her garments were modestly made 
 and her ornaments were such as became her tender 
 years and station." We learn elsewhere that her hair 
 was like soft threads of woven sunlight, and her eyes 
 of that hazel which has a tinge of green. She was the 
 daughter of Folco Portinari, and even then it is be- 
 lieved was promised in marriage to Messer Simone dei 
 Bardi. From that moment, child though he was, love 
 took possession of Dante. It flourished in a soil pre- 
 pared for its reception, for Brunetto Latini had culti- 
 vated his imagination and impregnated him with 
 poetry. His boyish admiration was treated with in- 
 dulgence by the young girl's elders. He saw her 
 often, and as he beheld her growing into womanhood 
 with so noble a bearing, so spiritual a beauty, he used 
 to repeat to himself a line from Homer: 
 
 "She seems no daughter of our mortal race, but daughter 
 of the gods." 
 
 He tells us, as Victor Hugo told his fiancee, how 
 thoughts of her kept his heart pure, and he began to 
 write of her in sonnets, beautiful sonnets, which ac- 
 cording to a custom of the times, he published, as it 
 were, by hanging them on the walls of one of the 
 churches. By the time he was a young man he had 
 acquired all the learning Florence could give him, 
 together with the accomplishments of music and paint- 
 ing. 
 
150 The Italian Republics 
 
 He was young when he joined the Florentine army, 
 fought at the battle of Compaldino, and was present 
 at the seige of Caprona, the only warlike events that 
 concerned Florence at that period, for the city was 
 exceptionally peaceable at that time. 
 
 Dante was born a member of a Guelph family. 
 The Guelphs and Ghibellines having become some- 
 what reconciled — since, as already stated, there was 
 no emperor to lead the one party, or pope to excite 
 the other — adopted a quarrel that had broken out in 
 Lucca where the Guelphs were divided into Blacks and 
 Whites — the Neri and the Bianchi. The Whites were 
 liberal Guelphs, the Blacks the old ultra-conservative 
 party. Dante belonged to the Whites, and their quarrel 
 for long years raged as fiercely between the two factions 
 as the old strife between Guelphs and Ghibellines. 
 
 The day came when Beatrice Portinari was married 
 to Messer Simone dei Bardi, No word in Dante's 
 writings gives us to understand that she ever accepted 
 or even appreciated his reverential homage. 
 
 He appears to have been present, as a spectator not 
 a guest, at her marriage feast when his feelings so 
 overcame him that he nearly swooned. A lady sitting 
 by the bride pointed out to her his pale, sad counten- 
 ance, and Dante fancied that he saw her smile. 
 
 The pang in his heart struck deep. He became 
 ill, and some of the most beautiful poems in his New 
 Life (the Vita Nuovd), record the visions that came to 
 him upon his sickbed. But Beatrice did not live 
 long. She died a year after her marriage. Exquis- 
 itely beautiful are the lines in which Dante records how 
 angels bore her to her place in heaven. 
 
Rome and Rienzi — Florence and Dante 151 
 
 Dante married some years after the death of Bea- 
 trice, Gemma, a lady of the proud house of the Donati. 
 She bore him six children, among them a daughter 
 called Beatrice. Some of their descendants are living 
 to this day. 
 
 Up to the time of his marriage, Dante had been a 
 Guelph, but he belonged to the moderate portion of 
 the party — the Whites or Bianchi, while the Donati 
 were Neri, intolerant and violent. A terrible dispute 
 broke out in Florence between these factions, when 
 the Blacks proposed to support the pretentions of 
 Charles of Valois (brother of Philip le Bel). The 
 Whites opposed foreign interference with the govern- 
 ment of their city. Dante, who had been a prominent 
 man in his party, and had been charged with impor- 
 tant offices, was banished with all the other leading 
 Whites by the Blacks, who, assisted by Charles of Valois 
 and his soldiers, pillaged, burned, and massacred in 
 Florence. Both Dante and Petrarch were among the 
 Whites condemned to exile. Dante was at that moment 
 in Rome, 1301 (the year of Jubilee), Avhither he had 
 been sent on a diplomatic mission, and he never again 
 entered Florence, the city of his love. 
 
 After this he openly joined the Ghibellines. His 
 Divina Commedia is written from an anti-papal point 
 of view. "He spent many years," says Leigh Hunt, 
 "wandering over Italy, like some lonely lion of a man, 
 grudging in his great disdain." 
 
 At one moment he was conspiring and hoping, at 
 another despairing and endeavoring to conciliate his 
 beautiful Florence. He humbled himself to entreat 
 the emperor, nobles in power, and even a pope, to 
 
152 The Italian Republics 
 
 plead for his return to his own city. But in vain. 
 He had personal enemies there, possibly the family of 
 the Donati. 
 
 He studied for two years at the Sorbonne in Paris 
 and there is reason to think he there formed the ac- 
 quaintance of Friar Bacon. He was recalled to Italy 
 by the election of Henry of Luxemburg as German 
 emperor, and during the brief life of that young man 
 of great promise, his hopes for his country revived. 
 When at length he did receive the long desired per- 
 mission to return to Florence, coupled with the con- 
 dition of paying a heavy fine and doing public penance 
 in one of the principal churches, he refused, because 
 the way proposed would "derogate from the fame and 
 honor of Dante. " The remainder of his life was spent 
 partly with Can Grande della Scala, at Verona, and 
 partly at Ravenna at the court of the nephew of Fran- 
 cesca di Rimini. 
 
 In 1313 he undertook a diplomatic mission to 
 Venice on behalf of his protector, Guido Malaspina of 
 Ravenna. He failed, and returned home overwhelmed 
 with disappointment. He fell ill on reaching Ravenna, 
 and died there after twenty years of exile (1321) at 
 the age of fifty-seven. 
 
 Guido gave him a magnificent funeral and designed 
 for him a splendid monument, but time failed him to 
 put his project in execution. He himself died in 
 exile. 
 
 In vain the Florentines have endeavored to recover 
 the dust and bones of him they once proposed to burn 
 alive if he ever reentered their city. The people of 
 Ravenna cherish his tomb. 
 
Rome and Rienzi — Florence and Dante 153 
 
 Boccacio has spoken slightingly of his wife, Gemma 
 Donati, but there is no evidence of any kind against 
 her. She may have had a high temper and may pos- 
 sibly have been jealous of her husband's early love. 
 She lived on in Florence during his exile, educating 
 her children and protecting the remnants of her hus- 
 band's property. When she discovered the manuscripts 
 of the first cantos of the Inferno which Dante had 
 written in Latin, and left behind him when he went, 
 in 1301, to Rome, she collected the sheets and sent 
 them to him, though from the Vita Niiova she must 
 have known that his great poem would be in praise of 
 Beatrice. This does not seem like the act of a jealous 
 woman! 
 
 SUMMARY AND QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 
 
 The German emperors remain away from Italy. Pope 
 Celestine V. in contrast with Boniface VIII.; the latter in- 
 trigues with France and is overborne by Philip le Bel. The 
 Babylonian captivity at Avignon, 1309-77. Henry VII. receives 
 the iron crown at Milan; Lombardy revolts; the Romans oppose 
 his coronation. Anarchy in and about Rome. Rienzi, the 
 tribune ; his popularity, his vanity, and his fall. Dante born 1265 ; 
 Beatrice; his share in the wars; a Guelph, one of the Bianchi; 
 banished in 1301; becomes a Ghibelline; studies at the Sor- 
 bonne; lives at Verona and Ravenna; death at Ravenna, 1321. 
 
 I. How did the Ghibelline party change in character after 
 the election of the Hapsburg emperors? 2. What distinction 
 had Pope Celestine V.? 3. Describe the career of Boniface 
 VIII. 4. During what period was the papal court in Avignon? 
 5. How was Henry VII. frustrated in his attempt to be crowned 
 in St. Peter's? 6. What lawless conditions prevailed in and 
 about Rome at this time? 7. How did Rienzi become tribune? 
 8. What efifect did success have upon him? 9. How did he 
 forfeit the esteem of the people? 10. Describe his return to 
 
154 The Italian Republics 
 
 Rome and his final overthrow, ii. What is known of the early 
 life of Dante? 12. Describe his first meeting with Beatrice. 
 13. How did he express his devotion to her? 14. What part 
 did he bear in the wars of his time? 15. With what political 
 party was he associated? 16. Why was he banished? 17. 
 What efforts did he make to return? 18. What became of his 
 family? 19. Where did he spend the later years of his life? 
 
 20. Under what conditions was he allowed to return to Florence? 
 
 21. What were the circumstances of his death? 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Giotto. Harry Ouilter. (Biographies of Artists.) 
 
 Italy: Ro))ie and Xaples. Taine. 
 
 Rienzi: The Last of the Tribwies. Bulwer-Lytton. 
 
 Roba di Roma. W, W. Story. 
 
 Ave Roma l77imortalis. F.Marion Crawford. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE MARITIME REPUBLICS VENICE, GENOA, 
 
 AND PISA 
 
 Venice^ was founded A. D. 421. It owed its ex- 
 istence to the panic produced by the total destruction 
 of Aquileia by the barbarian hordes of Attila, king of 
 the Huns. The inhabitants of the ruined city sought 
 safety in the seventy-two islands formed in the lagoons 
 at the northern part of the Adriatic, and they were 
 there joined by other fugitives from northern Italian 
 cities, who felt themselves safe from the barbarians 
 only when surrounded by the sea. Forty years after- 
 ward the cornerstone of a city was laid, and an 
 assembly was called at Grado, to elect tribunes to 
 govern the affairs of each island. The lagoon popu- 
 lation thus formed itself into an independent republic. 
 
 The next great step in Venetian history was the 
 election of a duke or doge. The authority of such 
 an officer seemed necessary to keep dowm rivalry 
 between the inhabitants of many islands now con- 
 fined side by side in the narrow circumference of 
 the lagoons. For nearly six hundred years, that is, 
 until the beginning of the twelfth century, Venice was 
 governed by her doges, assisted by the tribunes of 
 the islands, and by a privy council of twelve other 
 
 ' For many passages in this chapter the writer is indebted to An His- 
 torical Sketch of Venice, by Horatio F. Brown. 
 
 155 
 
156 The Italian Republics 
 
 tribunes, elected by the whole body of dwellers on 
 the islands in the lagoons. "No power of prince or 
 emperor can reach us," said the Venetians, "save by 
 the sea alone, and of them, therefore, we have no 
 fear. " Venice obtained recognition from the Imperial 
 Court at Constantinople as an independent state, and 
 kept up friendly relations with the Eastern emperors 
 for many years. 
 
 Meantime, the city grew in wealth, importance, and 
 prosperity. The Venetians quarreled occasionally with 
 the Slav population of Dalmatia, and thus became 
 trained in the use of arms. 
 
 In 1 001 a great expedition was undertaken against 
 Dalmatian pirates, led by the Doge Orseolo in person. 
 It was entirely successful, the doge received the title 
 of Duke of Dalmatia, and from that time to this the 
 Venetians have celebrated the day on which Orseolo 's 
 fleet sailed on that glorious expedition. It was at first 
 a ceremony of thanksgiving and prayer, but in later 
 years it developed into the magnificent annual cere- 
 monial of the Espousal of the Sea by the Doge. By 
 it the Venetians wished to emphasize the result of 
 their past experience, viz., that they and the sea on 
 which they lived were inseparably united. 
 
 After this victory over the pirates of Narsa, the 
 doge enjoyed great reputation. His alliance was 
 courted by princes, and the Greek emperor entreated 
 his assistance to deliver the governor of Bari, who, 
 with his town, had been captured by the Saracens. 
 The end of Pietro Orseolo was a sad one. The plague 
 swept off his son, his grandson, his trusted friends, 
 and his nearest relatives. He may be said to have 
 
The Maritime Republics 157 
 
 died of a broken heart, at the age of forty-eight, after 
 eighteen and a half years of the most splendid and 
 successful dogeship that Venice had seen up to his time. 
 
 Forty years later there was some attempt to estab- 
 lish a dynastic dogeship in Venice. But the Venetians 
 were determined to be free, and when the Caloprini 
 in exile, offered to subdue and hold Venice for the 
 Emperor Otho, the lagoons were found impregnable. 
 "They saved Venice from domination by any foreign 
 master, they also materially assisted to prevent any 
 ambitious Venetian from making himself supreme 
 through foreign aid, while the instinct in Venice pre- 
 cluded him from founding a dynasty in any other way. ' ' 
 
 At the close of the eleventh century, when Robert 
 Guiscard planned to make himself emperor of the East, 
 and led an expedition to the western coasts of the Adri- 
 atic on his way to attack Constantinople, the Greek 
 emperor invoked help from the doge of Venice, whose 
 fleet gained a victory over the Sicilians, but the Greek 
 army coming up on the land side, suffered defeat. 
 The Venetians were indignant at the incapacity of the 
 emperor, and the doge, who had endeavored to assist 
 him, was deposed. The Venetians had another cause 
 of complaint against this unfortunate official. He had 
 married a Greek wife, who made herself odious to the 
 Venetian ladies by her luxurious and effeminate habits ; 
 not only did she take baths of dew, and wear perfumed 
 gloves, but she insisted on using a fork at meals, an 
 innovation that Venetian society could not put up 
 with. Her husband indulged another kind of luxury. 
 He caused artists to begin works in mosaic for the 
 church of St. Mark. "He sent to all parts," says a 
 
158 The Italian Republics 
 
 chronicler, "to seek out marbles and- precious stones, 
 and to find master masons to carry out his large and 
 marvelous designs in masonry." 
 
 The body of Saint Mark had been removed by the 
 Venetians from his buiial place at Alexandria, and he 
 became the patron saint of their city. But no less 
 does he hold the same office in Egypt, to the church 
 of the Coptic Christians. Three brave and cunning 
 men, who were in the port of Alexandria with a Vene- 
 tian ship, A. D. 823, managed, by fraud and force, to 
 steal Saint Mark's body. They put it in a basket, and 
 that its hiding place might not be suspected, they 
 covered it with pork and cabbages. The stratagem 
 succeeded, the ship that bore the relics of the saint 
 sailed safely into port, and the remains were received 
 at Venice with every honor. 
 
 When the crusades began, at the close of the elev- 
 enth century, Venice was drawn into the current of 
 European events, and her aid became invaluable to 
 the crusaders. The display of her naval resources 
 which the Norman wars had evoked, drew the atten- 
 tion of the pope, the emperor, and all the crusading 
 princes to the small city on the lagoons which could 
 put large and triumphant fleets upon the ocean. 
 
 There were no ftco?'i-usciti irom. among the citizens 
 of Venice; no Venetian turned his hand against the 
 city of his birth. Venice found no obstacles to the 
 steady development of her commercial importance, 
 her naval power, and her domestic institutions. 
 
 "She had become a great emporium where the prod- 
 ucts of many lands were stored, and whence they 
 were distributed to the West. Wine and grain came 
 
The Maritime Republics I5'9 
 
 from Apulia; wood from Dalmatia; gems and drugs 
 from Asia; metal work, silk, and cloth of gold from 
 Constantinople." 
 
 Above all, Venice was a free state, her people could 
 make war upon their own account, they coined their 
 own money, and could legislate as they thought 
 proper. Venice was young and vigorous in the midst 
 of the decrepitude of other cities, free when the states 
 around her were in slavery, and she was ready to take 
 her place among the great forces of Europe when the 
 crusades called them to united action. 
 
 When first summoned to take part in the holy wars, 
 the city was filled with enthusiasm. It sent forth a 
 fleet of two hundred ships, which wintered at Rhodes, 
 but no country takes part in the concert of great 
 powers, as we of the nineteenth century know well, 
 without getting itself into trouble. The emperor, 
 in Constantinople at the time of the first crusade, 
 secretly favored the Saracens, and when he found 
 that the Venetians would not break their alliance 
 with the soldiers of the cross, he determined to pun- 
 ish them. 
 
 The Pisans saw with great jealousy and annoyance 
 the appearance of the vast fleet of their commercial 
 rival in Eastern waters. They sent down a Pisan fleet 
 to attack that of the Venetians which was lying at 
 Rhodes, and they were defeated in the engagement 
 that followed. The Venetians released all their prison- 
 ers, except thirty of the most prominent men among 
 them. But they soon found that they had made two 
 powerful enemies, the Greek emperor and the republic 
 of Pisa, 
 
l6o The Italian Republics 
 
 In nine years, to assist this first crusade, Venice 
 put three hundred ships of war upon the ocean, but 
 this effort had greatly weakened her resources, and 
 when the king of Hungary attacked cities of Dal- 
 matia, which were in alliance with the Venetians, they 
 were unable to defend them. At last, in 1118, when 
 at open war with the king of Hungary, the republicans 
 suffered a total rout. This did not prevent them, 
 however, from fitting out another fleet against the 
 Saracens. In it were beaked vessels, of what was 
 then thought great size, each rowed by one hundred 
 oarsmen. All were painted in brilliant colors, and 
 sailed forth gloriously in the light of the sun. 
 
 The crusaders found great help from the Venetians, 
 and rewarded it by giving them especial privileges in 
 all the cities they conquered on the coast of Palestine. 
 This led in the end to Venetian supremacy in the 
 Levant. And while Venice triumphant was filled with 
 a proud sense of her own power and importance, the 
 rest of Italy, as we have already seen, was at the same 
 period torn by dissensions and civil wars. She, however, 
 so far entered into the spirit of the times as to under- 
 take a small war against Padua, her army being in 
 great part composed of mercenary soldiers. 
 
 Once more, in 1148, Venice assisted the Greek 
 emperor (Manuel I.) against the Normans of Sicily. 
 The Venetian sailors were victorious in fight, but a 
 foolish jest on their part gave mortal offense to the 
 emperor. 
 
 When Frederick Barbarossa found the spirit of 
 municipal independence strong in Italy, his first object 
 was to crush it in Milan. He summoned for this pur- 
 
The Maritime Republics i6i 
 
 pose all the Italians of the north to meet him at Ron- 
 caglia near Piacenza, and Venice, among the rest, sent 
 her contingent. But Frederick Barbarossa did noth- 
 ing at that time, and when he returned to Italy from 
 Germany with a fresh army, he found that all the free 
 cities had determined not to support him. Venice 
 especially was opposed to his ambition, and had joined 
 the League of Lombardy. 
 
 When the emperors of the West and East made 
 peace, it seemed to Manuel that the moment had 
 arrived for avenging the insult offered him by sailors 
 in the Venetian fleet, twenty-three years before. He 
 arrested all Venetians in his empire and seized their 
 property. No consideration of their engagement to 
 the League of Lombardy, or to the German emperor 
 could restrain the Venetians from rushing into war 
 with the Greeks; neither could financial considera- 
 tions. A loan was raised, and is perhaps the first 
 instance of the issue of government bonds. In one 
 hundred days the doge had a fleet ready to put to sea. 
 It was met on its way by ambassadors from Manuel, 
 declaring he had no desire for war, and asking the 
 Venetians to send an embassy to Constantinople to 
 settle their dispute with him. It was a trap set to 
 gain time, and it succeeded. The Venetian ambassa- 
 dors were imprisoned, and the chief of them, Enrico 
 Dandolo, was made blind, — perhaps only one eye was 
 put out, for he afterward performed deeds of daring 
 valor. The ships had been laid up at Chios and while 
 there the plague broke out. Thousands of sailors 
 died; the rest mutinied, and carried their plague ships 
 back to Venice. Furious, with their doge who had 
 
I Si The Italian Republics 
 
 sent forth the expedition, the citizens struck him down 
 in the street and killed him. 
 
 The Ventians were now convinced that they had 
 given to their doges too much power. They made 
 some changes in the constitution of their state, which 
 lasted until 1311, when the famous Council of Ten was 
 established. But the reforms made in 1171, were not 
 in the interest of democracy; by them the young 
 oligarchy of the republic took its first step toward the 
 exclusion of the voices of the people. 
 
 In the struggle between Frederick Barbarossa and 
 Pope Alexander III., the two agreed at last to meet in 
 Venice. Frederick took his place in the ducal gondola 
 between the doge and the patriarch, and in procession 
 was conducted across the lagoon to the Mole of St. 
 Mark. There he landed and passed up the Piazzetta, 
 until he came before the church where the pope was 
 awaiting him, seated on his throne. At sight of him 
 Frederick removed his cloak, and humbly bending, 
 kissed his foot. The pope raised him, and bestowed 
 on him the kiss of peace. 
 
 When Innocent III. mounted the papal throne, to 
 preach the fourth crusade was his great object and 
 delight. He sent ambassadors to Venice to engage 
 ships and the assistance of the Venetians. The doge 
 promised transport for fifteen hundred horse, nine 
 thousand esquires, fifteen hundred knights, and ten 
 thousand foot, but he drove rather a hard bargain in the 
 matter of remuneration. The ambassadors accepted 
 his terms, however, and one of them, after mass, asked 
 the assistance of the people in the enterprise, in re- 
 sponse to which they all shouted, "We agree!" 
 
The Maritime Republics 163 
 
 The Venetians thought, as indeed did all the cru- 
 saders, that their ships were bound for the Holy Land, 
 but there was a secret understanding among the cru- 
 sading leaders that they would first attack the Sara- 
 cens in Egypt, and would land at Alexandria. 
 
 Disputes arose. The crusaders did not come up to 
 their engagements about the transports, and accused 
 the Venetians, when in consequence they drew back, 
 of treachery. The Venetians, up to July, 1202, had 
 not taken the Cross. However, on the 26th of August, 
 St. Mark's day, the Doge Dandolo publicly asked his 
 people if they were content that he should do so. 
 They all answered, "Yes." 
 
 There was intrigue within intrigue among the lead- 
 ers of the crusade, for the fate of the deposed Greek 
 emperor, Isaac Comnenuse and his son Alexius, entered 
 into the situation. What the genuine crusaders feared 
 was done. Constantinople was attacked and the em- 
 peror reinstated. But the crusading soldiers received 
 far less pay than they expected, revolutions followed, 
 and the emperor and his son were overthrown. Dan- 
 dolo and Boniface of Montferrat, twice assaulted 
 Constantinople, and at last took it together with its new 
 emperor. The army of the Cross had become a scourge 
 more terrible to Greek Christians than any pagan host 
 had ever been. 
 
 These events bring us down to the year 1202. 
 There was talk in the army of choosing a new emperor 
 of Constantinople. Boniface, Dandolo, and Baldwin 
 were the candidates. Dandolo declined the honor, 
 but gave his vote and influence for Baldwin, who was 
 elected. 
 
164 The Italian Republics 
 
 Thus ended the fourth crusade, which had never 
 attacked the infidels. Venice acquired great influence 
 in the Mediterranean and had a large share of the rich 
 spoils of the Imperial City. But in the end these 
 events exposed the republic to a long series of wars, 
 and materially contributed to her ultimate ruin. 
 
 From this time for a hundred and fifty years the 
 history of Venice is chiefly the history of Constanti- 
 nople and of the Greek empire. At one time there 
 was on foot a proposal to abandon Venice for Con- 
 stantinople. It was urged that the interests of Venice 
 were decidedly in the East, that the. center of govern- 
 ment was too far away from its possessions, and that 
 the city was exposed to danger from earthquakes and 
 floods. But patriotic feeling at once put aside the 
 proposal. No people in Italy were more deeply 
 attached than the Venetians to the very stones of 
 their city. When the municipalities of Lombardy 
 adopted the policy of putting themselves under the 
 rule of podestas from foreign cities, Venetian nobles 
 were in great request. It strengthened the republic 
 to have her citizens rulers of such neighboring cities 
 as Treviso and Padua. 
 
 The continual struggle caused by commercial jeal- 
 ousy between Venice and Genoa we may tell later in 
 this chapter. We may pause, however, to tell of the 
 conspiracy of Marino Faliero in 1354, a story less 
 known through history than in poetry. Born in 1274, 
 he was nearly seventy when he commanded the Vene- 
 tian forces at the seige of Zara, where in 1346 the 
 Venetians gained a complete victory over the king of 
 Hungary. Faliero was elected doge in 1354. His 
 
The Maritime Republics 165 
 
 reign had a tragic commencement and a tragic close. 
 The Venetians were at war with Genoa, and the Vene- 
 tian fleet was captured by the enemy. Faliero, though 
 a prudent statesman, had a hot temper. A young 
 noble having taken some liberties with a maiden of 
 one of the noble houses, Faliero ordered him to be 
 expelled from a scene of festivity. In revenge for 
 this the young man wrote some scurrilous lines which 
 he affixed to the doge's chair. He was arrested for 
 this offense and condemned to two months' imprison- 
 ment. But the doge, deeming this punishment insuffi- 
 cient, headed a conspiracy to arrest all the nobles in 
 Venice, and to make himself despot of the republic. 
 
 The conspiracy was, however, discovered, and the 
 doge and the principal conspirators having been 
 arrested, were executed April 17, 1355. Petrarch, 
 who was Faliero's friend, has related the circumstances 
 of this plot in one of his letters. 
 
 The Venetians who exercised a preponderating 
 influence in the Levant, obtained possession of Cyprus 
 in 1487. Catarina Cornaro, a Venetian lady, had 
 married James, king of the island, who by that mar- 
 riage, hoped to secure the support of the powerful 
 republic. But King James and his successor dying 
 without children, Catarina found herself unable to 
 resist the increasing power of the Turks, and surren- 
 dered her sovereign power to the Venetian republic 
 (1487) and the Venetians retained the island for eighty 
 years. 
 
 In 1204, when the Greek empire was broken up, 
 Crete fell to the share of Boniface, marquis of Mont- 
 ferrat, who sold it to the Venetians. They governed 
 
1 66 The Italian Republics 
 
 the island for four hundred years, but their rule was 
 considered more oppressive and arbitrary than that of 
 the Turks, especially as they introduced the Inquisi- 
 tion, which had been established in Venice in 1250. 
 In 1648, after the Venetians had held possession of 
 the island for four centuries, it was reconquered by 
 the Turks, and ever since has had a turbulent and 
 distracted history. 
 
 "Genoa, the commercial rival of Venice, was among 
 the grandest of the medieval republics, and was almost 
 the most powerful; in her career she humbled Pisa, 
 and she well-nigh triumphed over her great rival, 
 Venice. Princes were her vassals, kings her prison- 
 ers. She was the pioneer in the paths of commerce 
 for the Dutch and for the English. Her factions at 
 home, and her wars abroad were long before they 
 could eradicate her inherent vitality. After each revo- 
 lution she roused herself with new vigor, and it was 
 not until after her own citizen, Christopher Columbus, 
 had discovered for other powers new sources of wealth 
 and commerce, and her own mariners had doubled 
 the Cape of Good Hope, that her decadence set 
 in." 
 
 When the crusades were preached, and Venice was 
 asked to furnish transport to the soldiers of the Cross, 
 Genoa was also called upon to lend her assistance. 
 
 Richard Coeur de Lion, on his way to the second 
 crusade, embarked at Genoa, and in compliment to^ 
 that city, adopted St. George, its patron saint, as the 
 champion saint of England. As St. George was a 
 Cappadocian Christian the ecclesiastical herald's 
 office had to find him a family record that would asso- 
 
The Maritime Republics 167 
 
 ciate him with the new country placed under his pro- 
 tection. 
 
 The history of Genoa during the Dark Ages is the 
 same as that of the other Italian communes which 
 succeeded in wresting from contending princes and 
 barons charters which created them free cities- 
 Rivaling proud Venice in the East, Genoa secured 
 ports and commercial privileges in the Levant; she 
 even built fortresses on the Black Sea, and on the 
 banks of the Euphrates. Her commercial prosperity 
 is the more remarkable because her citizens, unlike the 
 Venetians, had rarely peace within her walls. She 
 took part in all the Guelph and Ghibelline disputes, 
 was sometimes the ally of the pope and sometimes of 
 the emperor. She completely crushed the Pisans in 
 1288 at the battle of Meloria, and she was very near 
 doing the same thing by the Venetians, when she 
 defeated them in the battle of Chioggia in 1380. But 
 no state in Italy was so torn with factions as Genoa. 
 In the battle of Meloria the Pisans were deserted 
 by their ally. Count Ugolino della Gheradesca, who 
 afterward fell into the hands of the Genoese, and was 
 imprisoned in the Tower of Famine. His story has 
 been told by Dante, and has created great sympathy 
 for him, among innumerable readers of the Divina 
 Commedia — a sympathy which the real Count Ugolino 
 little deserved. Pisa was ruined by the Genoese vic- 
 tory at Meloria, and her port destroyed. She became 
 an inland town, instead of a commercial city. 
 
 The ship-masters of Genoa were not scrupulous in 
 matters of piracy. In early days they stole from cer- 
 tain monks of Myrrha the bones of John the Baptist 
 
1 68 The Italian Republics 
 
 and brought them home in several ships, not daring 
 to trust so precious a treasure to the fortunes of one 
 vessel. The bones were received in Genoa with as 
 much enthusiasm and delight as those of St. Mark had 
 been in the rival city. 
 
 The greatest institution in Genoa was, perhaps, its 
 bank, the Bank of St. George, which did business for 
 all Europe, and may be said to have held in the Mid- 
 dle Ages much the same position as the Bank of Eng- 
 land in modern times. 
 
 The chief families in Genoa were Fieschi, Doria, 
 Spinola, and Grimaldi. In after years it was claimed 
 that the name of Buonaparti was on their roll of honor. 
 It was a city much visited by men of letters. Pe- 
 trarch, after his expulsion from Florence, took service 
 with the Genoese, and was entrusted with several 
 important missions. Dante was there, and so was 
 Chaucer. Possibly it was in Genoa that the latter 
 learned to speak of Dante as "the great poet of Italic. ' ' 
 
 But the greatest glory of both Venice and Genoa 
 in those days comes from their seamen and their 
 travelers. 
 
 Marco Polo, who was born in 1254, and died in 
 1324, was a Venetian. He was a member of a noble 
 and w^ell-known family. His father and uncle were 
 also great travelers, who visited China, the Crimea, 
 and a variety of Eastern kingdoms about the middle of 
 the thirteenth century. Marco, who was in his boy- 
 hood while they were on this journey, accompanied 
 his father and uncle when they set out a second time 
 to the East. He was then eighteen. The object of 
 these travelers was to spy the land, and see what were 
 
The Maritime Republics 169 
 
 the prospects for the introduction of Christianity into 
 Chinese Tartary. The elder Polos had come home 
 to report to the pope, but there was then no pope at 
 Rome to receive them. It was a time of interregnum, 
 neither was there any pope when they set out upon 
 their second journey The great khan had asked for 
 one hundred Christian teachers, but they could only 
 be supplied at that time with two Dominicans, who 
 became disheartened and turned back soon after reach- 
 ing Palestine. From Bagdad and the Persian Gulf, 
 where they failed to procure shipping for China, they 
 struck northward and followed very much the track of 
 the Trans-Caspian railroad, by Yarkand and Khotan, 
 into southern China. Modern travelers have traced 
 and illustrated their route. The great khan received 
 them favorably at what was apparently his new city of 
 Peking (Cambabuc). He took a great fancy to young 
 Marco, who applied himself diligently to the study of 
 the languages in his kingdom. A French traveler has 
 recently discovered that in 1277 a certain Polo was 
 attached to the Imperial Council. In missions for the 
 khan, and as his agent, Marco traveled into various 
 parts of China, and had many facts of interest to 
 relate to his master when he returned to court, for the 
 khan was insatiable for tales of adventure and travel. 
 When Kablai Khan died, his successor was desirous 
 to secure a wife from Mongolia. The ambassadors 
 deputed for this mission, begged that the Venetian 
 traveler might accompany them. The embassy secured 
 a princess who was, as Marco describes her, ''^ moult bele 
 dame, et avenant.'' After this the three Polos returned 
 home by way of Persia, and we next hear of Marco as 
 
lyo The Italian Republics 
 
 gentleman commander on board one of the galle3^s 
 under Dandolo's command, bound to attack the fleet 
 of Genoa. 
 
 In this engagement the Genoese were victorious, 
 and Marco Polo, with seven thousand other captives, 
 was carried to Genoa. In prison he fell in with a man 
 who wanted to write down his wonderful adventures, 
 and the composition of this book greatly relieved the 
 tedium of their captivity. 
 
 Marco married and left daughters. He died about 
 1325, at the age of seventy, and was buried in a tomb 
 that, with filial care, he had erected for his father. 
 
 Toward the end of the fourteenth century, Josefa 
 Barbaro, a Venetian noble, whose family palace still 
 stands on the Grand Canal, was sent on a mission to 
 the Court of Persia; he had interesting adventures of 
 which the records still exist, but they are not widely 
 known like the travels of Marco Polo. 
 
 Christopher Columbus, born in 1434 or 1435, was 
 son of a wool-comber in Genoa. His father after- 
 ward moved his business to Savona, and lived until his 
 son returned from the West Indies. Christopher was 
 his eldest son, and was sent to the University of 
 Pavia. He returned home when his college course 
 was finished, and for a while assisted his father, but 
 his wish was to be a sailor. V*^e know little of his 
 early voyages, but he says of them himself, "Wher- 
 ever a ship can sail I have sailed." 
 
The Maritime Republics 171 
 
 SUMMARY AND QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 
 
 i 
 
 Venice founded in 421; the bride of the Adriatic; Doge 
 Orseolo and Dalmatian pirates, looi. The doge and the 
 Church of St. Mark; bones of the saint, 823. Freedom and 
 commercial power of Venice; influence in the crusades; jeal- 
 ousy of Pisa. Venice joins the League of Lombardy; curtails 
 the power of the doge, 1171; tendency to oligarchy. The 
 fourth crusade, 1202; fall of Constantinople; Dandolo declines 
 to be Greek emperor. Connection of Venice with the cities of 
 the mainland. The tragedy of Faliero. Venice holds Cyprus, 
 1487-1567, and Crete for 400 years; oppresses the islanders and 
 introduces the inquisition. Genoa; rival of Pisa, a crusading 
 city, turbulent home government, center of commerce and 
 travel; visited by men of letters. Imprisons Marco Polo. 
 Christopher Columbus. 
 
 I. How and why was Venice founded? 2. What was the 
 origin of the ceremonial of the " Espousal of the Sea"? 3. 
 Why were the Venetians free when the rest of Italy was 
 enslaved? 4. What was the position of the doge? 5. What 
 is the story of [the Venetian capture of St. Mark? 6. How was 
 the power of Venice felt in the crusades? 7. How did she 
 incur the ill will of the Greek emperor and of Pisa? 8. What 
 relation had Venice to the League of Lombardy? 9. How did 
 the Greek emperor entrap the Venetians in 1171? 10. What 
 effect had this on the home government? 11. Describe the 
 meeting of Pope Alexander and Emperor Frederick Barbarossa 
 in Venice. 12. How was Venice induced to take part in the 
 Fourth Crusade? 13. What was the real object of this crusade? 
 14. Describe the struggle over Constantinople. 15. What in- 
 fluence had these events upon Venice? 16. How was Venice 
 involved in the affairs of other cities of Italy? 17. What is the 
 tragic story of Faliero? 18. When were Cyprus and Crete 
 under Venetian influence? ig. What connection had Genoa 
 with the crusades? 20. Describe her various relations with 
 Pisa. 21. How did she rival Venice in her devotion to saints? 
 22. What literary associations has the city? 23. What was 
 
172 The Italian Republics 
 
 true of her internal history? 24. Describe the life of Marco 
 Polo. 25. What were the early events in the life of Christopher 
 Columbus? 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 The Story of Venice. Weil. 
 The Stones of Venice. Rusk in. 
 Makers of Venice. Mrs. Oliphant. 
 Ve?tice. A. J. C. Hare. 
 Venice. Horatio F. Brown. 
 Genoa. Theodore Bent. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 ANARCHY AND DESOLATION IN THE CITIES OF 
 LOMBARDY — SIR JOHN HAWKWOOD — GIAN 
 GALEAZZO VISCONTI 
 
 The latter part of the fourteenth century in Italy 
 was marked by repeated visitations of the plague, and 
 by numerous bands of free companies (or hired sol- 
 diers), whose captains, having lost employment in 
 France and England, persuaded their men to follow 
 them to make war on the whole world, and divide 
 among themselves the pay and booty. 
 
 The institution of captain of the*people in the great 
 towns had now given place to the rule of six independ- 
 ent princes in Lombardy. The Visconti were lords 
 of Milan; the marquis of Montferrat ruled in the Pied- 
 montese mountains, the Delia Scala family in Verona, 
 the Estes in Ferrara, Gonzaga in Mantua, and Carrara 
 in Padua. The weaker princes made a league against 
 the Visconti, taking into their service a formidable 
 association of German mercenaries called "the Great 
 Company," which took their pay, but spreading them- 
 selves over the country pillaged and outraged friend 
 and foe. When the League could no longer afford to 
 pay the "Great Company," it entered into the service 
 of the Siennese, who let it loose upon Perugia. But 
 the Florentines refused to permit these robbers to en- 
 ter Tuscany. They closed the passes of the Apennines, 
 
 173 
 
174 The Italian Republics 
 
 and armed the mountaineers, thereby bringing down 
 upon themselves the wrath of the free companies, who 
 determined, as they said, to pillage those rich mer- 
 chants whom they held to be unwarlike and unable to 
 defend themselves. The Florentines assembled a 
 purely Italian army and the "Great Company," very 
 much to its amazement, found itself outgeneraled at 
 every point, and never could get over the Florentine 
 frontier. 
 
 Florence indeed had seen troubled days during the 
 ten years that succeeded the death of Dante. Like 
 other cities of the Lombard League, she had grown 
 weary of her own misgovernment, and looked about 
 her for some valiant foreigner, whom she could make 
 her ruler. In 1326, there had come to Florence, on 
 his way from Naples to France, a young man named 
 Gaultier de Brienne, calling himself duke of Athens. 
 His father, an adventurer, had held that title under 
 several of the Greek emperors, but it had been re- 
 voked. Gaultier was brave, and very clever. The 
 Florentines took a fancy to him. They protested that 
 they should never have met misfortune had he been at 
 the head of their affairs. On August i, 1342, they 
 obliged their signoria to name him captain of the peo- 
 ple; that is, their chief judge and head of their army. 
 
 The French adventurer had little idea of govern- 
 ment except that it was good policy to cut off the 
 heads of his enemies. The Florentines bore with him 
 ten months, during which, when his attention was not 
 occupied by inflicting torture or ordering executions, 
 he was intriguing to get himself named captain in 
 other Lombard cities. "He united," says Sismondi, 
 
Anarchy and Desolation 175 
 
 "all the qualities that Machiavelli, one hundred and 
 sixty years later, enumerated as necessary to a prince, 
 the founder of a despotism. Courageous, dissem- 
 bling, patient, clear-sighted, and perfidious, he knew 
 neither respect nor pity, he was bound by no affection, 
 and no principle." In ten months he drew from 
 the treasury of the republic three hundred thousand 
 golden florins, which he sent either to France or Naples. 
 His rule made the Florentines of all parties and of all 
 classes unite against him in a three-branched conspir- 
 acy. He became more and more apprehensive. He 
 convoked three hundred of the most conspicuous citi- 
 zens of Florence to confer with him in his palace, and 
 had given orders to have every one of them killed. 
 But the mass of the citizens had admirably arranged 
 their plans. Suddenly the streets of Florence, which 
 had remained perfectly quiet, each man going about 
 his own affairs, resounded with the cry to arms. 
 Popolo! Popolo! Liberia! 
 
 In a moment from the housetops poured down a 
 shower of stones on the duke's cavalry stationed in 
 the streets. Chains that had been made ready blocked 
 all passages. The citizens, well armed, marched on the 
 palace. The duke, with some German soldiers, tried 
 to defend himself. He might have held out, but they 
 had no provisions. He escaped and was concealed by 
 the bishop of Florence, who after six days sent him 
 out of the city with his cavalry, to whom he owed con- 
 siderable pay. With them he reached Venice, and 
 there embarked by stealth for Naples, and there he 
 hoped to avoid paying his men, who though robbers 
 and murderers, had bravely stood by him. 
 
176 The Italian Republics 
 
 The most distinguished of the coiidottiere (mercenary 
 leaders in Italy in those days) was Sir John Hawkwood, 
 an Englishman. He was the son of a man of some 
 property in Essex near Colchester, and when about 
 twenty years of age, he went to France, in 1343; 
 whether voluntarily or drafted into the military service 
 of King Edward III., is not known. He distinguished 
 himself, however, at the battle of Poitiers, under the 
 Black Prince, and was knighted by King Edward. 
 
 After the Peace of Bretigny was signed in 1360, he 
 and many other soldiers of fortune, unwilling to return 
 to quiet life, formed themselves into bands of free 
 companies. They were ready to hire themselves to such 
 sovereigns or states as would employ them. They 
 were found very serviceable in harrying the lands of 
 any enemy of the state or prince who paid them for 
 their services, and their presence was considered so 
 disastrous that they were often paid to keep out of 
 some territory that they threatened to enter not as 
 enemies but as friends. They were robbers and plun- 
 derers by profession, and, if opportunity presented 
 itself, were ready to enrich themselves at the expense 
 of friend or foe. 
 
 In 1365 the four principal bands roving about Italy 
 in search of plunder and employment were the Eng- 
 lish under Sir John Hawkwood ; the Germans under 
 two brothers, Lucius and Eberhard Landau ; the Bre- 
 tons; and somewhat later a band of Germans, called 
 the Great Company. Of these the only leader who 
 ever showed compassion, or ever kept faith with his 
 employers, was Sir John Hawkwood — yet even he was 
 forced by the exigencies of his situation to take part 
 
Anarchy and Desolation 177 
 
 in the awful massacre of Cesara, when under orders 
 from the pope's legate (afterward Pope Clement VII.) 
 more than four thousand unresisting citizens, their 
 wives and children, were murdered in cold blood by 
 troops wintering in Cesara, a friendly city. This 
 slaughter filled all Europe with horror, and did much 
 to weaken the influence of prelates among the popu- 
 lation. 
 
 In 1377 Sir John Hawkwood, disgusted with the 
 massacre of Cesara, and tempted by great offers made 
 him by the League of Lombardy, took service for the 
 Florentines, who before that time had given him 
 mighty bribes to keep out of their country. He had 
 for some years been, in some irregular way, attached to 
 the service of Barnabo Visconti, then ruler in Milan, 
 who gave to him his beautiful daughter, Donnina, and 
 the nuptials were celebrated at Milan with great lavish- 
 ness of gifts and brilliant ceremonies. Sir John 
 acquired great wealth besides castles and lands in 
 Romagna. Florence at one time paid him and his 
 company one hundred and thirty thousand florins not 
 to set foot for three months in their territory. 
 
 After gaining many victories for Florence, Sir John, 
 in his old age, lived in a villa in the outskirts of that 
 city. At his death Florence gave him a most magnifi- 
 cent funeral, and his picture in fresco was painted on 
 the walls of the cathedral. 
 
 After Florence had got rid of the duke of Athens, 
 she was continually guarding against the ambition of 
 the Visconti, who aimed at the subjugation of all 
 Italy. They had contrived to acquire Bologna, and 
 to make alliances with the Ghibelline lords in the 
 
178 The Italian Republics 
 
 Apennines, but the growing power of Gian Galeazzo 
 Visconti made Florence apprehensive, for Florentines 
 knew that no Visconti could be bound by a pledge. 
 
 Suddenly, without any declaration of war, an army 
 commanded by one of the Visconti was marched into 
 Tuscany. Behind walls the Tuscans could always 
 make a stubborn fight, and the first little town besieged 
 made so formidable a resistance that the Milanese army 
 at length moved away. 
 
 The history of Italy during the last years of the 
 fourteenth century is one miserable, continuous strug- 
 gle for power on the one part, on the other to find 
 means of escaping from under it. 
 
 The popes, after seventy years of exile, came back 
 from Avignon in 1377. The pontiff who returned was 
 Gregory XI. By this time all parties were weary of 
 war. What stood in the way of peace was the pro- 
 found distrust inspired by the Visconti. 
 
 Gregory XI. died in 1378. A conclave was called 
 to make a new pope. The Romans insisted it could 
 meet only in their city. Such cardinals as they could 
 assemble there elected Urban VI. He was unsatisfac- 
 tory even to his electors, who declared the election 
 void, and elected another pope, Clement VII., a cruel, 
 violent man, who had urged and promoted the terrible 
 massacre two years before, while he was papal legate 
 at Cesara. 
 
 Clement transferred his papal court to Naples, but 
 afterward decided to return to Avignon. Urban VI., 
 in Rome, treated Clement and all the cardinals who 
 had elected him, as schismatics, and so the fierce dis- 
 pute rolled on. Urban died in Genoa, having made 
 
Anarchy and Desolation 179 
 
 himself hateful to the Romans who had promoted 
 him. 
 
 Florence was now divided into two factions, no 
 longer Bianchi and Neri, or Guelphs and Ghibellines, 
 but into the class of citizens who carried on the gov- 
 ernment, and the democracy whom they excluded. A 
 supreme ruler seemed the only remedy. Four families 
 were prominent, the Scali, the Strozzi, the Alberti, 
 and the Medici. Up to those days the latter family 
 had never taken a prominent place in Florence, their 
 name had been hardly known to their fellow citizens, 
 but within a few years the family had come into notice 
 by reason of its great wealth. 
 
 There was no union between the leading aristocratic 
 families in Florence. As formerly the Guelphs had 
 split into Bianchi and Neri, so now the nobility divided 
 under two leaders, the Albizzi and the Ricci. In a 
 factional dispute, in the summer of 1378, Silvestro de' 
 Medici, who had been made by lot gonfaloner (stan- 
 dard bearer or chief ruler), appealed to the people to 
 support him and his friends against the rising oli- 
 garchy, which, under pretense of maintaining the 
 ancient Guelph party in its purity, wanted to exclude 
 from power all those whose ancestors had been Ghibel- 
 lines, and now encouraged division in a republic to 
 which union was necessary. The measure proposed 
 by Silvestro de' Medici passed by an immense majority. 
 
 But this victory, which was considered a democratic 
 triumph, led to further demands on the people's part, 
 and much rioting and disorder; then a workman, 
 Michael Lando, barefooted and half dead, came for- 
 ward suddenly, carrying in his hand the gonfalon of 
 
i8o The Italian Republics 
 
 the state, which he had snatched up in the palace of the 
 podesta. The people hailed him as their chief, and 
 he at once restored order. His government was ex- 
 cellent, but it lasted only a short time. Florence 
 blushed to think that she had entrusted power to a 
 man of his class, and at the next opportunity placed 
 Silvestro de' Medici and two other aristocrats at the 
 head of the government. The reforms of Michael 
 Lando were set aside and he himself, with many of his 
 followers, was sent into exile. 
 
 In Florence, and in other c'ties, the monied class 
 had now become aristocrats. They disputed prece- 
 dence, social and political, with the more ancient 
 families, and in general it was the aristocracy of 
 wealth that succeeded in obtaining power. 
 
 It was about the time of these troubles in Florence 
 that the great naval battle of Chiogga, which has been 
 already alluded to, took place between the Genoese 
 and the Venetians, On the first day of January, 1380, 
 the Genoese admiral, Carlo Zeno, arrived off the 
 lagoons, with a fleet he had collected in the Eastern 
 seas. His project was to blockade Venice, cutting 
 her off from the Adriatic, by holding the canals and 
 waterways which communicated with the open water. 
 Chiogga was on one of the islands in the lagoons, and 
 was used by the Venetians as a sort of naval station. 
 But instead of waiting to be besieged, the Venetians 
 besieged their besiegers. They shut up the forty-eight 
 galleys, and fourteen thousand Genoese sailors (or 
 soldiers) in the waters round Chiogga. There their 
 supplies fell short. In vain the lord of Padua, from 
 the mainland, made great efforts to succor them. In 
 
Anarchy and Desolation i8i 
 
 vain Genoa sent a new fleet to the Adriatic to their 
 assistance. After destroying their galleys and making 
 vain attempts to get off in open boats to the fleet that 
 lay outside awaiting them, the Genoese, after six 
 months of siege, surrendered at discretion. It was 
 "a glorious victory," won without a battle, and it led 
 to a treaty of peace between the two rival republics. 
 
 In the last years of the century the terror in which 
 the house of Visconti, lords of Milan, had held Flor- 
 ence and the other Italian republics, had somewhat 
 subsided. The Visconti were at strife among them- 
 selves. At length a second Galeazzo, by treachery 
 and murder, despoiled his uncle, Bernabo, seized the 
 reins of power, and before the close of the century all 
 Lombardy had submitted to him. "False and pitiless, 
 he joined to immeasurable ambition a genius for enter- 
 prise, and to immovable constancy a personal timidity 
 that he did not care to conceal. No prince ever em- 
 ployed so many soldiers to guard his palace, or took 
 such multiplied precautions to insure his safety. But 
 the vices of tyranny had not weakened his ability; he 
 employed his immense wealth without prodigality. 
 His soldiers were always well paid, and the free com- 
 panies scattered throughout Italy were prompt to 
 return to his service whenever he might summon 
 them." 
 
 This prince, known as Gian Galeazzo Visconti to 
 distinguish him from the Galeazzo who, twenty years 
 before, had employed the services of Sir John Hawk- 
 wood, having pushed the frontier of his principality of 
 Milan almost up to the lagoons, planned an attack on 
 Venice. 
 
1 82 The Italian Republics 
 
 The Florentines, dreading the encroachments of 
 Milan, began open war against that city and its tyrant, 
 but discouraged by a serious reverse inflicted by the 
 "White Band" of young nobles, under their leader, 
 Giacomo del Verme, Milan made peace. But the 
 Florentines did not expect it to last long. They 
 well knew the perfidy of Gian Galeazzo, who had 
 purchased from a traitor and usurper the city of Pisa 
 in 1399. He also about the same time gained posses- 
 sion of Perugia. The Florentines were thus deprived 
 of all possible allies in Northern Italy, except the 
 maritime republics, Venice and Genoa. 
 
 Gian Galeazzo continued his career of successful 
 perfidy until September 3, 1402, when he was carried 
 off by the plague, which two years before had entered 
 Tuscany and deprived the free states of their remain- 
 ing vigor. In Florence it swept off all the magis- 
 trates on whose prudence and courage the citizens 
 relied. It did the same thing in Lucca and Bologna. 
 Any adventurer who chose to put himself forward 
 could now, with impunity, seize the government of 
 those cities. 
 
 The Florentines, having no longer communication 
 with the sea by way of Sienna, Pisa, Lucca, and Bo- 
 logna, which had given themselves up to low adven- 
 turers who sold them to Galeazzo, saw the sources of 
 her wealth and commerce on the point of drying up. 
 Never had Florence been in more imminent danger, 
 when the plague, which had so greatly augmented her 
 calamities, brought her deliverance by carrying off 
 the tyrant of Milan in spite of all the precautions he 
 had taken to avoid infection. 
 
Anarchy and Desolation 183 
 
 SUMMARY AND QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 
 
 The plague and the condottieri in Italy. The six inde- 
 pendent princes of Lombardy; warfare by weaker princes in 
 league with "the Great Company." Florence and "the Duke 
 of Athens," 1326. Sir John Hawkwood, with the English at 
 Poitiers; the massacre at Cesara; marries daughter of Barnabo 
 Visconti of Milan; acquires great wealth, castles and lands in 
 Romagna. Florence struggles with the Visconti. The popes 
 return from Avignon. Charles of Durazzo becomes king of 
 Naples. Internal struggles in Florence, the Scali, Strozzi, 
 Alberti, and Medici; two factions. Silvestro de' Medici and 
 Michael Lando. Aristocracy of wealth. 1380, Venice and 
 Genoa at Chioggia. Gian Galeazzo Visconti tyrannizes over 
 Lombardy. 
 
 I. What two calamities visited Italy in the last part of the 
 fourteenth century? 2. What six independent princes ruled in 
 Lombardy? 3. How did the weaker princes prey upon their 
 neighbors? 4. Describe the experience of Florence with 
 Gaultier, Duke of Athens. 5. What four bands of mercenaries 
 terrorized Italy in and about 1365? 6. What struggle between 
 Florence and the Visconti marked this time? 7. What state 
 of confusion marked the return of the popes from Avignon? 
 8. Into whose hands did the crown of Naples pass? 9. What 
 factions were being felt in Florence at this time? 10. What 
 appeal to the people was made by Silvestro de' Medici? 11. 
 How was he set aside and then reinstated? 12. Describe the 
 siege of Chioggia. 13. Describe the struggle of Florence 
 against Gian Galeazzo Visconti. 14. Describe the schism 
 which arose in the Church. 15. How did the plague both 
 scourge and liberate the people. 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Sir John Hawkwood. Leader Scott. 
 Italy: Florence a7id Venice. Taine. 
 The Renaissance in Italy. J. A. Symonds. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE REVIVAL OF LETTERS — THE RISE OF THE 
 MEDICI 
 
 The fifteenth century was signalized in Europe by 
 what is called the Renaissance, the rebirth of letters. 
 The art of printing was discovered, poets had appeared 
 in many countries, and men's minds had been set 
 thinking about ecclesiastical abuses, and the relations 
 of God the Father to His children, and what rule the 
 church ought to establish over men. 
 
 Already a love of architecture had beautified the 
 Italian cities. The spirit of Dante had awakened a 
 love for poetry. Galeazzo \'isconti had founded a 
 professorship for the study of the Diviiia Commedia, 
 Petrarch had written sonnets. Boccaccio had written 
 tales, Giotto had adorned churches. During the first 
 years of the fifteenth century Pulci, Boiardo, Ariosto, 
 and Tasso, all of them destined to be great poets, were 
 little boys, but they grew up amidst an environment 
 which no doubt turned their minds to poetry. Yet 
 one wonders how anything "pure, lovely, and of good 
 report" could have taken root in times, when, even in 
 a country so fertile in tyrants as Italy, never was power 
 so stained by crimes. 
 
 The policy of Venice was purely selfish. Her Coun- 
 cil of Ten took only self-interest for their guide. 
 Italian political virtue was to be found only in Flor- 
 
 184 
 
The Revival of Letters 185 
 
 ence. There the citizens always approved measures 
 that they held to be just, able, and generous, 
 measures that might promote intelligence and civili- 
 zation. 
 
 In three years after the death of Gian Galeazzo 
 (during the regency of Catherine, his wicked wife, who 
 during her son's minority, claimed rule over his duchy) 
 Sienna, Perugia, and Bologna threw off the Viscontis' 
 yoke, and Florence would have recovered her route to 
 the sea and her commercial advantages, if Pisa had 
 not remained in the hands of a Visconti. She had 
 been given to one of Gian Galeazzo's natural sons. 
 There was, however, a French garrison in the citadel. 
 The general in command of it, for treachery was the 
 fashion of the day, offered to sell it to the Florentines 
 for four hundred thousand florins. The Pisans dis- 
 covered the plot, and took possession of their city, but 
 Boucicault, the French general, retained possession of 
 the citadel and other strongholds. These he offered 
 to sell the Florentines for two hundred and sixty 
 thousand florins, which they stipulated he was to 
 divide with the young Visconti. To escape from this 
 engagement Boucicault invented a pretext, and be- 
 headed the lad. But the Florentines did not get easy 
 possession of their purchase. The Pisans spent all 
 their wealth to buy the services of condottieri. They 
 lost, however, all their fortresses and all their terri- 
 tory, and their city was at last delivered up by their 
 general who, for fifty thousand florins, agreed to open 
 its gates to the enemy. 
 
 The victorious Florentines tried to treat the Pisans 
 with generosity, but nothing would reconcile the citi- 
 
1 86 The Italian Republics 
 
 z^ns to the loss of their independence. The most 
 ancient and wealthy families moved to Lucca, Sar- 
 dinia, and Sicil}^ The young men almost all engaged 
 in companies of adventure, hoping to find in camp- 
 life an independence which they could no longer hope 
 for in their own land. Pisa, in losing its liberty, lost 
 its commerce, its population, and every remnant of 
 prosperity which had remained to it after its port had 
 been blocked up by the Genoese. 
 
 For twenty-seven years there had been a schism in 
 the church; a pope and an anti-pope, one holding his 
 court in Rome, the other (for the second time) in 
 Avignon. All men and all princes were anxious to 
 put an end to this state of affairs. The king of France 
 besieged the pope in Avignon to compel him to make 
 peace. He agreed at last to abdicate, but his rival, 
 Gregory XII., whom it was stipulated was to abdicate 
 at the same time, refused. At last the cardinals, losing 
 all patience, called together an ecumenical council, 
 deposed both popes, and elected Alexander V. Still 
 the deposed pontiffs would not submit. One retired 
 to Aragon, the other to Sicily. Then there were three 
 popes in the church, and all over Europe reigned 
 schism and confusion. 
 
 Ladislaus, king of Naples, son of Charles of Du- 
 razzo, who had succeeded the infamous Joanna, took 
 advantage of this schism to invade the States of the 
 Church, and from 1399 to 1408 war broke out over 
 Southern Italy as fiercely as it had been raging in 
 Lombardy. Ladislaus took Rome, and then pro- 
 ceeded to conquer Perugia, Sienna, and other cities in 
 the alliance with Florence. In this extremity the 
 
The Revival of Letters 187 
 
 Florentines turned for assistance to Louis of Anjou, 
 whom Charles of Durazzo had dispossessed of the 
 crown of Sicily, while at the same time they secured 
 the assistance of Braccio, one of two famous Italian 
 soldiers of fortune, to whom the scattered bands of 
 free companions readily attached themselves. The 
 other commander was Sforza Attendolo, a peasant of 
 Romagna. Braccio was distinguished for his impetu- 
 ous valor, Sforza for his prudence, coolness, and 
 steadiness. They had been comrades when they first 
 embraced war as their profession, but now they were 
 leaders of rival bands, almost invariably opposed to 
 each other. 
 
 Braccio and the Florentines took Rome in 1410, 
 and then Florence offered Ladislaus peace, which he 
 eagerly accepted, but like nearly all other Italians of 
 that day in his position, he broke its terms as soon 
 as his army had had time to rest, and the war began 
 again. 
 
 Ladislaus was so well supported that the Floren- 
 tines, discouraged by the successes of his captain, 
 Sforza, had begun to lose heart, when Ladislaus died. 
 His sister. Queen Joanna II., a woman no better than 
 Joanna I., succeeded him, and she and her lovers 
 before long ruined the kingdom of Naples, and then 
 Florence was threatened by a new enemy, Filippo 
 Maria Visconti, brother of Gian Maria, son of Gian 
 Galeazzo, and third duke of Milan. Filippo attached 
 Facino Cane, a celebrated cojidottiere^ to his service 
 by marrying his daughter, and then set about recover- 
 ing all the dependencies which had belonged to the do- 
 minions of his father. He was so ugly that he could 
 
1 88 The Italian Republics 
 
 not bear to be looked at, and was so timid that he 
 must have rendered his life worthless by his precau- 
 tions to preserve it. He w^as perfidious and without 
 pity for his subjects. He seemed no less alarmed at 
 the success of his own generals than at that of his 
 enemies. He trusted no one. He would have ruined 
 Lombardy if the fertility of that rich province had not 
 exceeded his powers of mischief. 
 
 By chance he witnessed the splendid courage of 
 Francesco Carmagnola, a Piedmontese adventurer, and 
 made him his general. The victories of Carmagnola 
 were brilliant, and he was a man of noble character. 
 All Lombardy submitted to him, even the republic of 
 Genoa. Then the armies of Filippo Maria were turned 
 against the pope in Romagna and Tuscany. 
 
 Two princes in Naples, where one of them, Alfonso 
 the Magnanimous of Aragon, had been named by 
 Queen Joanna as her heir, quarreled after her death 
 for the inheritance. The Florentines sided with 
 Alfonso, who placed Braccio at the head of his army, 
 while the duke of Milan, in alliance with Louis of 
 Anjou, the other pretender, took Sforza for his gen- 
 eral. In 1424 Sforza was drowned while crossing a 
 river, and six months after Braccio was mortally 
 wounded. Their bands elected new commanders, and 
 kept up their reputation. 
 
 The army of Filippo Maria Visconti continued to 
 advance, and Florence in despair sent an embassy to 
 Venice. "You reproach us," said the ambassador, 
 "for not having opposed Filippo Maria in time, and 
 you say we have made him duke of Milan and master 
 of Genoa. You, if you do not stand by us, will make 
 
The Revival of Letters 189 
 
 him king of Italy. AVe, in our turn, if we must sub- 
 mit, will make him emperor." 
 
 It was at this juncture that Francesco Carmagnola 
 arrived in Venice. He had been too successful in the 
 service of his suspicious master, who disgraced him 
 and deprived him of his employment without any 
 reason. Carmagnola then withdrew to Piedmont, his 
 native country. His wife and children were arrested 
 and his property confiscated. He fled for his life 
 through Germany to Venice and there told the council 
 of the designs his late master harbored against them. 
 This secret determined the Venetians and their doge, 
 Francesco Foscari, to oppose the rising ambition of 
 the Milanese ruler. A league was formed against him 
 of powerful states and some foreign princes. War was 
 declared (1426) and Carmagnola was placed at the 
 head of the allied army. His exploits were most 
 brilliant, but he incurred the jealous displeasure of 
 the Venetians by generously releasing young Sforza, 
 Piccinino, and some other illustrious captains whom 
 he had taken prisoner. Later in his campaign, in 1431, 
 fortune turned against him. 
 
 The senate of Venice made it a rule never to em- 
 ploy its citizens as soldiers, but to hire foreigners to 
 fight; it also made it a rule to treat the generals and 
 officers of mercenary troops with great rigor. The 
 council resolved on the punishment of the unsuccess- 
 ful Carmagnola, but they received him on his return 
 to Venice with the highest honors. They escorted 
 him to the senate chamber, encouraged him to address 
 them, and his speech was applauded. But as day 
 began to close, and the chamber grew dark, soldiers 
 
190 The Italian Republics 
 
 of the police came stealthily in, flung themselves upon 
 the general, bound him and dragged him to the dun- 
 geons. Twenty days after his arrest he was brought 
 forth, with his mouth gagged lest he should address 
 the people. He was placed between two columns on 
 the Great Square of St. Mark and there beheaded, an 
 object lesson to the people of Venice that the senate 
 meant to rule them by terror. 
 
 We turn now to Florence and to the rise of the 
 Medici. We have mentioned Silvestro de' Medici, but 
 history records little more about him. The first very 
 illustrious member of the house was Cosimo, born in 
 1389; he was a son of the founder of the family Gio- 
 vanni de' Medici. This good old man, upon his 
 deathbed, in 1428, exhorted his two sons, Cosimo and 
 Lorenzo, to follow his example, that they might live 
 in their native place honored and respected. "Nothing 
 affords me more pleasure," he said, "than the reflec- 
 tion that my conduct has given offense to no one; but 
 that on the contrary I have endeavored to serve all 
 persons to the best of my ability." 
 
 The republic of Florence stood fourth among the 
 states of Italy in wealth and importance. More gener- 
 ous than Venice, it had frequently endangered itself 
 in wars which exposed it to invasion. Less prudent 
 in its internal administration, it had more than once 
 experienced the convulsions of contending factions, 
 and sometimiCS even those of temporary tyranny. On 
 the other side, the Florentines owed to the nature of 
 their government a degree of energy, activity, and 
 intelligence, which enabled them rapidly to repair 
 their losses. 
 
The Revival of Letters 191 
 
 Cosimo de' Medici, even before his father's death, 
 had served the state in some important offices, he had 
 traveled to other cities, he had shown a deep inter- 
 est in old Greek manuscripts and in Greek philosophy, 
 both of which were just beginning to be appreciated 
 in Italy, which owed its first interest in the Greek 
 language and Greek poetry to Boccaccio. 
 
 The leader of the aristocracy of Florence in 1433 
 was Rinaldo degli Aloizzi. He was impetuous, arro- 
 gant, jealous, and impatient of all opposition. He 
 fancied he saw a rival in the wealthy Cosimo, whose 
 commercial affairs gave him great influence in other 
 cities, and to a certain extent connected him with all 
 parts of the world. 
 
 Rinaldo chose to consider Cosimo an ambitious 
 democrat. He knew him to be no friend of the policy 
 that had governed the affairs of Florence under the 
 Albizzi; he knew that he thought the safety of the 
 state had been endangered by imprudent wars, and 
 that her finances had been injured by paying merce- 
 nary troops, and by the robberies of her commissaries. 
 Cosimo had taken no open part against the govern- 
 ment. Nevertheless Rinaldo had him arrested as a 
 state criminal. Four days he remained in a dungeon, 
 expecting death by poison or by violence. Later, 
 owing to the pressure of public opinion, the rigor of 
 his imprisonment was relaxed, but with his brother, 
 Lorenzo, and his friends, he was sent into exile. 
 Everywhere he went he was received with honor and 
 hospitality, as a leading patron of learning and of art. 
 
 A year after this exile the same fate fell on Rinaldo 
 degli Albizzi, who revenged himself on Florence by 
 
igi The Italian Republics 
 
 going to the court of her enemy, the duke of Milan, 
 and persuading him to make war upon his native city. 
 Filippo Maria Visconti listened to his suggestions. He 
 placed Nicolo Piccinino at the head of his forces, 
 while Florence employed Francesco Sforza, son and 
 successor of the first captain of that name. 
 
 Francesco Sforza was an intimate friend of Cosimo 
 de' Medici. When Filippo Maria made peace with the 
 Florentines, after a short campaign in 1441, he deemed 
 it good policy to give Bianca, his natural daughter, 
 in marriage to Francesco Sforza, his enemy's success- 
 ful general, who in a subsequent campaign fought for 
 the duke of Milan, his father-in-law. In August, 1447, 
 Filippo Maria Visconti died, leaving no male heirs. 
 The citizens of Milan then asserted their former inde- 
 pendence and claimed the right to choose a captain of 
 the people. Their choice fell upon Francesco Sforza, 
 who at the head of his brilliant band of mercenary 
 soldiers was at hand. 
 
 Francesco was one of the most distinguished cap- 
 tains of his age, and had had a reputation not only for 
 frankness and liberality but for truth and generosity. 
 "But it is not in the trade of captains of adventure 
 that men can be formed to true honor." Francesco, 
 raised to power, showed himself perfidious even to 
 some of his own lieutenants, and by treachery earned 
 the admiration and approval of Louis XL, of France. 
 A sharp struggle with the Venetians resulted in a 
 treaty with that city, by which he engaged to restore 
 certain towns on condition that they would aid him in 
 making a complete conquest of Milan, and all the 
 dominions of the late Filippo Maria. 
 
The Revival of Letters 193 
 
 The Milanese were furiously angry, but other con- 
 dottieri leaders, and most of the cities subject to Milan 
 in Lombardy, favored the ambition of Sforza. He 
 soon had possession of all the Milanese territory, 
 though Milan itself held out against him. Its richest 
 citizens, placing their fortunes at the command of 
 the state, armed themselves, and as far as they could, 
 the other defenders, with fire-locks, then a recent in- 
 vention w^hich proved a great terror to cavalry. The 
 gates of Milan were, however, opened to Sforza in 
 February, 1450, and the citizens proclaimed him duke 
 of Milan. 
 
 In Rome a few years had made important changes. 
 Up to this time, the magistrates of the city in their 
 oaths, had always pledged themselves to protect the 
 pope, never to take him as their ruler. The removal 
 of the court to Avignon, and the schism which fol- 
 lowed, gave Rome over to anarchy, and a strong ruler 
 seemed its only hope. The pope, in 1450, was Nicho- 
 las v., a Florentine very intimate with Cosimo de' 
 Medici. He, like his friend, had been devoted to 
 learning, philosophy, and ancient literature, and after 
 he became pope he showed some zeal for collections 
 of ancient manuscripts and for translations from 
 Greek writers, but he was resolved to put down the 
 democratic spirit in the Eternal City. He put all 
 offices into the hands of prelates, whom he himself 
 appointed. Those who entered into controversy with 
 the pope were exiled or executed, and the last spark 
 of liberty in Rome was extinguished in blood. 
 
 In 1453 Constantinople was taken by the Turks and 
 a flood of great learning poured over Europe. All 
 
194 The Italian Republics 
 
 Christendom became interested in the Greek exiles 
 and learned men. It was the beginning of that period 
 called the Renaissance, the rebirth of men's interest in 
 letters, and the Renaissance led to printing, and to 
 the study of the Scriptures; the study of the Scrip- 
 tures to the Reformation, and thence to all we know 
 as modern Europe, with its annex, which, in 1453, had 
 been never thought of — the civilization of a new world. 
 
 Cosimo de' Medici died in Florence August i, 1464, 
 in his seventy-fifth year. He held no public office, 
 but his influence, during thirty years, had completely 
 allayed the fermentation that had formerly agitated 
 his native city. The rulers of Florence were chosen 
 in the same way as before, invested with the same 
 powers, subject to the same laws. Florence was full 
 of merchant princes, who built splendid palaces, 
 adorned churches, and their fellow citizens were proud 
 of them. Florence had also a great statesman, the 
 close friend of Cosimo de' Medici, Neri Capponi. He 
 died, however, in 1455. Luca Pitti, the man who 
 built the splendid Pitti palace in Florence, was ambi- 
 tious of succeeding to the place so long occupied by 
 Cosimo, but he made the construction of his palaces a 
 means for assembling the discontented part of the 
 population round him. He turned it into a sanctuary 
 for debtors and criminals, who, safe within its walls, 
 set officers of justice at defiance, 
 
 Francesco Sforza died at Milan eighteen months 
 after Cosimo in Florence. Piero de' Medici, the elder 
 son of Cosimo, too infirm to attend to business, and 
 disheartened by what we call a commercial crisis, which 
 occurred about this time, put his authority as ruler of 
 
The Revival of Letters 195 
 
 Florence into the hands of six citizens. His two sons, 
 Lorenzo and Giuliano, were young men fond of pleas- 
 ure and apparently without ambition. But they had 
 an excellent mother, and looked to her for advice and 
 sympathy. 
 
 Lorenzo de' Medici was born on New Year's day, 
 1449. His father, Piero, died in 1469, five years after 
 Cosimo. He had been a kind, just man, with great 
 personal charm, but discouraged by a sense of his 
 physical disability. 
 
 Lorenzo and his brother had been carefully edu- 
 cated, and when the Turks conquered Constantinople, 
 they acquired a learned Greek for their tutor. The 
 boys gave no indication of an especial love for learn- 
 ing, but Lorenzo was early sent on semi-diplomatic 
 missions, and his pleasant manners and handsome 
 appearance won him favor with other princes, and 
 indeed with everybody/ 
 
 Luca Pitti, in 1466, made a conspiracy in Florence, 
 and Lorenzo, who had been away upon his travels, 
 arrived just in time to save his father. At the age of 
 seventeen he had to take an important part in nego- 
 tiations by which an apparently peaceful settlement 
 was brought about. 
 
 Lorenzo was not so much occupied at seventeen 
 with political cares, but that he gave some attention 
 to poetry and to love. His betrothed was a beautiful 
 Roman girl, named Clarice, one of the Orsini family. 
 They were married in Florence with great festivity. 
 Lorenzo made a most devoted husband, but his wife 
 was never very strong, and she died nine years after 
 her marriaee. 
 
196 The Italian Republics 
 
 It is pleasing after all the horrors we read as we 
 turn each page of Italian history at this period, to 
 have a little family picture like this to look upon. 
 Lorenzo, however, was not all that was to have been 
 hoped from his early love affair. In later life he was 
 devoted to a married lady who had great charms of 
 mind and manner, and whom he rode out to see at her 
 country place every evening. 
 
 History accuses Lorenzo of having destroyed the 
 liberties of Florence, but one of his advocates puts a 
 defense into his mouth. Suppose he should say, ''This 
 city, Florence, was once a wrangling republic, she was 
 presided over by liberty, clothed in the ragged scarlet 
 of anarchy. She was the prey, not of one family, but 
 of one hundred, who tore her to pieces with the greed 
 of w^olves. Now she is more at peace, more prosper- 
 ous, than ever before in her history, her citizens are 
 all happy and flourishing, with the exception of a 
 handful of men who crave my place and power." 
 
 Jealousy of the Medici prompted three young men, 
 one of whom had married Bianca, Lorenzo's sister, to 
 form the Pazzi conspiracy in 1478, having had a new 
 grievance, in a law passed through the influence of the 
 Medici, which diverted an inheritance one of the 
 brothers expected to receive, into another channel. 
 Pope Sixtus IV. and the archbishop of Pisa were also 
 in the conspiracy. Lorenzo and Giuliano were to be 
 killed in church on the same day. Twice the plot 
 failed, but at last it was undertaken by two priests, 
 who set about it so unskilfully that Lorenzo was 
 alarmed before the blow was struck and escaped; 
 Giuliano, however, was killed. The citizens in Flor- 
 
The Revival of Letters 197 
 
 ence were furious. More than seventy of the conspir- 
 ators were torn to pieces by the mob in the streets. 
 The archbishop and two of the Pazzi were hanged at 
 once, and there were many more executions. 
 
 Lorenzo, now the head of the house, ruled with a 
 firm hand, but munificently and wisely. Especially 
 he paid great attention to the arts and to letters, his 
 own influence both as a poet and a man of taste making 
 a strong impression upon the society of his day. 
 
 The most impressive figure of the time besides 
 Lorenzo himself, was Girolamo Savonarola, a Domini- 
 can monk of Ferrara. With wonderful powers of elo- 
 quence he preached a double reform, religious and 
 political. He was shocked at the luxury and profligacy 
 which, with wealth, had grown up in Florence under 
 the rule of the Medici. He arrived in Florence on 
 foot in the year 1489, and lodged in the Convent of 
 San Marco, preaching with courage equal to his elo- 
 quence against scandalous abuses in church and state, 
 injustice in criminal procedures and immorality in 
 men's lives and homes. Soon he numbered in his flock 
 the most respectable inhabitants of Florence. 
 
 In 1492 Lorenzo, attacked by a violent fit of the 
 gout, sent for Savonarola. Up to that time the pious 
 preacher had refused to see him. Even when he 
 walked in the gardens of San Marco, Savonarola would 
 never appear. 
 
 On his deathbed at his country house at Cariggi, Lo- 
 renzo sent for the great preacher. Before he arrived, 
 however, another priest had seen the dying man who 
 had confessed and had received the viaticum. On 
 seeing Savonarola, Lorenzo wished to make further 
 
198 The Italian Republics 
 
 confession. But the stern Dominican responded that 
 before hearing the confession he must require three 
 things. 
 
 "What things, Father?" said Lorenzo. 
 
 "First you must have a great and living faith in 
 God's mercy." 
 
 "I have it, Father," answered Lorenzo, firmly. 
 
 "Secondly, you must restore all your ill-gotten 
 wealth, or require your sons to restore it. ' ' 
 
 Lorenzo hesitated a moment, and then gave his 
 assent. Savonarola then stood up and said: "You 
 must restore liberty to Florence." 
 
 Lorenzo turned his face to the wall, and made no 
 answer. Then Savonarola left him, and that night 
 he diedo With him the glory of his city passed 
 away. 
 
 "In the contradictions of Lorenzo's character, the 
 variety of his talents, and the paradox of his position, 
 he stands forth as the pattern, the exemplar, of the 
 many-sided age in which he lived. He was a prince 
 of despotic power, yet nominally only one among the 
 citizens of a little medieval city. He was of humble 
 origin, and bore no title, yet he made himself the inti- 
 mate friend of kings. He was not beyond his age nor 
 above it. He was created by it. His limitations and 
 his qualities were those of his time." 
 
 Six years after the death of Lorenzo, that is on 
 May 23, 1498, Savonarola, after having been tried by 
 a spiritual court, and having offered to support his 
 views by the ordeal of fire, through which he was will- 
 ing to pass with the Host in his hand, was strangled 
 and then burned in Florence in the presence of a large 
 
The Revival of Letters 199 
 
 multitude, many of whom looked upon him — as many 
 of the world still do — as a saint and a martyr. 
 
 The state of Rome at this period well merited the 
 denunciations of a Savonarola. Under Innocent VIII. , 
 whose name was most inappropriate to his character, 
 the record is one of perpetual violence. Innocent 
 VIII. was weakly wicked, but after eight years he was 
 succeeded by Rodrigo Borgia, who took the title of 
 Alexander VI., under which name he has been handed 
 down to infamy. He was the richest of the cardinals 
 and at the same time the most depraved in morals, 
 and the most perfidious as a politician. The great 
 object of his life was to make his son, Cssar Borgia, 
 supreme ruler in Italy. Brave, handsome, talented, 
 powerful in person and determined in character, this 
 son was a w^orthy ally of his father, for as a contempo- 
 rary has recorded, "There is nothing so wicked and 
 so criminal as not to be done publicly in Rome and in 
 the house of the pope." Intrigues with the French 
 king made Caesar duke of Valentinois in France. By 
 deeds of treachery and tyranny he seized upon the 
 duchy of Urbino and numerous small principalities, 
 and was menacing Bologna, Sienna, and Florence when, 
 in 1503, he and his father drank, by mistake, poison 
 prepared for their guests. The pope died and Caesar's 
 severe illness gave to his enemies, among whom was 
 the new pope, Julius II., an advantage which they 
 quickly improved. He was imprisoned in Spain, but 
 finally escaped only to fall in the war against Castile. 
 
 Lorenzo de' Medici left three sons, one of whom, 
 when fourteen years of age, was made a cardinal, and 
 in 15 13 — fifteen years after his father's death — became 
 
200 The Italian Republics 
 
 Pope Leo X., whose sale of indulgences, as a means 
 of raising money for architectural embellishments in 
 the Eternal City, hastened the outbreak of the Refor- 
 mation. 
 
 Piero, the eldest of these sons, made himself hated 
 and despised by the Florentines, notwithstanding their 
 devotion to the memory of his great father. After an 
 absence from Florence, during which he had weakly 
 yielded to the French king, Charles VIII., important 
 fortresses in Tuscan territory, he returned to find 
 guards at the door of his palace, and was refused ad- 
 mission. Surprised at this state of things, he tried to 
 awaken popular sympathy, but found no response. 
 The friends of liberty, excited by the exhortations of 
 Savonarola, took up arms. Their number constantly 
 increased and the Medici, terrified, fled from the city, 
 thus losing a sovereignty which their family had exer- 
 cised for sixty years. 
 
 The invasion of the French under Charles VIII. , 
 in 1494, spread terror from one extremity of the coun- 
 try to the other. Italy tound herself surrounded on 
 all sides by powers which had suddenly become gigarj- 
 tic. While Charles pretended to be the legitimate 
 heir of the kindom of Naples, Louis XII., who suc- 
 ceeded him, called himself heir to the duchy of Milan. 
 Maximilian of Germany claimed prerogatives in Italy 
 which no emperor had pretended since the death of 
 Frederick XL, in 1250. The Swiss had learned that 
 at the foot of* their mountains there lay rich and feeble 
 cities which they might pillage, and finally Ferdinand 
 and Isabella of Spain announced their intention of 
 defending the bastard branch of Aragon which reigned 
 
The Revival of Letters 201 
 
 at Naples. In 1499 Louis XII. sent a powerful army 
 into Italy, subduing Genoa, Milan, and all Lombardy, 
 but on his return to France, the Italians, with a com- 
 pany of Swiss allies, again rallied under Ludovico 
 Sforza of Milan. Louis also enlisting the services of 
 ten thousand Swiss confronted the Italians at Novara, 
 and the Swiss, hesitating to attack each other, brought 
 about a compromise dishonorable to all concerned. 
 After assuring the success of the French king, they 
 basely seized Belinzona, which they ever afterward 
 retained. After his experience in the North, Louis 
 anticipated an easy conquest of Naples. Here again 
 perfidy won the day, for Ferdinand of Spain, false 
 to his promises to King Frederick, landed a Spanish 
 army in the kingdom under his great general, Gonzalvo 
 de Cordova, and made a secret arrangement with 
 Louis to divide the spoil. The jealous rulers could 
 not, however, come to an understanding, and the 
 French army, attacked first by pestilence and then by 
 the Spaniards, was entirely destroyed, and in 1504 the 
 kingdom of Naples, like that of Sicily, became a Span- 
 ish possession. 
 
 Pope Julius II., who came into power at this time, 
 found certain of the cherished possessions of the papal 
 states slipping into the grasp of Venice. The Vene- 
 tians offered the same tribute and the same submission 
 which the previous owners had given to the church, 
 but declined to give up the territory. Julius then, 
 with his powerful allies, Maximilian and Louis, formed 
 the League of Cambray, and once more Italy was over- 
 run by European armies till the pope in despair turned 
 upon the foreigners and organizing the Holy League, 
 
202 The Italian Republics 
 
 freed Italy from the yoke of France. It was but a 
 sorry freedom, however, for Swiss, Spaniard, and Ger- 
 man in succession were to tyrannize over the unhappy 
 country. From the wars of this period it is a relief to 
 turn to the triumphs of peace and to note briefly the 
 career of the great painter, architect, and sculptor 
 who was patronized by Pope Julius II. and by the two 
 popes of the house of Medici. 
 
 Michel Angelo Buonarotti was a descendant of the 
 ancient family of the counts of Canossa. He was born 
 in 1474 and was preeminent in painting, sculpture, 
 architecture, and poetry. Literary people knew and 
 admired his sonnets, in one of which he suggests 
 that in each unhewn block of marble lies possibly a 
 statue of inestimable worth. Besides his intellectual 
 accomplishments he was a renowned swordsman. His 
 first teacher of drawing in the academy of art founded 
 in Florence by Lorenzo de' Medici, was Ghirlandajo, 
 but by the time he was sixteen he had attained equal 
 repute both in sculpture and in painting, and received 
 a commission which associated him with Leonardo da 
 Vinci, to decorate the state house of Florence with 
 frescoes on subjects from Florentine history. The 
 design was never carried out, but one of the cartoons 
 executed by the young artist remains to us, though 
 not in a state of perfect preservation. Pope Julius II. 
 invited him to Rome to erect for him a splendid mau- 
 soleum. The young architect had many rivals who 
 planned to injure him by inducing the pope to give 
 him a commission to decorate the ceiling of the Sistine 
 chapel with frescoes. Michel Angelo had never 
 worked in fresco, and his enemies felt sure that his 
 
The Revival of Letters 203 
 
 execution of this task would destroy his reputation. 
 At first he refused the commission, but at last accepted 
 it and in twenty months finished the work which is one 
 of the wonders of painting. He was then employed 
 to make statues for the tomb of Pope Julius, one of 
 which is the world famous Moses. 
 
 At sixty years of age Michel Angelo was commis- 
 sioned to paint on one vast wall of the Sistine chapel 
 a gigantic fresco of the Last Judgment, a composition 
 which has become one of the great pictures of the 
 world. More than ten years afterward the great 
 architect was persuaded to undertake the continuation 
 of the building of St. Peter's, which had been delayed 
 by political commotions and 'a confusion of plans; but 
 dying nine years later, in 1565, he did not live long 
 enough to see his own plan completely executed, and 
 many alterations were made in it after he was gone. 
 
 It was in the time of Pope Clement VII., 1527, 
 that Charles V., made war upon the papacy. He had 
 been greatly irritated by a league made by various 
 Italian princes to oppose his pretensions to Italian 
 territory. To his great surprise, the pope joined this 
 Italian federation, and in 1527, the Constable de Bour- 
 bon, deserting the French king, Francis I., and carry- 
 ing his sword over to the emperor, led a mixed force 
 of forty thousand German and Spanish soldiers against 
 Rome. The pope and his cardinals took refuge in the 
 stronghold of St. Angelo, and at the first assault the 
 Constable, who was directing the attack in person, 
 was killed by a bullet fired from an arquebus by the 
 famous jeweler and sculptor, Benvenuto Cellini. 
 
 The death of the Constable enraged his soldiers; 
 
204 The Italian Republics 
 
 not only did they manfully continue their attack upon 
 the castle, but the city itself, the capital of Christen- 
 dom, was abandoned to a pillage unparalleled in its 
 history. The pope at last made peace on most humili- 
 ating terms. Before the emperor's troops were with- 
 drawn the plague broke out among them Of the 
 forty thousand soldiers brought by the Constable de 
 Bourbon, only ten thousand remained alive, and they 
 were anxious to leave the city. The pope, who was 
 to be held in captivity until the stipulations on his 
 part were complied with, was released after four 
 months. 
 
 Charles V., after his reconciliation with Clement 
 VII., had raised the Medici in Florence to the stand- 
 ard of princes. Florence was no longer a republic, 
 but took her place among principalities as a grand 
 duchy. Two women of the house of Medici married 
 kings of France. Catherine, the dausihter of Lorenzo 
 the Magnificent, wedded Francis I. ; and subsequently 
 Marie, daughter of the Grand Duke Francis, became 
 the second wife of Henry IV, In the time of Louis 
 XVI. (nearly two hundred years after this period) the 
 aristocratic religious community of Remiremont, which 
 insisted that every lady who entered the order must 
 show sixteen unblemished quarterings, refused to 
 receive a princess of Orleans on the ground that her 
 pedigree had been impaired by these marriages with a 
 family connected with trade; for undoubtedly the 
 Medici kept up their relations with the commercial 
 world long after they had risen to political importance. 
 
 After the extinction of a republic or a nominally 
 republican form of government in Florence, there was 
 
The Revival of Letters 205 
 
 no longer a rallying point for republican feeling in 
 Italy. The policy of the German emperors was to 
 make Italian cities with their dependencies into duch- 
 ies. Thus Montferrat became a duchy and was given 
 to Gonzaga of Mantua as a fief of the empire; many 
 years later it was given over to the duke of Savoy. 
 Genoa, after the French had retained it for twenty- 
 nine years, found a deliverer in Andrea Doria. In 
 Southern Italy, Philip II., of Spain, inherited the king- 
 dom of Naples from Charles V., emperor of Germany 
 and king of Spain, his father, and by a treaty made 
 in 1559 between Philip and Henry II., of France, both 
 monarchs agreed to renounce all claims to Piedmont, 
 which was given back to its legitimate ruler, Em- 
 manuel Philibert of Savoy. 
 
 During the latter half of the sixteenth century the 
 prosperity of Italy was increased by a long peace, 
 during which time great artists and world-famous poets 
 flourished, almost bringing back to Italy her ancient 
 glory. But in the middle of the next century the war 
 of the Spanish Succession broke out and in this war, 
 which involved France, Austria, Spain, and England, 
 Italy was again ravaged by armies and became the 
 prey of the spoiler. 
 
 SUMMARY AND QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 
 
 The Renaissance in Europe. Dante's influence felt in a 
 growing love for poetry. Petrarch, Giotto, and Boccaccio. 
 Florence cut off from the sea by Pisa. A French garrison in 
 the citadel; Boucicault's treachery destroys the young Visconti; 
 he opens the gates to the Florentines. Pisa loses commerce 
 and population. Schism of the popes; Ladislaus of Naples 
 
2o6 The Italian Republics 
 
 with his captain, Sforza, captures Rome and threatens other 
 cities. The Florentines take Rome and make peace with 
 Ladislaus; threatened by Filippo Maria Visconti, whose gen- 
 eral, Francesco Carmagnola, had conquered Lombardy; Flor- 
 ence appeals to Venice; Venice sends Carmagnola against the 
 enemy; he succeeds, then fails, is tortured and executed by the 
 Venetians. Rise of the Medici in Florence. Cosimo's interest 
 in art and letters; exiled by Rinaldo Albizzi, who suffered the 
 same fate later. Francesco Sforza becomes duke of Milan. 
 Pope Nicholas V. restores order in Rome and destroys de- 
 mocracy. Fall of Constantinople, 1453. Death of Cosimo, 
 1464. Lorenzo de' Medici rules until 1492. Savonarola. The 
 Borgias in Rome. The Medici expelled from Florence. In- 
 vasions of Charles VIII. and Louis XII. The Spaniards seize 
 the Two Sicilies. Pope Julius II. and Michel Angelo. Charles 
 V. invades Italy. 
 
 I. What great revival marked the fifteenth century in 
 Europe? 2. How had the love of beauty already adorned the 
 Italian cities? 3. How was the influence of poetry being felt 
 at this time? 4. How did Florence at length get control of 
 Pisa, and with what result? 5. How did the schism of the 
 popes encourage Ladislaus of Naples? 6. Why did the Flor- 
 entines make war against him? 7. W^hat new danger then 
 threatened them? 8. What induced Venice to defend Lom- 
 bardy? 9. Describe the career of Francesco Carmagnola. 
 10. Who was the first illustrious member of the Medici family, 
 and why? 11. What was the advice given him by his father? 
 12. Why did Cosimo suffer exile? 13. Describe the struggles 
 of Sforza with the Milanese. 14. How did Pope Nicholas V. 
 establish his supremacy in Rome? 15. What was the result of 
 the fall of Constantinople? 16. What influence had the mer- 
 chant princes of Florence? 17. Who was Luca Pitti? 18. 
 Give the chief events in the early life of Lorenzo de' Medici. 
 
 19. With what political difficulties did he have to contend? 
 
 20. Describe his meeting with Savonarola. 21. What was the 
 mission and the fate of Savonarola? 22. Describe the career 
 of the Borgias. 23. Why did the Medici lose favor in Florence? 
 24. How did Italy suffer from Charles VIII. and Louis XII.? 
 
The Revival of Letters 207 
 
 25. How did the Two Sicilies become a Spanish kingdom? 
 
 26, What was the League of Cambray? 27. Give an account 
 of Michel Angelo. 28. What was the result of the invasion 
 of Charles V.? 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 The Reiiaissmice itt Italy. Burckhardt. 
 
 Lives of Lorejizo de' Medici by Roscoe and Carpenter. 
 
 Life of Savo7iarola. V'illari. 
 
 Life of Michel A7igeIo. Grimm. 
 
 Flore ftce. A, J. C. Hare. 
 
 Life and Tii7ies of Michel Angelo Biionarotti. J. A. 
 Symonds. 
 
 Life of Vittoria Colonna. Mrs. Roscoe. 
 
 Echoes of Old Florence: Her Palaces and Those Who 
 Have Lived in Them. Leader Scott. 
 
 Ro77iola. George Eliot. 
 
 Venetia7i Life. Howells. 
 
 Sketches a7id Studies in Italy. Symonds. 
 
 Memoirs of Be7ive7iiito Cellini. 
 
THE MAKERS 
 
 OF 
 
 MODERN ITALY 
 
 THREE LECTURES DELIVERED AT THE 
 
 SUMMER MEETING OF UNIVERSITY 
 
 EXTENSION STUDENTS, 
 
 HELD IN OXFORD, 
 
 AUGUST, 1889 
 
 J. A. R. MARRIOTT, M. A. 
 
 NEW COLLEGE AND WORCESTER COLLEGE, 
 
 OXFORD LECTURER IN MODERN 
 
 HISTORY AND POLITICAL 
 
 ECONOMY 
 
 PART III. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 GIUSEPPE MAZZINI 
 AUSTRIAN DOMINATION IN ITALY 
 
 In each of the great and well-defined periods into 
 which the history of western Europe naturally divides 
 itself, it is not difficult to find some leading idea, some 
 guiding principle, some dominant maxim of statesman- 
 ship, or some all-powerful institution which may serve 
 to give a distinguishing characteristic to the age, and 
 in relation to which particular events may be most 
 conveniently regarded. By keeping this dominant 
 principle or institution constantly in mind, the student 
 is enabled to see in the scattered and apparently mis- 
 cellaneous events of a particular period a consistency 
 and coherence which they may sometimes seem to lack. 
 By following this method much is gained. Not only 
 is the attention of the student directed to the broader 
 and more important movements of the time, but par- 
 ticular events fall naturally into their true perspective. 
 Thus in the centuries which succeeded the downfall of 
 the older Roman empire, European politics were 
 dominated by the Holy Catholic Church; while the 
 social life of the peoples was molded under the all- 
 absorbing institution of feudalism — a system which 
 was itself the product of the clash of Roman and Teu- 
 tonic institutions. As we approach the close of the 
 
212 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 Middle Ages we find ourselves still in the presence, 
 still to a large extent under the dominating influence, 
 of these great medieval institutions. But they are no 
 longer in the plenitude of power. Their meridian is 
 passed; their commanding influence is undermined; 
 new forces are pushing their way to the front. But 
 even in their decay they are still the axis round which 
 the politics and social life of western Europe continue 
 to revolve. By the end of the fifteenth century, how- 
 ever, the twofold unity of Church and Empire is defi- 
 nitely broken up, and from its ruins there emerge 
 independent and more or less consolidated nations, 
 owning no allegiance to the emperor, and very little 
 to the pope. For the complete accomplishment of 
 this development two things were necessary: the de- 
 struction of the disruptive power of the great feudal 
 vassals, and the consolidation of the power of the 
 national monarchies. 
 
 In the attainment of national unity some states 
 were, I need not say, very much ahead of others. 
 England, for example, compassed the realization of 
 her national identity as early as^ the thirteenth cen- 
 tury; France and Spain not until the sixteenth; while 
 other states, like Germany and Italy, have reached the 
 same goal only within the last few years. Speaking 
 generally, however, the national monarchies of western 
 Europe attained their zenith toward the end of the 
 seventeenth century. It was then that Louis XIV. 
 could say with almost literal truth, L" etat c' est ?noi. 
 And what was true of France was true in less degree 
 of other European states. The monarchy absorbed 
 into itself all the powers of the state. The ascendancy 
 
Giuseppe Mazzini 213 
 
 of the great vassals had been utterly broken through 
 the active assistance, or the passive acquiescence, of 
 the Commons; and the crown, having absorbed the 
 powers of the aristocracy, could without difficulty 
 overcome the feeble resistance of the third estate. 
 Representative institutions either, as in Spain, lost all 
 vitality or, as in France, were entirely swept away. 
 Thus Europe was prepared for what has been called 
 with much felicity the "administrative absolutism" of 
 the eighteenth century. And while monarchs like 
 Frederick of Prussia, like Joseph II. of Austria, or 
 Charles III. of Spain, were busy in bestowing on their 
 peoples the blessings of paternal despotism at home, 
 is it possible to define' the guiding principle of the 
 international relations of their several states? I think 
 it is. Speaking broadly, continental politics were 
 dominated during this period by two forces: the theory 
 of the balance of power, and the dynastic interests of 
 the individual kings. But the grea't social and intel- 
 lectual upheaval at the end of the eighteenth century — 
 an upheaval which found its most striking manifesta- 
 tion in France — wrought a tremendous revolution in 
 the ideas of men, and ultimately in the policies of 
 states. The French Revolution — to make use of a 
 loose but convenient formula — bequeathed to the nine- 
 teenth century two great dominating ideas: the idea 
 of the rights of man as man, and the idea of the rights 
 of nationalities as nationalities. The working of these 
 forces in the present century has indeed often been 
 obscured — at times so much obscured that some have 
 doubted their existence — but in the main it is true to 
 say that the one has controlled the internal policy, 
 
214 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 while the other has given the determining bias to the 
 external relations of the several European states. 
 When the philosophic historian of the future comes to 
 write the history of the nineteenth century he will, it 
 may be supposed, mark as the distinguishing charac- 
 teristics of this epoch the acquisition of supreme power 
 by the many for the government of all, and the con- 
 solidation of kindred and contiguous states, or rather 
 bundles of states, on the basis of the vital principle of 
 naiionalitw 
 
 With the former development I have for the present 
 no concern. It is the purpose of these lectures to 
 examine in such detail as time may allow the most 
 romantic, if not the most important and most striking, 
 exemplification of the latter principle. 
 
 With the great work of Italian unification four 
 names will to all time be connected in inseparable 
 association. For the moment I do not speak of the 
 inspiration which the makers of modern Italy derived 
 from the works of Dante and Alfieri. of d'Azeglio and 
 Rossetti and Manzoni. The extent of their influence 
 defies all common computation. It is my purpose to 
 speak of the work of the men of action, of Mazzini, of 
 Cavour, of Garibaldi; and not least of him whose cool- 
 ness and courage, whose temperate zeal and whose 
 unswerving honesty, whose clearness of vision and un- 
 failing common sense, gave consistency and coherence 
 to the life-work of them all. I speak, of course, of 
 Victor Emmanuel, the first king of United Italy. 
 
 And first, we must ask, what was the material upon 
 which these great builders had to work? What was 
 the condition of Italy, political and social, after the 
 
Giuseppe Mazzini 215 
 
 Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars in the opening 
 years of the present century? For long centuries the 
 idea of Italian unity had been buried with the past; 
 even the name of Italy had almost entirely ceased to 
 be whispered by man. In the Middle Ages great parts 
 were played on the stage of European politics by the 
 city states of Italy, by Venice and Genoa, by Milan 
 and Florence, by Pisa and by Rome. But of Italy as 
 a whole, as a nation, we hear and know nothing; it 
 did not exist. "Since the fall of the Roman empire 
 (if even before it) there never has been a time," as 
 Mr. Forsyth says with almost brutal truth, "when 
 Italy could be called a nation any more than a stack 
 of timber can be called a ship." As we approach 
 more modern times, even the republics disappear; the 
 city states are absorbed into the hands of mem.bers of 
 one or other of the two great families which so long 
 controlled the fortunes of that "distressful country." 
 Italy becomes simply the battleground of contending 
 nations and intriguing dynasties. During the latter 
 half of the eighteenth century, indeed, Italy enjoyed 
 an unusual calm. It was the calm, however, not of 
 quiet, placid happiness, but of a miserable inertia, of 
 a hopeless torpidity of soul. Cut up into petty prince- 
 doms for the cadets of the houses of Hapsburg and 
 of Bourbon, Italy lay beneath their yoke hopeless, 
 emotionless, priest-ridden, and benumbed. 
 
 In the last years of the century this repose was 
 rudely interrupted by the Napoleonic occupation. To 
 Italy Napoleon went in name, and' to some extent in 
 fact, as a deliverer. Eventually, it is true, he imposed 
 upon Italy a yoke heavier, it may be, than the yoke of 
 
2i6 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 Bourbon or of Hapsburg whom he had displaced, but 
 a yoke not without its salutary effects. To the 
 Italian, as to the other disordered princedoms of con- 
 tinental Europe, Napoleon was no doubt a scourge, a 
 very disagreeable scourge, but on the whole a healthy 
 one. For the corrupted courts which he invaded, for 
 the petty thrones he overturned, it is impossible to 
 feel one iota of respect, one scrap of sympathetic 
 regret. In Italy, at any rate, he did nothing but 
 good. He trampled under foot municipal jealousies 
 and local prejudices; he reduced the political divisions 
 of the country from fifteen to three; he constructed 
 splendid roads and bridges — unifying forces of no 
 mean significance. Before his overthrow he had rudely 
 broken up the "ancient fixity of confusions which 
 passed for government, and had aroused no insignifi- 
 cant forces of new social life. The feudal tenure of 
 land, and with it something of the feudal structure of 
 society, had passed away. The French civil code, and 
 a criminal code based upon that of France, had taken 
 the place of a thousand conflicting customs and juris- 
 dictions. Taxation had been made, if not light, at 
 least equitable and simple. Justice was regular, and 
 the same for baron and peasant. Brigandage had 
 been extinguished, and for the first time in many cen- 
 turies the presence of a rational and uniform adminis- 
 tration was felt over the greater part of Italy." ' At 
 his approach, too, the Jesuits had once more fled, 
 education was placed on a reasonable basis, and the 
 Italians, roused from their frivolous and lounging 
 habits, were taught to think and act like men. But 
 
 ' C. A. Fyffe, History of Modern Europe, vol. ii, p. 178. 
 
Giuseppe Mazzini 217 
 
 above all, Napoleon, little as he knew it, little as the 
 Italians realized it at the time, was the first for centu- 
 ries to evoke if not to create a sense, a consciousness 
 of unity, of nationality, in Italy. As Mazzini himself 
 has said of the Napoleonic occupation: "The intellec- 
 tual rise, the rapid increase of national prosperity, the 
 burst of fraternization . . . are facts, especially in 
 the period 1805-13, irrevocably committed to history. 
 Notwithstanding our dependence on the French em- 
 pire, under political despotism and despite war, the 
 feeling of nationality specially incorporated in our 
 brave army elevated our souls, picturing in the dis- 
 tance the oneness of Italy, the object of all our 
 efforts." 
 
 But for the moment the good seed was choked by 
 the Restoration of 181 5. At that time, as Prince 
 Metternich with cynical truth observed, Italy was 
 merely a geographical expression. It was the purpose 
 of the Viennese diplomatists to restore, as far as might 
 be, the status quo ante Revolution. They hoped to 
 renew in Italy the dynastic morcellement of the eight- 
 eenth century. The states were once more parceled 
 out among the members of the Bourbon or the Haps- 
 burg house. The emperor of Austria, Francis II., 
 helped himself to Lombardy and Venice ; Marie Louise, 
 an Austrian archduchess, and sometime consort of 
 the great Napoleon, was installed in the Duchy of 
 Parma; Tuscany was given to Ferdinand III., also of 
 the Austrian house, and Modena to his son Francis; 
 Pius VII. reentered upon the temporal domains of the 
 papacy, while the Bourbons were restored in the per- 
 son of Ferdinand I. to the throne of Naples and Sicily. 
 
21 8 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 The little republic of San Marino, looking sadly forth 
 over the waters of the Adriatic, alone recalled the 
 Italy of the Middle Age — an Italy divided but inde- 
 pendent. 
 
 Looking, however, no longer to the past but to the 
 future, the most interesting feature of the Restoration 
 still remains to be noticed. At the beginning of the 
 sixteenth century the dukes of Savoy had acquired 
 Piedmont, and thus succeeded in straddling the Alps. 
 Their geographical position, as the Prince de Ligne 
 has cynically said, did not permit them to behave like 
 honest men. Consequently, by rather tortuous but in 
 the main successful diplomacy, they managed in the 
 eighteenth century to add the royal crown of Sardinia 
 to the ducal crowns of Piedmont and Savoy; and 
 never was a European war concluded, however remote 
 the principal combatants might be, but the house of 
 Savoy was able to acquire several of the towns of 
 Lombardy, stripping it, as the saying goes, like an 
 artichoke, leaf by leaf. Their position was still further 
 strengthened in 1815 by the acquisition of the annihi- 
 lated republic of Genoa. Such was the Italy of 1815, 
 little better, if at all, than Metternich's "geographical 
 expression." But for all that the Italy of 1815 was 
 not the Italy of the ante-Napoleonic days. Strive as 
 they might, the diplomatists of Vienna could not set 
 back the hands of time, nor even "make things seem 
 as though they had not been. ' ' They might, it is true, 
 put back an Austrian here, a Bourbon there: they 
 might annihilate ancient republics and carve out 
 modern dukedoms; they might mark out with jealous 
 care dividing lines which had been erased, and they 
 
Giuseppe MazzinI 219 
 
 might again set up boundaries which had been broken 
 down ; but they could not erase from the minds of the 
 Italian people the newly awakened recollection of their 
 ancient fame; they could not stifle, strive as they 
 might, their newly conceived but none the less passion- 
 ate longing for the realization of their national identity. 
 I do not know where you will find more accurate or 
 more eloquent expression of this feeling than in the 
 letter addressed, thirty years afterward, by Mazzini 
 nominally to Sir James Graham, really to the English 
 people. 
 
 "There are over there (in Lombardy) from four to 
 five millions of human creatures gifted with an immor- 
 tal soul, with powerful faculties,, with ardent and 
 generous passions ; with aspirations toward free agency, 
 toward the ideal which their fathers had a glimpse of, 
 which nature and tradition point out to them; toward 
 a national union with other millions of brother souls 
 in order to attain it; from four to five millions of men 
 desiring only to advance under the eye of God, their 
 only master, toward the accomplishment of a social 
 task which they have in common with sixteen or 
 seventeen millions of other men, speaking the same 
 language, treading the same earth, cradled in their 
 infancy in the same maternal songs, strengthened in 
 their youth by the same sun, inspired by the same 
 memories, the same sources of literary genius. Coun- 
 try, liberty, brotherhood, all are wrested from them; 
 their faculties are mutilated, curbed, chained, within 
 a narrow circle traced for them- by men who are 
 strangers to their tendencies, to their wants, to their 
 wishes; their tradition is broken under the cane of an 
 
220 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 Austrian corporal; their immortal soul feudatory to 
 the stupid caprices of a man seated on a throne at 
 Vienna, to the caprices of the Tyrolese agents; and 
 you go on indifferent, coolly inquiring if these men be 
 subject to this or that tariff, if the bread that they eat 
 costs them a halfpenny more or less! That tariff, 
 whatever it is, is too high ; it is not they who have had 
 the ordering of it; that bread, dear or not, is moist- 
 ened with tears, for it is the bread of slaves." 
 
 And indeed at that moment the Italian people were 
 little better than slaves beneath the Austrian yoke. 
 For it was Metternich who maintained the petty des- 
 pots on their thrones, and dictated the policy which 
 they were bound to carry out. The Bourbon princes 
 and the Austrian archdukes nominally reigned in their 
 several principalities; in reality they were simply pup- 
 pets, the strings of which were pulled invariably from 
 Vienna. The history of the Neapolitan insurrection 
 of 1 82 1 will serve to illustrate the extent to which an 
 Austrian domination was imposed even upon the nomi- 
 nally independent states of Italy. The Bourbon Ferdi- 
 nand of Naples had, on his restoration in 1815, 
 solemnly pledged his word that he would respect the 
 constitution drawn up for Sicily by Lord William 
 Bentinck in 181 2. In 1816, at the bidding of Prince 
 Metternich, that constitution was annulled, lest the 
 example of Sicily might serve as a vicious model for 
 the other princedoms of Italy. In 1820 a revolution 
 broke out in Spain, and the insurgents succeeded in 
 extorting from the king a liberal constitution. The 
 excitement spread to southern Italy. The Neapolitan 
 people, supported by the army, demanded from their 
 
Giuseppe Mazzini 211 
 
 king a constitution on the model of that which had 
 been conceded in Spain. The king granted the 
 demands of the insurgents with apparent eagerness, 
 fervently protesting his gratitude to God, who had per- 
 mitted him in his old age to do a great good to his 
 kingdom. Some days later the concession was ratified 
 in the most solemn manner. The king having heard 
 mass, approached the altar, and in presence of the 
 court and ministers took his oath to the constitution. 
 Then fixing his eyes upon the cross, he cried: "Om- 
 nipotent God, who with infinite penetration lookest 
 into the heart and into the future, if I lie, or if one 
 day I should be faithless to my oath, do Thou at this 
 moment annihilate me." The king having kissed the 
 Gospel, the oath was taken by his sons, and the new 
 constitution was publicly proclaimed. 
 
 Meanwhile Prince Metternich and his copartners in 
 the Holy Alliance had been looking on with great 
 uneasiness at the development of events in southern 
 Italy. It was no part of his policy to permit his vassal 
 princes to make liberal concessions to their own sub- 
 jects, nor indeed to take action in any way without his 
 sanction. Not merely in Naples, but in many other 
 states, there had already been manifestations of im- 
 patience at the policy of simple restoration which had 
 been enunciated at the Congress of Vienna. The allied 
 monarchs took alarm and assembled in conference, 
 first at Troppau in Bohemia, and afterward at Lay- 
 bach. For this conference King Ferdinand set out in 
 December, 1820, having once more publicly announced 
 his adherence to the constitution to which he had 
 sworn with such solemnity. Then comes the denoue- 
 
222 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 ment of this blasphemous farce. At Troppau and Lay- 
 bach absolutist sentiments were completely dominant. 
 The English foreign minister — the much maligned 
 Lord Castlereagh — was alone found to protest against 
 the atrocious doctrine that a change of government in 
 any state gave the allied powers the right to inter- 
 fere — a doctrine which, as a recent historian has truly 
 said, "would have empowered the czar to throw the 
 armies of a coalition upon London if the reform bill 
 had been carried by force." As Lord Castlereagh 
 pointed out to the powers with admirable explicitness, 
 England could never recognize the right of the allied 
 sovereigns to interfere in the internal affairs of the 
 several states. But despite this protest, to Austria 
 was committed the work of quelling the liberal move- 
 ment in southern Italy. King Ferdinand had no 
 sooner got beyond the frontier of his own unhappy 
 kingdom than he wrote to his brother sovereigns pro- 
 testing that the concessions had been wrung from him 
 by force, and that all his reCent acts were null and 
 void. The Austrian troops marched on Naples; the 
 Neapolitan troops ran away; the king was restored; 
 the constitution was torn up ; and the insurgent lead- 
 ers were either flung into dungeons or promptly 
 hanged. Such was the way in which Prince Metter- 
 nich galled the Italian peoples with the Austrian yoke 
 from end to end of Italy. 
 
 As it was in Naples so it was even in Piedmont, a 
 state less dependent than any other on the nod of 
 Metternich. When the Austrian troops had marched 
 on Naples, the liberals of Piedmont, conceiving that 
 the moment had arrived for striking a blow in the 
 
Giuseppe Mazzini 223 
 
 cause of Italian independence, united with the malcon- 
 tents of Lombardy with the object of flinging them- 
 selves upon the rear of the Austrian army. In the 
 northern movement, though it was the work in large 
 measure of the Carbonari, there was nothing of hostil- 
 ity toward the Sardinian monarchy. "Our hearts are 
 faithful to the king, but we wish to deliver him from 
 perfidious counsels. War against Austria; a constitu- 
 tion like that granted in Spain; such are the wishes of 
 the people." But the king Victor Emmanuel, though 
 honestly inclined to concession in a liberal sense, was 
 personally too deeply committed to Prince Metternich 
 and the Austrian policy. In extreme bitterness of soul 
 he laid down his scepter in favor of his brother, Charles 
 Felix, Meanwhile the northern insurrection hopelessly 
 miscarried; the leaders were divided; Charles Felix 
 was away; one party was inclined to pass him over in 
 favor of his cousin, Charles Albert, Prince of Savoy- 
 Carignano; another was faithful to the legal king. 
 And while the leaders disputed, their followers were 
 paralyzed. The whole movement ended in complete 
 collapse. The Austrian yoke was reimposed on Lom- 
 bardy with tenfold rigor; the dungeons were crammed 
 with prisoners; every movement, every action of an 
 Italian native was watched with jealous vigilance, and 
 tortures were applied to extort from the sufferers even 
 the unspoken wishes of the heart. Who can wonder 
 that in those dark days a dull despair fell even on the 
 bravest of Italian patriots? But yet not on all. 
 
 Italia ! when thy name was but a name, 
 When to desire thee was a vain desire, 
 When to achieve thee was impossible. 
 
224 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 When to love thee was madness, when to live 
 
 For thee was the extravagance of fools, 
 
 When to die for thee was to fiing away 
 
 Life for a shadow — in those darkest days 
 
 Were some who never swerved, who lived, and strove. 
 
 And suffered for thee, and attained their end ! 
 
 Of these brave spirits who, in the dark days before 
 1848, looked on the sufferings and degradation of their 
 native land, in bitterness of soul indeed, but still with 
 passionate and steadfast hope, there was none so sad 
 and yet so steadfast, there was none filled with such 
 lofty purpose and such pure enthusiasm as Joseph 
 Mazzini. 
 
 Born at Genoa in 1805, Mazzini, like Cavour and 
 Garibaldi, was a Sardinian subject. Even in child- 
 hood he was impressed with the misery and degra- 
 dation of his country. In his early school-days, as 
 throughout his life, it was his morbid fancy to wear 
 nothing but black. "In the midst of the noisy tumul- 
 tuous life of the scholars around me I was," he tells 
 us, "somber and absorbed, and appeared like one sud- 
 denly grown old. I childishly determined to dress 
 always in black, fancying myself in mourning for my 
 country." It was after the failure of 1821 that Maz- 
 zini first became conscious of the mission of his life. 
 While walking one Sunday with his mother and a friend 
 in the streets of Genoa, they were addressed, he tells 
 us in his most interesting autobiography, by a "tall 
 black-bearded man with a severe and energetic coun- 
 tenance, and a fiery glance that I have never since for- 
 gotten. He held out a handkerchief toward us, merely 
 saying, 'For the refugees of Italy.' " The incident, 
 
Giuseppe Mazzini 225 
 
 simple as it was, made a profound impression on Maz- 
 zini's ardent soul. "The idea of an existing wrong in 
 my own country against which it was a duty to strug- 
 gle, and the thought that I too must bear my part in 
 that struggle, flashed before my mind on that day for 
 the first time, never again to leave me. The remem- 
 brance of those refugees, many of whom became my 
 friends in after life, pursued me wherever I went by 
 day and mingled with my dreams by night. I would 
 have given I know not what to follow them. I began 
 collecting names and facts, and studied as best I 
 might the records of that heroic struggle, seeking to 
 fathom the causes of its failure." 
 
 Shortly after the completion of his university career 
 Mazzini joined the ranks of the Carbonari, and thus 
 definitely embarked on a career of political agitation. 
 To him, as to many men of delicate perceptions and 
 refined imagination, such a step was a great sacrifice. 
 He himself spoke of it in after years as his *'first great 
 sacrifice. " He had looked forward from his childhood 
 to a literary career. ''A thousand visions of histori- 
 cal dramas and romances floated before my mental 
 eye — artistic images that caressed my spirit as visions 
 of gentle maidens soothe the soul of the lonely-hearted. 
 The natural bias of my mind was very different from 
 that which has been forced upon me by the times in 
 which I have lived and the shame of our degradation." 
 But Mazzini saw, clearly enough, that the literary 
 issues then at stake, as between the Classicists and 
 Romanticists, important as they seemed, must be post- 
 poned to the solution of the vital political problem. 
 "Without a country and without liberty we might per- 
 
226 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 haps produce some prophets of art, but no vital art. 
 Therefore it was better for us to consecrate our Hves 
 to the solution of the problem, Are we to have a coun- 
 try? and turn at once to the political question. If we 
 were successful, the art of Italy would bloom and flour- 
 ish over our graves." 
 
 Were the Italians to have a country? That was the 
 problem to the solution of which Mazzini consecrated 
 his life. We may decline — I think we must decline — 
 to approve the means by which Mazzini was compelled 
 at first to work; we may loathe, as he loathed, the 
 midnight machinations of secret societies like the Car- 
 bonari; we may despise the republican fanaticism by 
 which his later work was unhappily disfigured, but we 
 can never question, if we know anything of the man 
 himself, his single-minded patriotism, or the lofty and 
 sustained elevation of his moral teaching. And you 
 must realize, if you would judge him fairly, the con- 
 ditions under which he had to work. 
 
 " It is death 
 To speak the very name of Italy 
 To this Italian people." 
 
 What wonder, then, that patriotism, which might under 
 happier conditions have found a vent in constitutional 
 agitation, was forced into unhealthy subterranean 
 channels? No one ever despised or hated such 
 methods more than Mazzini himself. But for the 
 moment he was compelled to work with such tools as 
 were at his command. Shortly after the July revolu- 
 tion of 1830, Mazzini, having been entrapped by a 
 government spy into the performance of some trifling 
 commission for the Carbonari^ was arrested and im- 
 
Giuseppe Mazzlnl 227 
 
 prisoned in the fortress of Savona on the western 
 Riviera. "The government was not fond," so his 
 father was informed, "of young men of talent, the 
 subject of whose musings was unknown to them." 
 After six months' imprisonment Mazzini was acquit- 
 ted of conspiracy, but was nevertheless exiled from 
 Italy. 
 
 Meanwhile the events of the "glorious days of 
 July," as they are grandiloquently termed, had not 
 been without their influence in his native land. Under 
 the influence of the Carbonari, insurrections simultane- 
 ously broke out in Modena, in Bologna, and in other 
 parts of the papal states. The new pope, Gregory 
 XVI., elected to the papal throne in the midst of the 
 insurrectionary confusion, and alarmed by the decla- 
 ration of the insurgents that the temporal dominion 
 was at an end, invoked the aid of Austria. Metter- 
 nich, nothing loath, marched an army into Italy; the 
 States of the Church were occupied and order was 
 restored. Jealous of Austria's exclusive interference, 
 the French government despatched a force into Italy 
 and occupied Ancona. The rival forces continued to 
 confront each other in Italy for several years, but 
 without further results of any kind. 
 
 Early in the same year, 1831, Charles Felix had 
 been succeeded on the Sardinian throne by his cousin 
 Charles Albert, a man who in earlier days had coquet- 
 ted with the Carbonari movement. Mazzini, who was 
 in exile at Marseilles, at once addressed to him his 
 memorable "letter to the king." "The people," it 
 declared, "are no longer to be quieted by a few con- 
 cessions. They seek the recognition of those rights 
 
228 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 of humanity which have been withheld from them for 
 ages. They demand laws and liberty, independence 
 and union. Divided, dismembered, and oppressed, 
 they have neither name nor country. They have heard 
 themselves stigmatized by the foreigner as a helot 
 nation. They have seen free men visit their country 
 and declare it the land of the dead. They have 
 drained the cup of slavery to the dregs, but they have 
 sworn never to fill it again." Let the king champion 
 the cause not merely of Piedmont, but of Italy. "All 
 Italy waits for one word — one only — to make herself 
 yours. Proffer this word to her. Place yourself at 
 the head of the nation and write on your banner: 
 'Union, Liberty, Independence.' Proclaim the lib- 
 erty of thought. Declare yourself the vindicator, the 
 interpreter of popular rights, the regenerator of all 
 Italy. Liberate her from the barbarians. Build up 
 the future; give your name to a century; begin a new 
 era from your day. . . . Select the way that accords 
 with the desire of the nation; maintain it unalterably; 
 be firm and await your time ; you have the victory in 
 your hands. Sire, on this condition we bind ourselves 
 round you, we proffer you our lives, we will lead to 
 your banner the little states of Italy. We will paint 
 to our brothers the advantages that are born of union; 
 we will promote national subscriptions, patriotic gifts; 
 we will preach the word that creates armies, . . . 
 Unite us, Sire, and we shall conquer." 
 
 To this passionate appeal the king was deaf; his 
 only answer was an order that if Mazzini attempted 
 to cross the frontier into Italy he should be instantly 
 arrested. But though the king was deaf, the people 
 
Giuseppe Mazzini 229 
 
 listened, and flocked in their thousands to join the 
 association which Mazzini had lately founded. This 
 was the famous association of "Young Italy." Ever 
 since his imprisonment at Savona, Mazzini had been 
 pondering over a scheme for establishing an associ- 
 ation which should take the place of the secret soci- 
 eties like the Carbonari. He disliked their methods 
 and 'mistrusted their aims. Their creed was purely 
 negative; they were the sworn foes of tyranny, the 
 determined opponents of the existing regime in Italy. 
 That regime they were resolved to overthrow; but 
 they looked no farther. In fine, they had no construc- 
 tive policy. This lack of an inspiring creed, a vivify- 
 ing faith, Mazzini sought to supply in his association 
 of Young Italy. The Carbonari movement had hope- 
 lessly failed, as it deserved to fail, though not perhaps 
 for the particular reasons to which Mazzini attributed 
 its failure. To Mazzini 's thinking it had leaned too 
 much on the support of the educated, influential 
 classes. "Revolutions," he says, "must be made by 
 the people and for the people. This is our word, it 
 sums up our whole doctrine; it is our science, our 
 religion, our heart's affection." But the Carbonari 
 were not only too aristocratic, they lacked the machin- 
 ery for sim.ultaneous and concerted action, and concert 
 and simultaneity are of the essence of successful revo- 
 lution. They had no program, no faith, no lofty 
 ideal. Thus the first duty of the new association was 
 to declare war on the existing idolatry of material 
 interests; to convince the Italian people that "the 
 sole path to victory was through sacrifice, constancy 
 in sacrifice." They must begin with the education of 
 
230 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 the people. "Italy was materialist, Machiavellian, 
 believing in the initiative of France, and seeking rather 
 to emancipate and ameliorate the condition of the 
 separate states than to constitute herself a nation. 
 The country was regardless of high principles, and 
 ready to accept any form of government, any mode of 
 assistance, or any man brought forward with a prom- 
 ise of relieving her immediate sufferings. On my side 
 I believed . . . that the great problem of the day was 
 a religious problem." Here you see at once the 
 strength and the weakness of the man. His passion- 
 ate ardor, his unswerving faith, his lofty idealism — 
 an idealism which revolted from the use of means 
 other than those which he himself selected. It was 
 on these lines that Mazzini drew up the statutes of the 
 new association. "Young Italy is a brotherhood of 
 Italians who believe in a law of progress and duty and 
 are convinced that Italy is destined to become one 
 nation. . . . They join this association in the firm 
 intent of consecrating both thought and action to the 
 great aim of reconstructing Italy as one independent 
 sovereign nation of free men and equals. " The means 
 by which the end was to be attained — we may smile at 
 the collocation — were "education and insurrection, to 
 be adopted simultaneously." 
 
 The expulsion of the hated Austrians was the first 
 prerequisite. Since it was impossible to avoid a war,- 
 bloody and inexorable, the sooner it was attempted 
 the better. Such a war must be waged by Italians and 
 for Italy. No reliance must be placed on foreign 
 governments or on the efforts of diplomacy. All 
 thoughts of federalism, of independence without unity. 
 
Giuseppe Mazzlni 231 
 
 must be laid aside. "Federalism would cancel the 
 great mission of Italy in the world." Young Italy, 
 therefore, is unitarian. ''Never," said Mazzini to his 
 followers, "never rise in any other name than that of 
 Italy and of all Italy." Mazzini himself was by con- 
 viction a stern republican, and the members of Young 
 Italy were sworn to educate the Italian people in that 
 doctrine. But there was to be no forcing of the delib- 
 erate conviction of the people. The ultimate form of 
 government, when once unity had been achieved, was 
 to be left to their own deliberate choice. The republi- 
 canism of Mazzini was of the truly liberal sort. "We 
 shall," say the statutes, "we shall bow the head and 
 accept any form of government chosen by universal 
 suffrage, because it is the duty of individual opinion 
 to give way before the voice of the nation." Such, 
 in rough, imperfect outline, was the political program 
 of Mazzini, carefully elaborated in the statutes of 
 Young Italy. You will find those statutes in the col- 
 lected edition of his works. 
 
 The effect produced by these propaganda was im- 
 mediate and profound. "From student to student, 
 from youth to youth, confraternity extended with un- 
 exampled rapidity, and the same hands that smuggled 
 the paper into Italy brought back such a multitude of 
 names and adhesions as to astonish the little band of 
 fellow-exiles who had undertaken with Mazzini the 
 labor and the risk of the publication. The new asso- 
 ciation quickly became dominant from end to end of 
 Italy. "It was," says Mazzini, "the triumph of 
 principles; the bare fact that in so short a space of time 
 a handful of young men, themselves sprung from the 
 
232 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 people, unknown, without means, . . . found them- 
 selves thus rapidly at the head of an association suffi- 
 ciently powerful to concentrate against it the alarmed 
 persecution of seven governments is, I think, in itself 
 enough to show that the banner they had raised was 
 the banner of truth." The "alarmed persecution of 
 governments" was no empty phrase. In August, 1832, 
 Mazzini was decreed an exile from France, though for 
 a whole year or more he continued in Marseilles, elud- 
 ing the vigilance of the French police. In 1833 he 
 went to Switzerland, whence he took part in the ill- 
 starred and abortive expedition into Savoy. In 1836 
 even the Swiss government was prevailed upon to deny 
 him further hospitality, and it was not till the follow- 
 ing year that he found a home in the only European 
 state which has never refused a home to political 
 exiles. In 1837 he settled in England, which, as he 
 himself has written, "became to me almost as a second 
 country, and in which I found the lasting consolation 
 of affection in a life embittered by delusions and desti- 
 tute of all joy." From England he continued, amid 
 the trials of deepening poverty, to direct the affairs of 
 his association. But great as was his influence, even 
 in exile, his countrymen were by no means unanimous 
 in the acceptance of his views. 
 
 Besides those whom we may term the Mazzinisti 
 there were two other influential parties which, while 
 sharing to the full Mazzini's longing for the realization 
 of Italian unity, sought to attain it by very different 
 means. Of the party which began to look to Pied- 
 mont as the destined champion of Italian independence 
 I shall have more to say in my next lecture. The 
 
Giuseppe Mazzini 233 
 
 other great party, the neo-Guelphs — at this time under 
 the leadership of Gioberti — looked to the papacy to 
 put itself at the head of the national insurrection, and 
 for a moment it seemed as though their hopes might 
 not be altogether ill-founded. In 1846 the old pope 
 Gregory XVI. died, and Pio Nono was elected to suc- 
 ceed him. He began his pontificate by the issue of an 
 amnesty, and the inauguration of some long-delayed 
 reforms. The neo-Guelphs jumped to the conclusion 
 that the millennium had already dawned, and hailed 
 the unhappy pontiff as the messiah of Italian freedom. 
 "Seldom," as a modern critic has well said, "has his- 
 tory shown a more curious complication of false posi- 
 tions and inextricable dilemmas. . . . The new pope 
 took from the first a lofty view of his spiritual preroga- 
 tive, but began his reign without a definite temporal 
 policy. . . . He promised reforms, and was rewarded 
 by calculated acclamations."^ Mazzini had as little 
 liking for popes as for kings; but never losing sight 
 for a moment of the great end he had in view, he 
 addressed to the new pope a letter pointing out to him 
 the great mission which he might fulfil. He did win 
 a fleeting popularity by protesting against the Austrian 
 occupation of Ferrara. But his zeal for internal reform 
 speedily evaporated, if indeed it had ever existed out- 
 side the heated imagination of the neo-Guelphic party. 
 In Tuscany, however, and in Piedmont, considerable 
 administrative reforms were carried out by the ruling- 
 princes, to the immense delight of their peoples, but 
 to the infinite chagrin of Metternich. King Ferdinand 
 of Naples, the notorious Bomba, was almost alone in 
 
 ' F. H. W, Myers, Essay on Mazzini. 
 
234 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 his obstinate refusal to grant any sort of concession 
 to his people. 
 
 But every day the irritation was growing, every day 
 the determination of all classes of Italians to realize 
 the unity, and especially the independence, of their 
 country was becoming fiercer and more intense. The 
 general feeling manifested itself in a hundred ways. 
 The scientific congress at Genoa, the agricultural con- 
 gress at Casale, were in reality political gatherings 
 under a thin disguise. At the congress at Casale a 
 letter from Charles Albert of Piedmont to the Count 
 of Castegneto was communicated to the assembled 
 delegates. "Austria," wrote the king, "has sent a 
 note to all the powers, in which she declares her wish 
 to retain Ferrara, believing she has a right to it. . . . 
 If Providence sends us a war of Italian independence, 
 I will mount my horse with my sons, I will place my- 
 self at the head of an army. . . . What a glorious day 
 it will be in which we can raise the cry of a war for the 
 independence of Italy I" The enthusiasm aroused by 
 this pronouncement was intense; the congress begged 
 the king to place himself at the head of the Italian 
 movement and unsheath at once the sword of inde- 
 pendence. 
 
 Such, then, was the condition of affairs in Italy on 
 the eve of the revolutionary year. The agitation for 
 reform was universal, when news arrived that caused 
 the idea of mere constitutional reform to be flung 
 aside, and made men realize that the time had come 
 for striking not only at the petty despots in the Italian 
 princedoms, but at the giant powers by whom their 
 despotisms had been so long sustained. In the Febru- 
 
Giuseppe Mazzini 235 
 
 ary of 1848 revolution broke out in Paris; the Orleans 
 dynasty was overthrown, and the second republic was 
 proclaimed. In March the revolutionary fever reached 
 the core of European absolutism. Convulsions took 
 place in Vienna, so fierce that even the mighty Metter- 
 nich was shaken from his pedestal and driven forth to 
 share the exile of thousands of his former victims. 
 
 It seemed, indeed, as though the hour of Italy's 
 deliverance had come. Already insurrection had 
 broken out in Sicily, and even Ferdinand had been 
 obliged to concede a constitution. A month later 
 (nth February, 1848), the Grand Duke of Tuscany fol- 
 lowed suit, and in March new constitutions, on a 
 parliamentary basis, were promulgated in Piedmont 
 and in Rome. But the news from Vienna awoke aspi- 
 rations of a more far-reaching kind. The joyous 
 enthusiasm with which it was received in Italy was 
 simply electric. Before the end of March the Austri- 
 ans had been compelled to evacuate Milan; Venice 
 had expelled her foreign rulers, and had reestablished 
 the republic under Daniel Manin ; the princes of Modena 
 and Parma, the puppets of Metternich, had fled; while 
 Charles Albert of Piedmont had placed himself at the 
 head of the national movement and flung defiance at 
 the Austrian empire. Tuscany was not long behind. 
 The grand duke himself published a stirring procla- 
 mation to the troops he sent to join the other contin- 
 gents. "Soldiers! the holy cause of the independence 
 of Italy is now to be decided on the fields of Lom- 
 bardy. Already the citizens of Milan have bought 
 with their blood, and by a heroism the like of which 
 history affords but few examples, their liberty. 
 
236 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 Already the Sardic army moves into the field, led by 
 its magnanimous king. Sons of Italy, heirs of the 
 glory of their ancestors the Tuscans, cannot, must not, 
 remain in shameful ease at such a solemn moment. 
 Fly, then; unite yourselves to the valiant citizens who 
 as volunteers are ranging themselves under one ban- 
 ner — fly to the succor of our Lombard brothers!" 
 Even the wretched Bomba was forced for the moment 
 to simulate adherence to the universal movement. No 
 sooner had the Austrian yoke been flung off than all 
 the northern states — Parma, Piacenza, Modena, Lom- 
 bardy, and Venice — united themselves with the Sar- 
 dinian kingdom by universal plebiscite. The union of 
 North Italy under the hegemony of Sardinia, the 
 expulsion of the alien, the beginnings of Italian inde- 
 pendence, and even of Italian unity, seemed in an 
 instant to have been achieved. 
 
 But the Austrian power was still too strong. Not 
 even the enthusiasm of Garibaldi, nor the ardor of 
 Mazzini, who had hurried back to enroll himself as a 
 volunteer in the Garibaldian legion, could withstand 
 the strategic skill of the veteran Radetsky. Charles 
 Albert was forced to his knees; an armistice was 
 signed, and the Austrian yoke was reimposed once 
 more on the whole of northern Italy. Venice alone 
 held out. In the spring of 1849 Charles Albert again 
 renewed the war; but again he was crushed by Radet- 
 sky in the great battle of Novara, on March 23, 1849. 
 On the evening of that fatal day the old king resigned 
 his scepter to his young son, famous to all time as the 
 creator of Italian unity — Victor Emmanuel. 
 
 Meanwhile events had been moving fast in Rome. 
 
Giuseppe Mazzini 237 
 
 On the outbreak of the insurrection the pope declared, 
 after much vacillation, that he would not join the 
 national movement against the Austrian power in Italy; 
 at the same time he had placed Count Rossi, a man of 
 liberal sympathies, at the head of affairs in Rome. In 
 November Count Rossi was foully assassinated. He 
 had essayed the hopeless task of adhering to a policy 
 of moderation in times of revolution. The pope in 
 terror fled to Gaeta, where he placed himself under 
 the protection of Ferdinand of Naples. Rome, left 
 without government of any kind, was for the moment 
 a prey to anarchy. But on the 9th of February, 1849, 
 the parliament proclaimed the establishment of the 
 republic. Mazzini, having been elected a member of 
 the Roman Parliament, hurried southward to do his 
 part in organizing the government. His first sight of 
 the sacred city filled his imaginative soul with a new 
 enthusiasm. "Rome," he writes, "was the dream of 
 my young years, the generating idea of my mental 
 conception, the keystone of my intellectual edifice, 
 the religion of my soul; and I entered the city with a 
 deep sense of awe, almost of worship. ... As I 
 passed through the Porta del Popolo I felt an electric 
 thrill run through me, a spring of new life. I shall 
 never see Rome more, but the memory of her will 
 mingle with my dying thought of God, and of my best 
 beloved; and wheresoever fate may lay my bones, I 
 believe that they will once more know the thrill that 
 ran through me then, on the day when the republican 
 banner shall be planted, in pledge of the unity of our 
 Italy, upon the Vatican and capitol." The dream of 
 the prophet is realized, but only in part. The banner 
 
238 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 of Italian unity is floating over Rome to-day, but it is 
 the banner, not of a Mazzinian republic, but of a liberal 
 and well-ordered monarchy. 
 
 But the republic of 1849, though short-lived was not 
 inglorious. The Triumvirs, acting with the utmost 
 lyioderation toward all parties, still labored assiduously 
 to put Rome in a condition to defend herself. The 
 pope, meanwhile, was engaged in ceaseless intrigues 
 for the intervention of some foreign power by whom his 
 authority might be restored. Eventually the task was 
 undertaken, though not avowed, by France. Louis 
 Napoleon, who had recently become president of the 
 French republic, seized the opportunity for concili- 
 ating at one stroke the affection of the army and the 
 clericals of France. "It was not," says M. Thiers 
 with brutal frankness, "for the sake of Catholicism, 
 it was not for the sake of the Roman people, that we 
 went to Rome; it was for the sake of France." In 
 face of this new danger the Roman Triumvirate stood 
 firm. But though Oudinot was once repulsed, the 
 Romans could not hold out for long against a siege 
 supported by thirty-five thousand men. On the 3d of 
 July, 1849, Rome fell; the republic was overthrown, 
 and the pope by the arms of France was restored to 
 his temporal power. Venice, under Daniel Manin, was 
 still heroically standing out against the Austrians, but 
 in August Venice too succumbed, and the triumph of 
 Austrian absolutism was complete. Once more the 
 chains of despotism were riveted on the Italian peoples. 
 Once more the timid princes found courage, under the 
 protection of their powerful patron, to creep back to 
 their tottering thrones. But though to all outward 
 
Giuseppe Mazzini 239 
 
 seeming the Austrian rule in Italy was reestablished 
 in the plenitude of absolute power, yet in reality the 
 system had received a shock from which it never after- 
 ward recovered. The drama of Italian unity was 
 hurrying on to a denouement destined to destroy not 
 merely Austrian despotism, but at the same time and 
 not less surely the republican ideal of Mazzini. The 
 consideration of this development for the present I 
 postpone. 
 
 Nor is it necessary in this place to dwell on the 
 subsequent career of Mazzini. His life mission, little 
 as he knew it, was already fulfilled. To the further 
 solution of the great problem, the importance of which 
 he had been the first to realize, he could contribute 
 nothing. The work must fall to other hands. The 
 lofty idealism of the prophet must give place to the 
 practical sagacity of the statesman. Mazzini lived 
 indeed to see the consummation of Italian unity. But 
 though the good time came for Italy at last, the man- 
 ner of its coming was as gall and wormwood to the 
 republican fanatic, wrapped as he was in ever deepen- 
 ing gloom as he saw the long-sought goal attained by 
 the efforts of men he hated, and by methods he de- 
 spised. The truth is, that there was in Mazzini more 
 of the prophet than the statesman. It was his to in- 
 spire the workers with something of his own ardent 
 temper, something of his own sustained and lofty zeal, 
 something of his own enthusiasm — an enthusiasm 
 always generous and pure, though somewhat rigid and 
 confined. But though he had in full measure the brain 
 to conceive, Mazzini had not the hands to execute a 
 great and enduring political work. To my thinking, 
 
240 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 indeed, Mazzini is to be accounted great primaril}-, and 
 above all else in this: that he was in the domain of 
 politics a great moral teacher; that, however mistaken 
 his own methods, however paltry his own immediate 
 or direct achievements, he did set before the states- 
 men, not of his own time only, nor of his own country 
 only, but of all times and all countries, an ideal, of 
 necessity imperfect, but at least clear of all sordid and 
 self-seeking aim. 
 
 And yet, idealist as he was, Mazzini was no mere 
 dreamer of vain dreams; stern in adherence to the 
 republican idea, he was no mere iconoclast, no fulsome 
 preacher to the multitude of rights to be enjoyed with- 
 out corresponding duties faithfully fulfilled. To him 
 democracy is in no sense the rule of lawless mobs ; but 
 as he himself has put it in the noblest definition of 
 democracy ever given to the world, it is the "progress 
 of all through all under the leading of the best and 
 wisest." To him the sole origin of every right w^as in 
 a duty fulfilled. "If," he says in the preface to his 
 Duties of Mail ^ "if you would emancipate yourselves 
 from the arbitrary rule and tyranny of man, you must 
 begin by rightly adoring God. And in the world's 
 great battle between the two great principles of good 
 and evil, you must openly enroll yourselves beneath 
 the banner of the first and ceaselessly combat the 
 second. ... It was because I saw these two lies — 
 Machiavellism and materialism — too often clothe 
 themselves before your eyes with the seductive fasci- 
 nations of hopes which only the worship of God and 
 truth can realize, that I thought to warn you by this 
 book. I love you too well either to flatter your passions 
 
Giuseppe Mazzini 241 
 
 or to caress the golden dreams by which others seek 
 to win your favor. My voice may sound too harsh, 
 and 1 may too severely insist on proclaiming the neces- 
 sity of virtue and sacrifice ; but I know, and you too, 
 untainted by false doctrines and unspoiled by wealth, 
 will soon know also, that the sole origin of every right 
 is in a duty fulfilled." , These surely are not the 
 words, these are not the thoughts of a fawning dema- 
 gogue, but of a pure-minded, God-sent prophet, con- 
 scious of a lofty purpose, clear as to his mission, 
 self-devoted to the noble task of rescuing his fellow- 
 countrymen from the degrading yoke of alien tyrants ; 
 of emancipating his fellow-men throughout the world 
 from the no less ignoble tyranny of selfish passions 
 and of base desires. 
 
 " Wherefore then wast thou 
 Outlaw in every kingdom of the world 
 Except in England ? England, thank thou God 
 For that cold shelter that thou gavest him, 
 For which he blessed thee, giving thee back love 
 For the long years of scornful disregard ! 
 Was he not branded with all calumny, 
 Because he dared to teach the naked truth ? 
 Christ's words were not a book for Sabbath-days, 
 But law of life and judgment of the land ; 
 Not to be chosen, and pieced and dogmatized. 
 But lived up to, the whole and not a part, 
 Alive, not dead, one spirit in new forms ; 
 And lived as Christ lived, poor, despised, alone, 
 Apart with God and working miracles. 
 Not on the waves and winds, but on the wills 
 Of men, upon the hearts of multitudes. 
 The hidden germ of fresh humanities, 
 Of live confederations yet unborn. 
 
24.2 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 The hidden founts of gathering river floods, 
 To bear one day the music of his name 
 Through lands of harvest to the boundless sea. 
 
 QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 
 
 I, What two great institutions made themselves strongly- 
 felt during the Middle Ages? 2. At what different periods did 
 the leading states of Europe become distinct nations? 3. What 
 two great ideas did the French Revolution bequeath to the 
 nineteenth century? 4. What was the condition of Italy in 
 the last half of the eighteenth century? 5. What did Italy 
 gain from the rule of Napoleon? 6. How did the Congress of 
 Vienna parcel out Italy in 1815? 7. What feeling was expressed 
 by Mazzini in his letter to Sir James Graham? 8. How was the 
 overthrow of the constitution of Naples carried out by Metter- 
 nich? 9. What results followed the uprising in Piedmont? 10. 
 Describe Mazzini's early life up to his arrest in 1830. 11. What 
 was the nature of Mazzini's letter to King Charles Albert in 
 1831? 12. Why did Mazzini have little faith in the Carbonari? 
 13. What was the creed of "Young Italy"? 14. How did the 
 beginnings of the revolutionary spirit begin to show them- 
 selves? 15. Describe the revolution of 1848. 16. How was it 
 crushed by Austria? 17. How were Rome and Mazzini affected 
 by the revolution? 18. What fate soon overtook both Rome 
 and Venice? 19. What was the mission of Mazzini? 20. Give 
 his definition of democracy. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 CAVOUR 
 
 THE LIBERATION OF NORTH ITALY 
 
 "To all outward seeming the triumph of Austrian 
 absolutism was once more complete." Such were the 
 words in which, last time, I summed up the results of 
 the period, the events of which I was endeavoring to 
 trace. Black indeed was the outlook for Italy in 1849, 
 when Victor Emmanuel of Sardinia, in the hopefulness 
 of youth, took up the scepter which his father in the 
 disappointment of age had flung aside. The "Year of 
 Revolution," at one time bright with hope for Italy, 
 had come and gone and had left Italy even more hope- 
 less than before. In northern Italy the Austrian yoke 
 was riveted more firmly than ever on her subject prov- 
 inces; the vassal princes, the king of the Two Sicilies, 
 the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and all the lesser fry, were 
 restored to their wretched principalities, determined 
 to avenge by petty persecution the fright they had 
 sustained the year before. Even Piedmont — the hope 
 of liberal Italy — lay prostrate for the moment under 
 the crushing defeat of Novara. To all seeming the 
 work of thirty years and more had gone for nothing. 
 Italy was no nearer the goal of unity, the goal of inde- 
 pendence, than she had been when, in 1815, the Vien- 
 nese diplomatists had carved out her dukedoms and 
 
 243 
 
244 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 parceled out her provinces like so many slices, as the 
 saying goes, of a ripe Dutch cheese. She was still dis- 
 membered, still divided, still unfree, given over to a 
 despotism that crushed the body and benumbed the 
 soul. "The pope clutches the soul of the Italian 
 nation; Austria the body whenever it shows signs of 
 life; and on every member of that body is enthroned 
 an absolute prince, viceroy in turn under either of 
 these powers." ^ 
 
 And yet was the Italy of 1849 in grim reality the 
 Italy of 1815? Had the efforts of Mazzini and his 
 disciples borne no fruit? Had the blood of thousands 
 of willing martyrs been shed absolutely in vain? We 
 can forgive an Italian of 1849 ^^^ thinking that it was 
 so; but we should be hopelessly deceived were we to 
 share the illusion. Look on the contrast for your- 
 selves. The Italians of 18 15 were willing slaves. 
 Italy itself seemed to lie prostrate and benumbed. 
 Not a sign of life, not an emotion, seemed to stir her 
 torpid soul. But now Italy had at last awakened from 
 the death-sleep of centuries. The insurrectionary 
 movements of 1821, of 1831, of 1848, proved at least 
 that the Italians were conscious of their degradation, 
 that they had begun to dare to hope. Nay more, their 
 aspirations had become articulate. "They desire," 
 said one of them, "they desire to live — to live with all 
 the faculties of their being; to live as God commands; 
 to walk onward with the rest of the world; to have 
 brethren and not spies around them; to have instruc- 
 tors and not masters; to have a home and not a prison" 
 (Mazzini). Most of them had begun to long for free- 
 
 ' Mazzini. 
 
Cavour 245 
 
 dom, and not a few to long for unity. To say the 
 truth, the desire for unity was far less universal than 
 from the writings of Mazzini you might suppose. 
 Here and there, there were, no doubt, groups of Maz- 
 zinist disciples who could rise above the conception 
 of provincial patriotism, and look beyond to the unifi- 
 cation of the whole peninsula; but the universal long- 
 ing, the pressing need that came home to every one, 
 was not unity but freedom. It was only as they gradu- 
 ally began to realize that the one was practically 
 impossible without the other that the broader concep- 
 tion was entertained. Gradually it was borne in upon 
 them that so long as Austria was supreme in Italy, no 
 permanent concession in the direction of constitutional 
 liberties could be wrung from the wretched despots 
 like King Bomba, who moved only in obedience to the 
 strings which Austria pulled. And thus it was that 
 Neapolitans and Tuscans, Romans and Piedmontese, 
 alike began to realize the truth which Mazzini was 
 constantly enforcing, that a war, a "bloody and inex- 
 orable" war, with x^ustria was the first necessary step 
 toward the permanent acquisition of domestic liberties. 
 But more than this, the Italians had for a brief 
 moment, in the spring of 1848, felt upon their brows 
 the breath of liberty. For a moment a vision of the 
 glorious future had been revealed in the spirit to those 
 who might never see it in the flesh. 
 
 " ' Italia Una ! ' Now the war-cry rang 
 
 From Alp to Etna: and her dreams were done, 
 
 And she herself had wakened into life, 
 
 And stood full armed and free: and all her sons 
 
 Knew they were happy to have looked on her. 
 
 And felt it beautiful to die for her." 
 
246 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 And is this nothing? Is it nothing in a people's 
 history that, after the sleep of ages, they have wakened 
 into life? Is it nothing that the soul is free, even 
 though the limbs be still fettered with the chains of 
 degrading despotism? Nay, were there no other dif- 
 fernce between the two epochs, there was this — Maz- 
 zini had lived. The Italy of 1849 had seen Mazzini, 
 had listened to his voice, had begun at least to lisp 
 some of the noble lessons that he came to teach. 
 
 The Italy, then, of 1849 was far other than the 
 Italy of 1815. And the difference was due primarily, 
 and in the main, to the lofty teaching of the great 
 prophet. And yet in no respect was the improved 
 condition of Italy in 1849 more marked than in the 
 fact that Mazzini's ideal had been already shattered. 
 Forgive me if I seem to speak a paradox. It is an 
 eternal truth that life is only possible through death. 
 For modern Italy to live it was necessary that Maz- 
 zini's ideal should die. "The Italy of his ideal," as 
 Mr. Fyffe has said, "was a republic, embracing every 
 member of the race, purged of the priestcraft and 
 superstition which had degraded the man to the slave ; 
 indebted to itself alone for its independence, and con- 
 solidated by the reign of equal law. The rigidity with 
 which Mazzini adhered to his own great project in its 
 completeness, and his impatience of any bargaining 
 away of national rights, excluded him from the work 
 of those practical politicians and men of expedients 
 who in 1859 effected with foreign aid the first step 
 toward Italian union." Mazzini, in fact, as I said 
 last time, had done his work, all the work, perhaps, 
 which a man of his temperament was capable of accom- 
 
Cavour 247 
 
 plishing for Italy. He had given to the practical poli- 
 ticians a goal at which to aim, but a goal which by his 
 means might never have been reached. But it was not 
 only the republican ideal which was shattered. The 
 neo-Guelphic party — the party which "looked to a new 
 and glorious Italy, regenerated not by philosophic 
 republicanism or the sword of a temporal monarch, 
 but by the moral force of a reformed and reforming 
 papacy" — they, too, I say, had been obliged to abandon 
 their ideal. D'Azeglio had seen through this delusion 
 as early as 1847, for in that year he writes from Rome: 
 "I am convinced the magic of Pio Nono will not last. 
 He is an angel, but he is surrounded by demons; he 
 has a disordered state and corrupt elements, and he 
 will not be able to combat the obstacles." The truth 
 of his prediction was quickly confirmed. Pio Nono 
 was a mild and kindly ecclesiastic, but utterly incapa- 
 ble of putting the papacy at the head of such a mission 
 as this, even had he realized its splendor or necessity. 
 Gioberti himself, the sometime leader of the neo- 
 Guelphic party, published in 185 1 the Riiinova- 
 mento^ a. work in which he publicly proclaimed the 
 abandonment of his former policy and clearly accepted 
 the principle of a Sardinian hegemony as the inevit- 
 able basis of Italian independence. "Except the 
 young sovereign who rules Piedmont, I see no one in 
 Italy who could undertake our emancipation. Instead 
 of imitating Pius, Ferdinand, and Leopold, who vio- 
 lated their sworn compacts, he maintains his with relig- 
 ious observance — vulgar praise in other times, but 
 to-day not small, being contrary to example." 
 
 Gradually, then, the hopes of all Italian patriots, 
 
248 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 of all Italian parties, whatever their special predilec- 
 tions previously had been, came to be concentrated on 
 the Sardinian monarchy; began to focus themselves 
 on the young Sardinian king. And the traditions of 
 the Sardinian dynasty, of the house of Savoy, were 
 eminently favorable to the part they were called upon 
 to play. We have already seen how they were estab- 
 lished by rather dubious diplomacy in their subalpine 
 kingdom. We have seen, too, that whatever of life 
 there was in Italy in the eighteenth century was con- 
 centrated in this province. In the insurrectionary 
 movements of 182 1 and 1833 there was little, perhaps, 
 to distinguish the action of the rulers of Piedmont from 
 that of the rest of the Italian princes. Certainly 
 Mazzini had little reason for distinguishing between 
 the despotism of Naples and that of Piedmont. And 
 yet there was a feeling among Italian liberals — and it 
 was well grounded — that the government of Piedmont 
 differed in kind from that of the other states. The 
 ruler of Piedmont was, at any rate, alone among 
 Italian temporal rulers, a native — akin in speech and 
 blood to the people over whom he reigned. But more 
 than that, alone among Italian rulers, Charles Albert 
 of Piedmont had, in the spring of 1848, granted a 
 parliamentary constitution to his people of his own 
 free will. And above all, he had been the first to 
 unsheath the sword in the holy war of Italian inde- 
 pendence, and to make Austria feel that powerful as 
 she was she had to confront in Italy a people deter- 
 mined to be free, determined to be one. 
 
 On his accession to the throne in 1849, Victor Em- 
 manuel was a young man of twenty-nine. The pros- 
 
Cavour 249 
 
 pect for Piedmont and for Italy was far from bright, 
 yet there was nothing of undignified despair in the 
 attitude which he maintained in the negotiations with 
 Radetsky for a truce with Austria. "Marshal," he 
 said, "sooner than subscribe to such conditions I 
 would lose a hundred crowns. What my father has 
 sworn I will maintain. If you wish a war to the death, 
 be it so! I will call my nation to arms once more, 
 and you will see of what Piedmont is capable in a 
 general rising. If I fall, it shall be without shame. 
 My house knows the road of exile but not of dishonor. " 
 The firm, determined character of the young king 
 comes out clearly at the outset, and his honesty no 
 less. "What my father has sworn I will maintain." 
 Throughout life he was faithful to the promise. "All 
 our efforts," he declared in the first proclamation he 
 issued to his people, "must be directed to maintain 
 our honor untarnished, to heal the wounds of our coun- 
 try, to consolidate our liberal institutions. To this 
 undertaking I conjure all my people, to it I will pledge 
 myself by a solemn oath, and I await from the nation 
 the exchange of help, affection, and confidence." 
 
 From the purpose indicated in this solemn pledge 
 Victor Emmanuel never swerved; and though the out- 
 look was for the time being black enough, there was 
 not a little encouragement, as we have seen, for the 
 man who would look back and mark the path that Italy 
 had traversed in the last few years. Nay, even the 
 immediate past was not devoid of all encouragement. 
 True, the campaign of 1849 had ended in unrelieved 
 disaster, but for all that it marked a most important 
 epoch in the history of the Italian movement. "It 
 
250 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 baptized," as Mr. Symonds has well said, "the cause 
 of Italian independence with the best blood of Pied- 
 mont; it gave it a royal martyr, and it pledged the 
 dynasty of Savoy to a progressive policy from which 
 it never afterward for a single moment deviated." 
 
 Meanwhile, amid the general reaction in Italy, Vic- 
 tor Emmanuel and his prime minister, D'Azeglio, set 
 themselves with steadfast courage to reorganize the 
 Sardinian kingdom and carry out constitutional reforms 
 of far-reaching character. But they had first to deal 
 with domestic disaffection, stirred up in Genoa by the 
 republican irreconcilables who still followed Mazzini's 
 lead, Mazzini and his friends did not scruple to im- 
 pute to the Sardinian government the basest treachery 
 in connection with the events of the recent war and 
 the still more recent peace. "Better Italy enslaved 
 than handed over to the son of the traitor Carlo 
 Alberto," Mazzini was utterly intractable. Fortu- 
 nately, his work was soon to be taken up by hands more 
 competent than his to carry it through to a reasonable 
 consummation. 
 
 Undeterred by domestic disaffection, D'Azeglio and 
 Victor Emmanuel went steadily forward in the path of 
 reform. Their first difficulty was in connection with 
 ecclesiastical affairs. In the little kingdom of Sar- 
 dinia there were at that time forty-one bishoprics, over 
 fourteen hundred canonries, and eighteen thousand 
 people who had assumed the monastic habit. In fact, 
 taking the whole population through, one person in 
 every two hundred and fourteen was an ecclesiastic. 
 Now this in itself is comparatively an unimportant 
 matter. But when you recollect that in Sardinia the 
 
Cavour 251 
 
 church still claimed exclusive jurisdiction over all 
 ecclesiastics; the right of .affording asylum to crimi- 
 nals, and all the rest of the anomalous privileges of 
 the medieval system, you will understand the magni- 
 tude of the difficulty by which the reformer was con- 
 fronted. For a parallel situation in English history 
 you must go back to the time when Henry II. was 
 falling foul of Becket by attempting to limit ecclesi- 
 astical jurisdictions in the famous constitutions of 
 Clarendon. Victor Emmanuel, like Henry II., was 
 anxious to reduce all men to an equality before the 
 civil law. The continued existence of the clerical 
 courts in all the plenitude of power, the vast preten- 
 sions of the Jesuits to the exclusive control of educa- 
 tion and the censorship of domestic morality, were, 
 however, utterly inconsistent with this reasonable and 
 laudable ambition. Victor Emmanuel, profoundly 
 anxious to avoid friction between the civil and ecclesi- 
 astical authorities, despatched to the pope, in the 
 autumn of 1849, a special envoy — Count Siccardi. 
 The pope firmly declined to sanction any change in 
 the relations between church and state in Sardinia. 
 "The Holy Father," said the papal representative, 
 "was willing to please the king of Sardinia as far as 
 going into the antechamber of the devil, but into his 
 very chamber he would not go " 
 
 Despite this check the king, with the assistance of 
 Siccardi, determined to push on the work of reform; 
 the Foro Ecclesiastico (or chief clerical tribunal) was 
 finally abolished, and the privileges and immunities of 
 the vast army of ecclesiastics were sensibly curtailed. 
 The clerical organs thundered denunciations against 
 
2 5^ The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 the infidel king and his heretic ministers. Luckily for 
 them, a famous act of clerical intolerance just at this 
 time immensely strengthened the hands of both the 
 king and the ministry in dealing with the question. 
 When the minister of commerce, Santa Rosa, died, 
 shortly after the passing of the Siccardine law, he was 
 refused the last sacrament, though he was admittedly 
 a man of blameless life, and though he died in com- 
 plete communion with the Roman Church. Nothing 
 could have better served the cause of ecclesiastical 
 reform. 
 
 I have dwelt on this matter in some detail because 
 it was of immense importance on two grounds. In 
 the first place, it marks the beginning of the breach 
 between the Roman pontiff and the Sardinian king, 
 the man who was destined to be king of Italy, and to 
 establish the seat of government under the shadow of 
 the Vatican itself. The breach thus created is not 
 healed yet, and though the difficulties of the situation 
 are gradually diminishing, we still must recollect that 
 for twenty years at least the contest between the papal 
 and the civil power constituted the hardest of the prob- 
 lems which the makers of modern Italy were called 
 upon to solve. On another ground the matter is im- 
 portant, since it served to introduce to Italian politics 
 the great statesman whose name is peculiarly associ- 
 ated with this question, Count Camillo di Cavour. 
 
 During the debates on the abolition of ecclesiastical 
 jurisdiction Cavour gave strong support to the min- 
 isterial policy. It was only by timely reform, as he 
 reminded them, that revolution could be avoided. 
 ''Do not think," he said, "that the constitutional 
 
Cavour 253 
 
 throne will be weakened; it will, on the contrary, be 
 strengthened, and it will implant roots so profound in 
 our soil" — mark his prophetic words — "that when 
 revolution again threatens us, not only will the con- 
 stitutional throne direct it, but that throne will group 
 around itself all the living forces of Italy, and conduct 
 the nation to the destinies which yet await it." 
 
 In the splendor and in the certainty of that destiny 
 Cavour had a profound belief. The important support 
 he had recently given to the government claimed 
 recognition at its hands, and in 1850 he joined the 
 ministry of D'Azeglio as minister of commerce. His 
 commanding intellect, his soaring but strictly honor- 
 able ambition, his unbending will and slightly domi- 
 neering temper were already recognized. "Look out 
 what you are doing," said the king to D'Azeglio; 
 "Cavour will soon be master of you all; he will dis- 
 miss you; he will never be content till he is prime 
 minister himself. " 
 
 Born on the loth of August, 1810, Cavour was, like 
 Mazzini, by birth a Piedmontese. His family belonged 
 to the small exclusive aristocracy of Piedmont — per- 
 haps the smallest, and certainly the proudest, aristoc- 
 racy in Europe. One of his sponsors, it is interesting 
 to note, was Pauline Borghese, a sister of the great 
 Napoleon. Thus early did the connection between 
 Cavour and the Bonapartes begin. Like other noble 
 youths, he was educated at the military academy at 
 Turin, and joined the army as an engineer in 1828. 
 But the army was little to his taste. He had already 
 begun to realize the abject condition of his native 
 country, and to indulge himself in dreams for its re- 
 
254 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 generation. The events of the French Revolution of 
 1830 made a great impression on his mind — an impres- 
 sion which he communicated to his comrades with too 
 much freedom to please the authorities at home. In 
 consequence of his indiscretion he was placed under 
 semi-arrest in the Fort de Bard; and disgusted with 
 the situation, he resigned his commission in 1831. 
 
 The drift of his political opinions about this time 
 may be gathered from a letter which he addressed to 
 an English friend in December, 1829: 
 
 "I congratulate you sincerely on the happy change 
 which has taken place in the policy of your govern- 
 ment. " (Referring, I suppose, to the Catholic emanci- 
 pation act, carried by the Duke of Wellington and Sir 
 Robert Peel.) "Whilst all Europe is walking with a 
 firm step in the path of progress, unhappy Italy is 
 borne down perpetually under the same system of civil 
 and religious tyranny. Pity those who, with a soul 
 made to develop the generous principles of civiliza- 
 tion, are compelled to see their country brutalized by 
 Austrian bayonets. Tell your countrymen that we are 
 not undeserving of liberty; that if we have rotten 
 members, we have also men who are worthy to enjoy 
 the blessings of light. Forgive me if I wander, but 
 my soul is weighed down under the weight of indigna- 
 tion and sorrow." Cavour had already begun to take 
 that profound interest in English politics which he 
 maintained till his death. It is interesting to note 
 that from this time onward he regularly took in the 
 Times, the Morning Post, and the Econo7nist. 
 
 But Cavour was by no means content even with 
 such admirable sources of information as these. He 
 
Cavour 255 
 
 was bent on making a profound study of the political, 
 the social, and above all the economical, questions 
 which were then agitating both England and the Con- 
 tinent. Repeatedly we find him writing to friends in 
 England for corn-law statistics, for government re- 
 ports, for parliamentary blue books, and so forth — a 
 species of interesting literature which is not, I fancy, 
 in much demand even in the most "progressive" of 
 free libraries in England. Studies such as these inev- 
 itably led him to institute comparisons between the 
 steady and moderated progress of a country like Eng- 
 land and the ignoble stagnation of his own unhappy 
 fatherland. He followed the reform agitation in Eng- 
 land with the closest interest, and hailed the passing 
 of the bill of 1832 as an emblem of hope for the liberal 
 party throughout Europe — even for Italy. "And in 
 the miserable position in which we are placed," he 
 writes, "we need, indeed, a ray of hope. Pressed on 
 the one side by Austrian bayonets, on the other by the 
 furious excommunications of the pope, our condition 
 is truly deplorable. Every free exercise of thought, 
 every generous sentiment, is stifled, as if it were a 
 sacrilege or a crime against the state. We cannot 
 hope to obtain by ourselves any relief from such enor- 
 mous misfortunes. . . . The voice of England alone 
 can obtain for the people of the Romagna a support- 
 able government, somewhat in harmony with the ideas 
 and manners of our age." 
 
 After leaving the army Cavour devoted his energies 
 to agriculture and the management of his ancestral 
 property at Leri. At the first blush agriculture has 
 small attractions for an active-minded man. "The 
 
2^6 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 habitue oi the salon," as Cavour himself writes, "feels 
 a certain repugnance for works which begin by the 
 analysis of dunghills, and end in the middle of cattle- 
 sheds; but if he can get over his first repugnance he 
 will find much to attract him." For Cavour himself, 
 who when he started could not distinguish between a 
 turnip and a potato, the experience was of the greatest 
 value. The monotony of the pursuit, moreover, was 
 relieved by periodical travels, in the course of which 
 he visited this country,^ Ireland, and Scotland. Here 
 he pursued with the most ardent zeal the studies in 
 social and political affairs which had so long engaged 
 him. The condition of the poor, the working of the 
 new poor law, the industrial wealth, the expanding 
 commerce, and above all the parliamentary govern- 
 ment of this country, all engaged his serious atten- 
 tion. Night after night the young Italian, destined 
 to become the real founder of parliamentary govern- 
 ment in Italy, was to be seen in the strangers' gallery, 
 following with the utmost interest the debates, and 
 making himself thoroughly conversant with the rules 
 of procedure, the methods of conducting business, and 
 above all, with the niceties of parliamentary tactics in 
 the English House of Commons. To Cavour the ex- 
 perience thus gained was of course of incalculable 
 value in later years. 
 
 Meanwhile he began about 1835 ^^ contribute 
 articles on the English poor law, on communism, on 
 free trade, on railways, and on a number of kindred 
 topics, to various journals and reviews. In 1843 he 
 published in the Bibliotheque Ufiiverselle de Geiieve an 
 
 ^England; these lectures were delivered at Oxford. 
 
Cavour 257 
 
 article on Ireland, distinguished by all his characteris- 
 tic sobriety of judgment and sturdy common sense. 
 Shortly before this, in 1842, he had taken an active 
 share in the foundation of the Agricultural Society of 
 Piedmont, an association designed not merely for the 
 dissemination of correct ideas on stock-breeding and 
 chemical manures, but also to bring together all the 
 leading men who held liberal opinions in Piedmont. 
 These enlightened leaders had to advance with the 
 utmost caution. In 1847 Cavour, in conjunction with 
 Santa Rosa, Cesare Balbo, and others, founded a new 
 journal, named the Risorgimento^ for the purpose of 
 disseminating constitutional ideas of government. 
 The program of the constitutional party at this time 
 was brief but pregnant: "Independence of Italy, union 
 between the princes and peoples, progress in the path 
 of reform, and a league between the Italian states." 
 
 In this program there is, you may notice, a notable 
 omission. It speaks of independence, it speaks of a 
 league between the states, it points to federation; 
 there is no hint of unity. And, indeed, at this moment 
 Cavour and the Italian liberals were content to let the 
 latter question bide its time. That unity would ulti- 
 mately be achieved they were assured; but the first 
 essential was independence. Hence the inveterate 
 hostility with which this party was pursued by the 
 Mazzinist enthusiasts. The Mazzinists regarded all 
 compromise, all temporizing, as being in itself a han- 
 dling of the accursed thing. They never would realize 
 that in politics and in diplomacy the half, as the Greek 
 proverb has it, is often better than the whole. No 
 man ever realized this truth more profoundly than 
 
258 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 Cavour. "Let us," he was wont to say, "do one thing 
 at a time; let us get rid of the Austrians, and we shall 
 see — nous verrons.'" At the same time he pushed on 
 to the utmost of his power internal reform in Pied- 
 mont. "What is the good," he asked, "of reforms 
 which lead to no conclusion and terminate nothing? 
 Let us demand a constitution. Since the government 
 can be no longer maintained on the bases that have 
 hitherto supported it, let it replace them by others 
 comformable to the spirit of the time, to the progress 
 of civilization; let it replace them before it is too late, 
 before social authority falls into dissolution amid the 
 clamors of the people." Mark well those words; they 
 would form a fitting text for the whole of Cavour' s 
 political career: "Let it replace them before social 
 authority falls into dissolution amid the clamors of the 
 people." Reform, primarily for its own sake; but, 
 not less, to anticipate, to forestall, to cut the ground 
 from under the feet of destructive revolution. That 
 is the position of a true liberal; that is the position 
 of a genuine conservative. 
 
 The demand was granted ; a constitutio7i^ or statuto^ 
 was conceded, and in 1848 Count Cavour took his seat 
 as member for Turin in the first Parliament of Pied- 
 mont. 
 
 Thanks to the experience he had gained in Eng- 
 land, Cavour was from the first the molder of the 
 parliamentary system in his own country. But on his 
 first entrance into active political life he was by no 
 means popular. In times of revolutionary excitement 
 wise and moderate men very seldom are. By the ultra- 
 democrats — the noisy remnants of the Mazzinist 
 
Cavour 259 
 
 party — he was regarded as a reactionary aristocrat ; 
 by his own order, on the other hand, he was shunned 
 as a dangerous revolutionist. But by the rigor and 
 ability with which he supported the Siccardian law for 
 the abolition of clerical jurisdictions he managed to 
 conciliate in time the respect of all moderate men. 
 
 Hence on the death of Santa Rosa he was, as we 
 have seen, appointed minister of commerce and agri- 
 culture. This office gave him the opportunity of 
 putting into practice those sound economical and 
 financial principles which he had imbibed for the most 
 part in this country, and in the truth of which he had 
 so profound a conviction. He pushed on reform 
 apace; he improved the internal means of communi- 
 cation, removed burdensome restrictions on trade, and 
 concluded commercial treaties with England, France, 
 Belgium, and other powers. His reforms enormously 
 increased the industrial resources of the country, and 
 rendered it more capable of sustaining the arduous 
 part it had to play in the immediate future. But not 
 even the wisest can escape the reproach of fools, and 
 after a brief official career marked by exceptional 
 activity Cavour was obliged to retire. He took the 
 opportunity thus afforded him of paying another visit 
 to his friends in England and enlightening the best 
 English opinion on the existing situation in Italy. It 
 was indeed assuming every day a more and more crit- 
 ical complexion. The liberal and reforming policy of 
 the Sardinian government was beginning to excite the 
 indignation of the reactionary powers. Austria and 
 Prussia indeed had the effrontery to suggest to Victor 
 Emmanuel that he would best consult his own interests 
 
26o The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 by imitating the reactionary policy of the vassal courts 
 of Florence and Naples, Modena and Parma. The 
 king, in reply, courteously but firmly intimated to his 
 distinguished advisers that he was master in his own 
 house, that he in no way interfered with what other 
 sovereigns thought fit to do, and that he desired on his 
 part perfect liberty of action! The ecclesiastical situ- 
 ation was not less fraught with difficulty than the 
 political. The debates on the Siccardian law had in 
 fact raised the whole question of the relations of 
 church and state in Italy — a question everywhere and 
 always thorny, but rendered in Italy a hundred-fold 
 more difficult by the existence of the temporal domin- 
 ions of the papacy. Such were some of the many 
 problems confronting Cavour when in 1852 he became 
 prime minister of Sardinia. As to his immediate 
 policy Cavour was perfectly clear. His program is 
 thus stated by himself: 
 
 "Piedmont must begin by raising herself, by re- 
 establishing in Europe, as well as in Italy, a position 
 and a credit equal to her ambition. Hence there must 
 be a policy unswerving in its aims, but flexible and 
 various as to the means employed, embracing the 
 exchequer, military reorganization, diplomacy, and 
 religious affairs." 
 
 There are, it has been well said, two qualities essen- 
 tial to a statesman — the one is prudence, the other is 
 imprudence. Cavour possessed the two qualities in 
 combination in an exceptional degree. He knew that 
 in the affairs of states, as in the affairs of individuals, 
 there comes a time when rashness is the height of 
 prudence. 
 
Cavour 261 
 
 " He either fears his fate too much, 
 
 Or his deserts are small, 
 That dares not put it to the touch 
 
 To gain or lose it all." 
 
 Such a crisis had arrived in the nistory of Sardinia 
 when, in 1854, the western powers embarked on the 
 Crimean War. Realize to yourselves the position of 
 Piedmont at this most critical juncture. One of many 
 states in Italy, not the oldest, not the largest, not the 
 richest, loaded with debt, prostrate beneath the recent 
 recollection of a crushing military disaster, by no 
 means on the best of terms with its immediate neigh- 
 bors, and among the European "Powers" practically 
 unrecognized — this was the state which proposed in 
 1854 to join the western powers in the defense of the 
 dominions of the Porte. The negotiations were pro- 
 tracted for months. Among his colleagues Cavour 
 stood absolutely alone in advocating this seemingly 
 desperate enterprise. To them the whole scheme was 
 sheer insanity. But the king stood firmly by Cavour. 
 The ministers were permitted to resign, and in Janu- 
 ary, 1855, the memorable treaty was signed by which 
 Sardinia pledged herself to go to the assistance of the 
 western powers with fifteen thousand (afterward in- 
 creased to twenty-five thousand) men. "It was," says 
 Massari, "a solemn moment for the king, and decided 
 the fate of his country; that treaty was the fortune of 
 Italy. To overcome so many difficulties the genius 
 of Cavour was not enough ; there was needed also the 
 firmness of Victor Emmanuel, for without him the 
 treaty would not have been concluded." I have 
 quoted Massari's judgment, for it insists on an impor- 
 
262 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 tant truth, realized to the full by the king's devoted 
 subjects in Italy, but not properly appreciated in Eng- 
 land, viz., the immensely important part played at 
 every great crisis in the drama of Italian unification 
 by Victor Emmanuel himself. Here in the Crimean 
 treaty; again after the peace of Villafranca; again in 
 regard to the Neapolitan question in 1861, and finally 
 in the extremely delicate and difficult negotiation of 
 1870 — in all these crises it was the courage and firm- 
 ness and tact of the king himself which surmounted 
 every difficulty and insured success. 
 
 But in regard to Sardinia's intervention in the 
 Crimea you may fairly ask — What was her interest in 
 the quarrel, what right had she to interfere, what 
 could she hope to gain in return for the risks she ran? 
 Cavour himself anticipated the interrogation. In a 
 great speech on the treaty he showed that in posses- 
 sion of the Bosporus and Dardanelles Russia would 
 be irresistible in the Mediterranean. "But I may be 
 asked," he said, "what matters it to us if Russia has 
 the mastery in the Mediterranean? It may be said 
 that that mastery does not belong to Italy nor to Sar- 
 dinia; it is now the possession of England and of 
 France; instead of two masters the Mediterranean will 
 have three. I cannot believe that such sentiments can 
 have an echo in this assembly. They would ainouiii to 
 a giving up of our hopes of the futici^e! How will this 
 treaty avail Italy?" he concluded. "I will tell you. 
 In the only way in which we, or perhaps any one, can 
 help Italy in the present condition of Europe. The 
 experience of past years and of past centuries has 
 proved how little conspiracies, plots, revolutions, and 
 
Cavour iS^ 
 
 ill-directed movements have profited Italy. So far 
 from doing so, they have proved the greatest calamity 
 which has afflicted this fair part of Europe; not only 
 from the vast amount of human misery they have en- 
 tailed, not only because they have been the cause and 
 the excuse for acts of increasing severity, but espe- 
 cially because these continual conspiracies, these re- 
 peated revolutions, these ineffectual risings, have had 
 the effect of lessening the esteem, and even to a cer- 
 tain extent the sympathy, which the other nations of 
 Europe once felt for Italy. Now I believe that the 
 first condition of any improvement in the fate of Italy 
 is that we should restore to her her good name, and 
 so act that all nations, governments, and peoples 
 should render justice to her great qualities. And to 
 this end two things are necessary : first, that we should 
 prove to Europe that Italy has sufficient civil virtue to 
 govern herself with order and form herself for liberty, 
 and that she is capable of receiving the most perfect 
 system of government known to us; and secondly, that 
 we should show that in military virtue we are not in- 
 ferior to our ancestors. You have already rendered 
 one service to Italy by the conduct you have pursued 
 for seven years, proving in the clearest way to Europe 
 that the Italians are able to govern themselves with 
 wisdom, prudence, and loyalty. It remains for you to 
 render her no less a service, if not even a greater; it 
 remains for you to show that the sons of Italy can 
 fight like brave men on the fields of glory. And I am 
 persuaded that the laurels which our soldiers will 
 gather in the plains of the East will do more for the 
 future of Italy than all that has been done by those 
 
264 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 who have thought by declamation and writing to effect 
 her regeneration. " 
 
 Never was prudent calculation more exactly ful- 
 filled, never was rash resolve more fully justified. 
 The conduct of the Sardinian contingent in the 
 Crimea not only wiped out the disgrace of Custozza 
 and Novara; it gave to Sardinia for the first time a 
 footing among the "Powers"; above all, it enabled 
 her to take her part on terms of equality in the diplo- 
 matic negotiations which resulted in the peace of 
 Paris. 
 
 The congress of Paris, to which Cavour was ad- 
 mitted, despite the protests of Austria, proved to be 
 the turning-point in the fortunes of Sardinia and of 
 Italy. In the English representatives, Lord Cowley 
 and Lord Clarendon, and — a still more important mat- 
 ter — in the emperor of the French, Cavour was assured 
 of sympathetic auditors when he was at last permitted 
 to bring the condition of Italy before the congress. 
 For their information he described the condition of the 
 several states in Italy, picturing the misgovernment of 
 Naples especially in the most repulsive colors. Lord 
 Clarendon in consequence proposed remonstrance with 
 King: Ferdinand. But Cavour, with characteristic 
 courage, even in the presence of the Austrian minister, 
 impatiently brushed away all secondary causes and 
 went straight to the point. The main cause, he said, 
 of the state of things they all agreed in deprecating 
 was Austria. "Austria is the arch-enemy of Italian 
 independence; the permanent danger to the only free 
 nation in Italy, the nation I have the honor to repre- 
 sent. ' ' Austria, on the other hand, despite the urgency 
 
Cavour 265 
 
 of England and France, declined to hold out any hope 
 of an amelioration of the scandal of her rule in Italy. 
 After the congress, Cavour met Lord Clarendon and 
 put the matter briefly thus: "That which has passed 
 in the congress proves two things : first, that Austria 
 is decided to persist in her system of oppression and 
 violence toward Italy; secondly, that the forces of 
 diplomacy are impotent to modify that system. See 
 the consequences for Piedmont. With the irritation 
 on one side and the arrogance of Austria on the other, 
 there are but two alternatives to take: reconcile our- 
 selves to Austria and the pope, or prepare to declare 
 war at the Court of Vienna in a future not far distant. 
 If the first part is preferable, I must on my return to 
 Turin advise my king to call to power the friends of 
 Austria and the pope. If the second hypothesis is 
 best, my friends and I will not shrink from preparing 
 for a terrible war — a war to the death. " Lord Claren- 
 don was sympathetic, but Cavour saw clearly that he 
 was likely to get from England little else than moral 
 support. He therefore prepared to pin his faith to the 
 vanity and ambition of Napoleon III. "What can I 
 do for Italy?" Napoleon had asked in 1855. Cavour 
 told him frankly that he could do much, and more- 
 over, showed him how it could be done. That 
 interview was the foundation of the famous Franco- 
 Sardinian alliance formally consummated some three 
 years later. 
 
 During the next two years (1856-58) the relations 
 of Austria and Sardinia became every day more 
 strained. It was obvious that the situation could have 
 but one issue. For the moment the good understand- 
 
266 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 ing between Italy and France, on which everything 
 depended, was interrupted by the dastardly attempt 
 of Orsini upon the emperor's life. The incident had 
 another unfortunate result, as it served to embitter the 
 relations between England and the Continental monar- 
 chies. The addresses of congratulation addressed to 
 Napoleon teemed with insulting allusions to this 
 country, whence Orsini had started on his fanatical 
 errand. One such urged that "London, the infamous 
 haunt in which machinations so infernal are planned, 
 should be destroyed forever." And Napoleon him- 
 self spoke of England as a "den of assassins." How 
 far England deserved the appellation no one could 
 judge better than Napoleon himself. 
 
 Notwithstanding, however, this untoward incident, 
 Cavour and the emperor had their famous interview at 
 Plombieres in the summer of 1858. The result of it 
 was for the time a secret, though Victor Emmanuel 
 was heard to say that next year he would be king of 
 Italy or plain M. de Savoie. The speech with which 
 the king opened the parliamentary session of 1859 
 pointed in the same direction. The concluding para- 
 graph, which has become memorable in history, is said 
 to have been inspired by the emperor himself. "Our 
 country," said the king, "small in territory, has 
 acquired credit in the councils of Europe, because she 
 is great in the idea she represents, in the sympathy that 
 she inspires. This situation is not exempt from perils, 
 for while w^e respect treaties, we are not insensible to 
 the cry of anguish (gnWo di dolo?'e) that comes up to us 
 from many parts of Italy. Strong in concord, confi- 
 dent in our good right, we await with prudence and 
 
Cavour 267 
 
 resolution the decrees of Divine Providence." The 
 effect of this speech is described by Massari, himself 
 an eye-witness of the exciting scene, as simply electric. 
 "At every period," he says, "the speech was inter- 
 rupted by clamorous applause and cries of Viva il Re! 
 But when he came to the words grido di dolore^ there 
 was an enthusiasm quite indescribable. Senators, 
 deputies, spectators, all sprang to their feet with a 
 bound, and broke into passionate acclamations. The 
 ministers of France, Russia, Prussia, and England 
 were utterly astonished and carried away by the mar- 
 velous spectacle. The face of the ambassador of 
 Naples was covered with a gloomy pallor. We poor 
 exiles did not even attempt to wipe away the tears that 
 flowed unrestrainedly from our eyes as we frantically 
 clapped our hands in applause of that king who had 
 remembered our sorrows, who had promised us a coun- 
 try. Before the victories, the plebiscites, and the 
 annexations conferred on him the crown of Italy he 
 reigned in our hearts; he was our king!" Even after 
 this declaration efforts were made by neutral powers, 
 notably by England, to avert the coming war, but 
 Austria insisted as a preliminary on Sardinian disarma- 
 ment. Cavour firmly refused. In March he again 
 met Napoleon in Paris. The terms of the alliance 
 were finally arranged. On the 23d of April the Aus- 
 trian ultimatum demanding immediate disarmament 
 reached Turin, and within three days the Sardinian 
 army was on the march for Lombardy. "It is done," 
 said Cavour to some friends. '''' Aha j acta est. We 
 have made some history, and now to dinner." 
 
 "People of Italy," so the royal procla,ra^tion ran, 
 
268 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 "Austria assails Piedmont because I have maintained 
 the cause of our common country in the councils of 
 Europe, because I was not insensible to your cries of 
 anguish. Thus she now violently breaks the treaties 
 she has never respected. 
 
 "So to-day the right of the nation is complete, and 
 I can with a free conscience fulfil the vow I made on 
 the tomb of my parent by taking up arms to defend 
 my throne, the liberties of my people, the honor of the 
 Italian name. I fight for the right of the whole nation. 
 We confide in God and in our concord ; we confide in 
 the valor of the Italian soldiers, in the alliance of the 
 noble French nation; we confide in the justice of pub- 
 lic opinion. I have no other ambition than to be the 
 first soldier of Italian independence. Viz'a F Italia.'' 
 
 On the 13th of May the king met at Genoa the 
 emperor of the French, "his generous ally," who had 
 come to "liberate Italy from the Alps to the Adri- 
 atic." The two sovereigns went together to the front. 
 For a month the allies carried all before them; on the 
 4th of June they won the great victory of Magenta; 
 on the 8th they entered Milan; and on the 24th they 
 won the double battle of Solferino and San Martino — 
 the crowning glory of a brilliant campaign. And 
 then — the "magnanimous ally" stopped short. He 
 met the Emperor Francis Joseph at Villafranca, and 
 the terms of an armistice by which Lombardy was to 
 be united with Piedmont, while Venice was left to 
 Austria, were arranged. It is a barren task to can- 
 vass Napoleon's motives for this extraordinary step. 
 Possibly, as Cavour afterward believed, it was due 
 more to the impulse of the moment than to any pre- 
 
Cavour 269 
 
 conceived design. Enough to note the results. To 
 the peoples of the subject provinces, to the Venetians, 
 to the Tuscans, to the Modenese, above all, to the 
 Romagnuoli, who had looked for speedy emancipation 
 from despotic masters, the news came as a calamitous 
 disappointment. Cavour at the moment could attrib- 
 ute it to nothing but treachery, calmly calculated and 
 cruelly practiced. Victor Emmanuel, though not less 
 bitterly grieved and disappointed than his ministers, 
 alone retained some measure of composure, some per- 
 ception of the advantages already secured. 
 
 The anger of Cavour at the emperor's treachery 
 was unbounded. On learning the news he instantly 
 departed for the camp, and regardless alike of diplo- 
 matic etiquette and ministerial decencies, he showered 
 reproaches indifferently on both the sovereigns. He 
 besought his master to repudiate the terms and decline 
 to accept Lombardy under these humiliating condi- 
 tions. On the king's refusal to accept this rash advice 
 he immediately resigned and withdrew to his farms at 
 Leri. This once only in his whole career did his feel- 
 ings get the better of his judgment, and well may he 
 be forgiven. Of his almost superhuman labors in the 
 period just before the war the world, says his biog- 
 rapher Bianchi, will never know. But history in its 
 justice will relate how in the midst of such a boiling 
 over of violent passions, of mortal hatreds, of gener- 
 ous excitement, of storms and worries indescribable, 
 he remained imperturbably serene, calculating the 
 current events, and knowing how to master men and 
 things to hit the best opportunity for action. Though 
 he held in his hand the fermenting revolution, never 
 
270 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 did he once depart from the course of patient moder- 
 ation which alone could save the Italian question from 
 becoming lacerated by the claws of the Austrian eagle 
 in that last and most difficult period of the negoti- 
 ations. His appetite for work was prodigious. At 
 one and the -same time he was president of the coun- 
 cil, minister of foreign affairs, minister of war, minister 
 of the interior. He had a bed in the war office, and 
 during the night he walked in his dressing-gown from 
 one department to the other, giving directions as to 
 police regulations, diplomatic correspondence, and 
 preparations for war, inflaming every one by his ex- 
 ample of laboriousness and patriotism. "We have a 
 government, a chamber, a constitution," the Pied- 
 montese were wont to say; "the name for it all is 
 Cavour. " Xo wonder, then, that the breakdown of 
 that which w^as especially his work — the French alli- 
 ance — should have prostrated him. 
 
 But the king's judgment at this most agitating 
 crisis was more sound than his. He was grieved to 
 the heart by the turn events had taken, but he saw 
 w^hat Cavour failed to see, that by the victories of 1859 
 much had been achieved. "The political unity of 
 Italy, since Xovara a possibility, has become since 
 Villafranca a necessity." The stain of Xovara had 
 been wiped out; Austria had been driven back behind 
 the Mincio ; Lombardy was united with Piedmont in 
 a great subalpine kingdom; and in the following year 
 Tuscany, Parma, Modena, and the Roman legations 
 were annexed by universal plebiscite to this new^ king- 
 dom of Xorth Italy. Cavour recovered his spirits with 
 a rebound, and after a few months' retirement returned 
 
Cavour 271 
 
 to power. But his humiliations were not yet com- 
 pleted; Napoleon's bill had still to be paid. Even the 
 little he had accomplished he had not done for noth- 
 ing. The "little account" proved when presented, as 
 sometimes happens in less important bills, to be a 
 very big account. In view of the large accessions to 
 the Sardinian kingdom by the annexation of Tuscany, 
 Romagna, and other provinces. Napoleon claimed the 
 cession of Savoy. 
 
 The history of this most discreditable transaction — 
 a transaction which has left an indelible stain on 
 French diplomacy — belongs more properly to my next 
 lecture. Enough to say in this place that the demand 
 was perforce conceded For all concerned it was a 
 lamentable necessity, for the king especially it was 
 *'the sacrifice most painful to his heart" to have to 
 surrender to the foreigner "the cradle of his race." 
 The rage of the Mazzinists and of Garibaldi knew no 
 bounds. To them Cavour was a "low intriguer," 
 Napoleon nothing better than a vulpine knave"; but 
 all consideration of the justice of these epithets I must 
 postpone. I must postpone also, as belonging more 
 properly to Garibaldi's life, the last act in Cavour's 
 political career, by which, thanks hardly less to him 
 than to the intrepid volunteer, the kingdom of the 
 South was united to the kingdom of the North, and 
 Italy, her unity all but perfectly achieved, was free in 
 glad reality from the Adriatic to the Alps. 
 
 Cavour's life-work was nearly done. He lived to 
 see his master proclaimed king of Italy — an Italy that 
 included every member of the race except the Vene- 
 tians and the Roman subjects of the pope. But he 
 
272 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 saw clearly that even then much still remained to be 
 accomplished. Thanks to the sword of Garibaldi and 
 the enthusiasm which he excited in the South, Naples 
 was annexed to the northern kingdom. But it had 
 still to be assimilated. The people were lawless, tra- 
 ditionally opposed to government of any sort, restless 
 and troublesome. Yet nothing would persuade Cavour 
 to have recourse to what are called "extraordinary 
 measures." He shrank from the least breach of what 
 he regarded as constitutional government. Possibly 
 he was on this point over-sensitive. But if he was in 
 error it was the error of a noble nature. Besides, 
 parliamentary institutions in Italy — those institutions 
 which Cavour had really created — were still on their 
 trial. Little wonder that their creator should have 
 shrunk from vitiating the experiment by unnecessary 
 interference with its course. "Anybody," he was 
 wont to say, "can govern with a state of siege." The 
 idea of its application to the Sicilies was the haunt- 
 ing nightmare of his last illness. "No state of siege, 
 no state of siege," he was heard repeatedly to murmur. 
 The other difficulty which Cavour left unsolved was 
 infinitely greater, infinitely more intricate and perma- 
 nent, and it was just such a difficulty as to demand for 
 its solution, in especial measure, his exceptional abili- 
 ties. The difficulty to which, of course, I refer, was 
 that created by the attitude of the papacy in the 
 question of the temporal power. I say nothing, for 
 the present, of the hardly less difficult claim of the 
 church to the exclusive regulation of education. The 
 problem is thus clearly stated by a writer in the Edin- 
 burgh Review for July, 1861: "There can be no ques- 
 
Cavour 273 
 
 tion that the existence of an effective Italian power 
 must involve a material modification in the condition 
 of the court of Rome. A king of Italy and a sover- 
 eign pontiff, both ruling, or laying claim to rule, over 
 any considerable portion of Italian territory, are a con- 
 tradiction pregnant with irreconcilable opposition. . . . 
 The king of Italy can never become the supreme head 
 of a national government so long as the pope continues 
 to claim temporal and sovereign dominion in the penin- 
 sula, for the authority of the crown would be exposed 
 to perpetual antagonism within the pale of its own civil 
 jurisdiction. On the other hand, it is also certain that 
 to obtain from the court of Rome the necessary con- 
 cessions for obviating such collisions with the royal 
 authority involves what may well appear the hopeless 
 task of modifying the most tenacious and unrelaxing 
 of human constitutions. " Even the annexation of the 
 Romagna to the kingdom of Italy in i860 had not 
 been accomplished without f ulminations from the Vati- 
 can, which culminated at last in the once dreadful ban 
 of excommunication. Victor Emmanuel was little 
 inconvenienced by the papal anathemas, but as a loyal 
 and even devoted son of the church he was deeply 
 hurt. You may read in Miss Godkin's admirable Life 
 the noble, the tender appeal from the king to the pope, 
 in which he prayed the holy father to sanction the 
 act by which the peoples of the Romagna had with 
 absolute spontaneity united themselves to the Italian 
 kingdom, and to give-^his blessing to the holy work of 
 Italian unification. The appeal was made in vain. 
 
 But Cavour, no less loyal than his master to the 
 church, never doubted that the further change must 
 
274 The Makers of Modern Italy- 
 
 come with all its necessary consequences; that the 
 new kingdom of Italy must eventually establish its 
 seat of government in the ancient capital at Rome. 
 "The choice of a capital is determined," he said, "by 
 high moral considerations. It is the sentiment of the 
 people that decides. Rome unites all the conditions, 
 historical, intellectual, moral, which form the capital 
 of a great state. ... It remains to convince the holy 
 father that the church can be independent without 
 the temporal power. 'Holy Father,' we will say, 'the 
 temporal power is for you no longer a guarantee of 
 independence. Renounce it, and we will give you that 
 liberty which for three centuries you have in vain 
 demanded from the great Catholic powers. . . . We 
 are ready to proclaim in Italy this great principle: 
 The Free Church in the Free State. ' 
 
 "We hold," said Cavour, in one of his latest and 
 most famous speeches (26 March, 1861,), "we hold 
 that the independence and dignity of the supreme 
 pontiff, as well as the independence of the church, will 
 be secured by the separation of the two powers, and by 
 a large application of the principles of liberty to the 
 relations between civil and religious society." He 
 next expressed a fervent hope that this change might 
 be brought about by amicable arrangement with the 
 Vatican. "But what," he continued, "what if, in cir- 
 cumstances as fatal to the church as to Italy, the pope 
 should prove inflexible and persist in rejecting all 
 terms? Then, gentlemen, we should still not desist 
 from proclaiming loudly the same principles; we 
 should not desist from declaring that whether or not 
 an understanding precede our entry into the eternal 
 
Cavour 275 
 
 city, Italy will no sooner have pronounced the forfei- 
 ture of the temporal power than she will emancipate 
 the church from the state, and secure the liberty of 
 the former on the amplest foundations." 
 
 Most unfortunately, as we shall see next time, it 
 was not to be. Every advance on the part of the 
 Italian government was met by the inflexible, unvary- 
 ing non possumus. But this was the dream in the con- 
 templation of which the great statesman of Italian 
 independence went to his eternal rest. Even his iron 
 constitution succumbed at last to the superhuman 
 exertions he had made, to the manifold and harassing 
 anxieties he had undergone, to the alternations of 
 exciting triumph and humiliating failure in which his 
 last few years had been passed. The king was with 
 him to the end. His thoughts, even in delirium, were 
 still with the master he had served so faithfully, still 
 for the country he had loved so well. "I will have no 
 state of siege for the Neapolitans," he cried. "Li 
 lavi, li lavi, li lavi!" Purify them, purify them, purify 
 them. And then, with his last breath, to the attend- 
 ant brother, "Frate, Frate, libera chiesa in libero 
 stato." 
 
 Thus Cavour passed away on the 5th of June, 1861. 
 Well might the whole Italian people — from the king, 
 who had lost not merely his ablest counsellor, but his 
 dearest friend, down to the humblest peasant — well 
 might the whole people be plunged in grief almost 
 inconsolable. Well might they mourn for him who 
 had struck off from their limbs the fetters of an alien 
 yoke; who had guided them safely through the early 
 stages - — always difficult and thorny — of parliamentary 
 
276 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 government; who had not merely shown them the 
 blessings of freedom, but had taught them how to use 
 their freedom with moderation, with good sense, and — 
 lesson most difficult of all to learn — with due regard 
 to the liberties of others. "Italy a nation is the leg- 
 acy, the lifework, of Cavour.' . . . Others hav^e been 
 devoted to the cause of national liberation. . . . He 
 knew how to bring it into the sphere of possibilities; 
 he made it pure of any factious spirit; he led it away 
 from barren Utopias, kept it clear of reckless con- 
 spiracies, steered straight between revolution and 
 reaction, and gave it an organized force, a flag, a 
 government, and foreign allies." It is no disparage- 
 ment to jVIazzini, it is no disparagement to Garibaldi, 
 to say that neither of them could have done so much 
 for Italy. And yet it may well be doubted whether 
 Cavour himself could have accomplished all he did 
 but for the assistance which indirectly he derived from 
 the labors of men with whom he had nothing in com- 
 mon save an ardent patriotism, a passionate longing 
 for the realization of the national unity of their Italian 
 fatherland. The prophet, th(^, statesman, the crusader, 
 each was complementary in his lifework to the other. 
 Possessed of widely diverse gifts, dissimilar in temper, 
 and generally opposed in policy, but equal in abnega- 
 tion of all selfish aims, equal in devotion to a noble 
 cause, equal in the steadfast courage with which it was 
 pursued, each will have his proper niche in the temple 
 of Italian unity, for each contributed most precious 
 and invaluable gifts to the building of that imperish- 
 able fane. 
 
 * Mazade : Life of Cavour. 
 
Cavour 277 
 
 QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 
 
 I. How was the Italy of 1849 different from that of 1815? 
 2. What two ideals for the unity of Italy had been abandoned 
 at this time? 3. Why did the hopes of the patriots turn to 
 Piedmont? 4. What pledge did Victor Emmanuel make in the 
 cause of the nation? 5, Describe his difficulties with the pope 
 concerning Sardinia. 6. Why was this struggle a significant 
 one? 7. What were the circumstances of Cavour's early life? 
 8. How did his studies in Italy and England fit him for future 
 political leadership? 9. How did he influence public opinion 
 through his writings? 10. Why did his party incur the hostility 
 of the Mazzinists? 11. What saying of his would form a fitting 
 text for his career? 12. What reforms did he promote both in 
 parliament and as minister of commerce? 13. What problems 
 confronted him when he became prime minister? 14. What 
 was Cavour's reason for taking part in the Crimean War? 15. 
 Describe Cavour's conferences at the Congress of Paris. 16. 
 Describe the events at the opening.of parliament in 1859. 17. 
 What effect had the Peace of Villafranca upon the Italians, 
 Cavour, and the king? 18. What did the payment of Napo- 
 leon's account involve? 19. What two great problems did 
 Cavour leave unsolved? 20. Why was Victor Emmanuel 
 excommunicated? 21. What was Cavour's ideal for the church? 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 GARIBALDI 
 THE UNION OF NORTH AND SOUTH 
 
 It will be for your convenience, I think, that I 
 should briefly recall the position of affairs after the 
 exciting events of 1859. By the terms of the Peace 
 of Villafranca, Lombardy was to be united with Pied- 
 mont, but Venice, with the fortresses of the Quadri- 
 lateral, was to be retained by Austria: the fugitive 
 rulers of the provinces of central Italy were to be 
 restored, and in all other respects, the status quo ante 
 1859, was to be completely reestablished. But the 
 diplomatists at Zurich in 1859, like the diplomatists 
 at Vienna in 1815, were counting without their host. 
 "They seemed to think," writes Massari, "that they 
 had only to declare that Leopold of Lorraine should 
 go to Florence, Francis of Este to Modena, the Duch- 
 esse de Bourboh to Parma, and the pope's legates to 
 Bologna, Ferrara, Forte, and Ravenna. But the in- 
 habitants had very different views. " On the outbreak 
 of the war these prudent princes had all abandoned 
 their several capitals, and had taken refuge either with 
 the Austrian army or abroad. Provisional govern- 
 ments were consequently formed at once in Tuscany, 
 in Modena, and Parma, and in the Roman states; and 
 deputations were sent to offer the allegiance of the 
 
 278 
 
Garibaldi 279 
 
 several states to Victor Emmanuel without delay. In 
 the case of Tuscany, Modena, and Parma, the matter 
 was comparatively simple, but the action of the Roman 
 legations at once raised issues of enormous and far- 
 reaching magnitude. Not merely did it raise the 
 question, bristling with difficulties, of the relations of 
 the new Italian kingdom and the temporal power, but 
 it raised it at a time when the pope and his temporal 
 dominions were under the immediate protection of 
 Italy's "magnanimous ally." The definitive settle- 
 ment of the whole matter was, however, postponed 
 for the time being to the conclusion of the peace. 
 The preliminaries of peace suggested the formation, 
 outside the enlarged kingdom of Piedmont, of an 
 Italian confederation, under the presidency of the 
 pope, to which the Austrian provinces and the restored 
 duchies w^ere to belong. 
 
 No doubt, in the opinion of the rulers, such an 
 arrangement was neat and satisfactory. Unfortu- 
 nately it had one defect; it entirely failed to take 
 account of the wishes of those who were most immedi- 
 ately concerned. The peoples were inflexibly resolved 
 neither to go back under a despotic yoke, nor to re- 
 main practically independent and therefore powerless 
 units, but to become the subjects of Victor Emmanuel, 
 and take their place at once in the new Italian king- 
 dom. "Italy," said Napoleon, in a farewell procla- 
 mation to the troops, "Italy henceforth mistress of 
 her destinies, will have only herself to blame if she 
 does not make regular progress in order and liberty." 
 He had made it further understood that he w^ould 
 neither assist in nor permit the forcible restoration of 
 
28o The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 the petty despots of central Italy to their respective 
 thrones. Now all that the people asked was to be 
 allowed to mold their own destinies in accordance with 
 Napoleon's hint. Each of the three divisions, Tus- 
 cany, the Romagna, and Modena and Parma, now 
 united under the title of Emilia, proceeded, therefore, 
 to elect representative assemblies, which in every case 
 unanimously resolved upon union with Piedmont. The 
 king promised to do all he could to procure the sanc- 
 tion of Europe to the scheme which they desired. 
 France was willing, on conditions subsequently re- 
 vealed; England, under the government of Lord 
 Palmerston, was entirely favorable. But the ways of 
 diplomacy are tedious, and neither Cavour nor the 
 king was anxious in so delicate a matter to act in 
 defiance of its dictates. 
 
 The main obstacles, of course, were Austria and 
 the pope, the latter being infinitely the more serious 
 of the two. Not even the efforts of the French em- 
 peror, without whose support the temporal power could 
 not have subsisted for a day, could induce the Vatican 
 to abate one iota of the claims it had so long sustained. 
 Equally in vain were the remonstrances addressed by 
 Victor Emmanuel to the pope. His message was to 
 the last degree dignified and dutiful. "A devoted son 
 of the church, I have always nourished," wrote the 
 king, "a sense of sincere attachment, of veneration 
 and respect, toward Holy Church and its august head. 
 It never was, and it is not my intention to fail in my 
 duties as a Catholic prince, or to curtail as far as in me 
 lies those rights and that authority which the Holy 
 See exercises on earth by divine commission from 
 
Garibaldi a8i 
 
 heaven. But I also have sacred duties to fulfil before 
 God and man, toward my country and toward the 
 people whom Divine Providence has confided to my 
 government. I have always sought to reconcile the 
 duties of a Catholic prince with those of an independ- 
 ent sovereign of a free and civilized nation, both in 
 the internal rule of my states and in my foreign pol- 
 icy. . . . These are dangerous times. It is not for 
 me to indicate the safest way to restore quiet to our 
 country, and to reestablish on a solid basis the pres- 
 tige and authority of the Holy See in Italy. At the 
 same time I believe it my duty to lay before your 
 holiness an idea of which I am fully convinced. It is 
 this: that taking into consideration the necessity of 
 the times, the increasing force of the principle of 
 nationality, the irresistible impulse which impels the 
 people of Italy to unite and order themselves in con- 
 formity with the model adopted by all civilized 
 nations — an impulse which, I believe, demands my 
 frank and loyal concurrence — such a state of things 
 might be established as would reserve to the church 
 its high dominion, and assure to the supreme pontiff a 
 glorious post at the head of the Italian nation, while 
 giving the people of the (papal) provinces a share in 
 the benefits that a kingdom, strong and highly national, 
 secures to the greater part of central Italy." 
 
 But no remonstrance, no petition, no advice could 
 in the least degree shake the Vatican in the stubbornly 
 consistent attitude it had assumed. Denunciations 
 were followed by anathemas, anathemas by excommu- 
 nication. But when the several peoples had once 
 more pronounced by universal plebiscite in favor of a 
 
282 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 junction with Piedmont, not Tuscany only nor Emilia, 
 but Bologna also and the other Roman legations, were 
 united in irrevocable bonds with the kingdom of North 
 Italy. On the 2d of April, i860, the first Italian Par- 
 liament, representing a kingdom of eleven million 
 people, assembled at Turin. ''The last time I opened 
 Parliament," said the king's speech, "when Italy was 
 sunk in sorrows and the state menaced by great dan- 
 gers, faith in divine justice comforted me and augured 
 well for our destinies. In very brief space of time an 
 invasion was repelled. Lombardy liberated by the 
 glorious achievements of the army, central Italy freed 
 by the marvelous merit of her people ; and to-day I 
 have here assembled around me the representatives of 
 the rights and of the hopes of the nation. ... In 
 turning our attention," he concluded, "to the new 
 order of affairs, we invite all sincere opinions to a 
 noble emulation that we may attain the grand end of 
 the well-being of the people and the greatness of the 
 country. It is no longer the Italy of the Romans, nor 
 that of the Middle Ages, it must no longer be the 
 battlefield of ambitious foreigners, but it must rather 
 be the Italy of the Italians." 
 
 But in the midst of the general jubilation which so 
 auspicious an event naturally evoked there was one 
 discordant note. In one of the clauses of the royal 
 speech from which I have already quoted, these words 
 occur: "In gratitude to France ; for the good of Italy ; 
 to consolidate the union between two nations that have 
 a common origin, principles, and destinies, and finding 
 it necessary to make some sacrifice, I have made that 
 which has cost my heart dear. Subject to the vote of 
 
Garibaldi 283 
 
 the people, the approbation of Parliament, and the 
 consent of Switzerland, I have made a treaty for the 
 reunion of Savoy and Nice to France. " It was indeed 
 a painful sacrifice. Was it inevitable? On the whole 
 I am inclined to think it was, and that for two reasons: 
 (i) I am convinced that Cavour and still more Victor 
 Emmanuel would never have made the bitter sacrifice 
 except in deference to inexorable necessity; (2) it was 
 admittedly the sole condition upon which the "vulpine 
 knave," as Garibaldi was wont to call Napoleon III., 
 would consent to the aggrandizement, as he conceived 
 it, of a neighboring power. Perhaps too much has 
 been made of this question. The provinces — or at 
 least Savoy — were in all essentials French; they as- 
 sented by plebiscite to the change of masters; Savoy 
 could contribute little to the resources of the new 
 kingdom, and its conduct on more than one occasion 
 had almost justified Cavour's assertion that it was the 
 Ireland of Italy. In the chambers, too, Cavour's 
 majority was unbroken, the treaty being ratified by a 
 majority of 229, more than four-fifths of the whole 
 chamber. 
 
 But there was one man in Italy to whom the cession 
 came as an overpowering blow, the man who, by his 
 brilliant achievement in South Italy, was just about 
 to rivet upon himself the attention of the world — I 
 mean Garibaldi. "You have made me," he cried, "a 
 stranger in the land of my birth." 
 
 Garibaldi, whose career up to this point I must now 
 very briefly trace, was born at Nice, in 1807, being, 
 therefore, two years the junior of Mazzini, and three 
 years older than Cavour. He was destined by his 
 
284 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 parents, humble but worthy folk, for the priesthood. 
 But he preferred the sea, and for many years he led a 
 roving and adventurous life. Like many of the ardent 
 youths of Italy, he came early under the influence of 
 Mazzini's teaching; joined the association of "Young 
 Italy," and from that moment consecrated his life with 
 a simple-heartedness worthy of a medieval crusader 
 to the service of his country. He was engaged in the 
 abortive expedition to Savoy in 1834, and was con- 
 demned to death, but managed to escape to South 
 America. For the next fourteen years he was an exile, 
 engaged for the most part in fighting the battles of 
 Montevideo with the famous "Italian Legion," which 
 he organized and commanded. The experience which 
 he thus acquired of rough, irregular, guerilla warfare 
 was afterward invaluable. 
 
 In 1847 the news reached him in jMontevideo of the 
 great excitement which prevailed in Italy and the 
 earnest expectation of a momentous crisis in the his- 
 tory of his native land. It was the moment, you 
 remember, of the supremacy of the neo-Guelphic party, 
 when the hopes of Italy were for a brief space centered 
 on the pope. Garibaldi and his colleague Anzani at 
 once wrote to the new pontiff to tender their allegi- 
 ance, and to offer him the assistance of their arms. 
 "If then to-day our arms, which are not strangers to 
 fighting, are acceptable to your holiness, we need not 
 say how willingly we shall offer them in the service of 
 one who has done so much for our country and our 
 church. We shall count ourselves happy if we can but 
 come to aid Pius IX. in his work of redemption. . . . 
 We shall consider ourselves privileged if we are allowed 
 
Garibaldi 185 
 
 to show our devotedness by offering our blood. " That 
 was the temper, the spirit of Garibaldi from the dawn 
 to the close of his career — a spirit of simple-minded, 
 pure-hearted, self-sacrificing devotion to his country's 
 cause. No answer reached him from the pope, but 
 anxious at all risks (for he still lay under sentence of 
 death) to be in the forefront of the fight, he sailed with 
 a band of fifty followers for Rome. 
 
 He landed at Nice, his native city, on the 24th of 
 June in the memorable year 1848, having already 
 learnt at Alicante the exciting events which had taken 
 place, and burning to be in the midst of them. With- 
 out delay he offered his services to King Charles 
 Albert, but the offer was coldly received, and Gari- 
 baldi, therefore, went on at once to Milan, where he 
 was enthusiastically welcomed by the citizens. From 
 all sides volunteers flocked to the standard of the now 
 famous warrior, and in a very short time he found 
 himself at the head of thirty thousand men. With 
 this band, notwithstanding the signature of peace by 
 which Charles Albert gave back Milan to the Aus- 
 trians, Garibaldi continued a desultory but harass- 
 ing campaign. 
 
 The appearance of this extraordinary army is thus 
 described by an eye-witness (quoted by Mr. Bent) : 
 "Picture to yourself an incongruous assemblage of 
 individuals of all descriptions, boys of twelve or four- 
 teen, veteran soldiers attracted by the fame of the 
 celebrated chieftain of Montevideo; some stimulated 
 by ambition, others seeking for impunity and license 
 in the confusion of war, yet so restrained by the inflex- 
 ible severity of their leader that courage and daring 
 
286 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 alone could find a vent, whilst more lawless passions 
 were curbed beneath his will. The general and his 
 staff all rode on American saddles, wore scarlet blouses 
 with hats of every possible form without distinction of 
 any kind or pretension to military ornament. . . . 
 Garibaldi, if the encampment was far from the scene 
 of danger, would stretch himself under his tent; if, on 
 the contrary, the enemy were near at hand he remained 
 constantly on horseback giving orders and visiting the 
 outposts. Often, disguised as a peasant, he risked his 
 own safety in daring reconnaissances; but most fre- 
 quently, seated on some commanding elevation, he 
 would pass whole hours examining the surrounding 
 country with his telescope. When the general's trum- 
 pet gave the signal to prepare for departure lassoes 
 secured the horses which had been left to graze in the 
 meadows. The order of march was always arranged 
 on the preceding day, and the corps set out without 
 so much as knowing where the evening would find 
 them. Owing to this patriarchal simplicity, pushed 
 sometimes too far. Garibaldi appeared more like the 
 chief of a tribe of Indians than a general; but at the 
 approach of danger, and in the heat of combat, his 
 presence of mind was admirable; and then by the 
 astonishing rapidity of his movements he made up in 
 a great measure for his deficiency in those qualities 
 which are generally supposed to be absolutely essential 
 to a military commander." 
 
 This guerilla warfare, though it failed to improve 
 materially the political situation, succeeded in doing 
 two things: it stimulated to an incredible degree the 
 enthusiasm of the populations from which the volun- 
 
Garibaldi 287 
 
 teers were drawn, and it concentrated that enthusiasm 
 on the intrepid hero who commanded them. Before 
 the opening of the campaign of 1849, Charles Albert 
 offered (laribaldi a regular command; but just about 
 that time news came from Rome which caused Gari- 
 baldi — to whom as to Mazzini, and to Cavour, Rome 
 represented the embodiment of patriotic aspiration — 
 to fly with a band of fifteen hundred followers to her 
 defence. He was immediately entrusted with the 
 defence of the frontier, which was menaced by the 
 king of Naples. 
 
 Upon the strange contortion of events which 
 brought republican France to the assault upon republi- 
 can Rome I need not dwell; nor upon the heroism 
 with which Rome was defended by Garibaldi and 
 Mazzini. In May Garibaldi's legion covered itself 
 with glory in the two defeats it inflicted on the Nea- 
 politans at Palestrina and Velletri. But the heroic 
 struggle was already drawing to a close. "The situ- 
 ation," wrote Garibaldi, *'grew more difficult every 
 day." Just before the French troops, in accordance 
 with the terms of surrender, were about to enter Rome, 
 Garibaldi himself, accompanied by his heroic wife and 
 with a handful of followers, marched out of Rome, 
 "resolved," as he says, "to take to the country and 
 try our fate again rather than submit to the degra- 
 dation of laying down our arms before the priest-ridden 
 soldiers of Bonaparte." Dogged first by French and 
 then by Austrian forces Garibaldi's little band crossed 
 the Appenines, and then, after hairbreadth escapes, 
 embarked at Cesenatico, meaning to make their way 
 to Venice, which was still maintaining its unequal 
 
288 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 struggle with the Austrian forces. In the Adriatic, 
 however, they were confronted by an Austrian squad- 
 ron which compelled them to put back and land near 
 Ravenna. "I leave it to be imagined what was my 
 position at that unhappy moment; my poor wife dying, 
 the enemy pursuing us inshore with the confidence 
 gained by an easy victory, and the prospect of la'nding 
 on a coast where in all probability we should find more 
 enemies." Many of the boats were taken, but Gari- 
 baldi with his wife and a few followers managed to 
 reach the shore. Still they were pursued ; many of 
 his friends, including Ugo Bassi, were taken, and with- 
 out a form of trial, shot. Garibaldi himself escaped, 
 but not till he had seen his wife expire in his arms. 
 For four years he was a wanderer, but in 1854 he 
 settled down in the island of Caprera, where for years 
 he spent his time laboring as hard as ever he had 
 labored in his warrior days to turn the barren rock 
 into a smiling garden. 
 
 But the events of 1859 once more brought the chief 
 out of his retirement. Summoned by Cavour to meet 
 him at Turin, Garibaldi, wearing as usual his loose red 
 blouse and slouching hat, attended one morning at the 
 palace and demanded audience of the minister. He 
 refused to give his name, and the servant, alarmed by 
 his uncouth and fierce appearance, declined, as a well- 
 trained servant should, to let him in. Overcome, 
 however, by his persistence, the servant went so far 
 as to consult his master, though warning him against 
 the importunate stranger. "Let him come in," said 
 the minister, "it is probably some poor devil who has 
 a petition to make to me." Such was the first meet- 
 
Garibaldi 289 
 
 ing between the great statesman and the great volun- 
 teer. During the campaign Garibaldi added enor- 
 mously to his reputation, and on its sudden, unforeseen 
 conclusion he was hailed as a national deliverer from 
 end to end of Italy. 
 
 We are now in a position to deal with the most 
 splendid episode in Garibaldi's whole career, an epi- 
 sode, indeed, than which none more splendid is to be 
 found in the annals of recorded history. I refer, of 
 course, to the Sicilian expedition and the liberation of 
 South Italy. 
 
 I feel it hopeless to attempt to convey to you even 
 the faintest impression of the hideous yet despicable 
 tyranny under which the inhabitants of the Two Sicilies 
 had groaned for nearly halt a century. To make clear 
 to you the reasons for the peculiar detestation with 
 which their present government was regarded by the 
 inhabitants of Sicily I should have to go back and trace 
 the stages by which they were deprived of constitu- 
 tional liberties, which they were the first of European 
 nations to achieve. Such a task is altogether beyond 
 the scope of this lecture. I shall content myself 
 therefore by quoting some of the impressions made by 
 this government upon the mind of an eminently in- 
 structed, but at the same time eminently sympathetic 
 observer in the winter of 1850-51. 
 
 After a visit to Naples in that year Mr. Gladstone 
 addressed his famous letter to Lord Aberdeen. Three 
 reasons induced him to take a step admittedly unusual. 
 They are thus stated by himself: "First, that the 
 present practices of the government of Naples, in refer- 
 ence to real or supposed political offenders, are an 
 
290 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 outrage upon religion, upon civilization, upon human- 
 ity, and upon decency. Secondly, that these practices 
 are certainly and even rapidly doing the work of re- 
 publicanism in that country; a political creed which 
 has little natural or habitual root in the character of 
 the people. Thirdly, that, as a member of the Con- 
 servative party in one of the great family of European 
 nations, I am compelled to remember that that party 
 stands in virtual and real though perhaps unconscious 
 alliance with all the established governments of Europe 
 as such; and that according to the measure of its in- 
 fluence they suffer more or less of moral detriment 
 from its reverses and derive strength and encourage- 
 ment from its successes. This principle ... is of 
 great practical importance in reference to the govern- 
 ment of Naples, which from whatever cause appears to 
 view its own social like its physical position as one 
 under the shadovv^ of a volcano, and which is doing 
 everything in its power from day to day to give reality 
 to its own dangers and fresh intensity together with 
 fresh cause to its fears. 
 
 "It is not," he goes on to say, "it is not mere im- 
 perfection, not corruption in low practices, not occas- 
 ional severity, that I am about to describe; it is 
 incessant, systematic, deliberate violation of the law 
 by the power appointed to watch over and maintain it. 
 It is such violation of human and written law as this, 
 carried on for the purpose of violating every other law, 
 written and eternal, temporal and divine; it is the 
 wholesale persecution of virtue when united with intel- 
 ligence, operating upon such a scale that entire classes 
 may with truth be said to be its object; ... it is the 
 
Garibaldi igx 
 
 awful profanation of public religion, by its notorious 
 alliance in the governing powers with the violation of 
 every moral law under the stimulants of fear and ven- 
 geance; it is the perfect prostitution of the judicial 
 office, which has made it, under veils only too thread- 
 bare and transparent, the degraded recipient of the 
 vilest and clumsiest forgeries, got up wilfully and 
 deliberately by the immediate advisers of the crown 
 for the purpose of destroying the peace, the freedom, 
 aye, and even if not by capital sentences the life of 
 men among the most virtuous, upright, intelligent, 
 distinguished, and refined of the whole community; it 
 is the savage and cowardly system of moral, as well as 
 in a lower degree of physical, torture through which 
 the sentences extracted from the debased courts of 
 justice are carried into effect. The effect of all this 
 is total inversion of all the moral and social ideas. 
 Law, instead of being respected, is odious. Force and 
 not affection is the foundation of government. There 
 is no association but a violent antagonism between the 
 idea of freedom and that of order. The governing 
 power, which teaches of itself that it is the image of 
 God upon earth, is clothed in the view of the over- 
 whelming majority of the thinking public with all the 
 vices for its attributes. I have seen and heard the 
 too true expression used, 'This is the negation of God 
 erected into a system of government.' 
 
 It is impossible to follow in detail the minute evi- 
 dence upon which the author bases this appalling but 
 not, I think, greatly exaggerated indictment. You 
 may read that evidence, together with an examination 
 of the official reply put forth in the name of the Nea- 
 
2^2 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 politan government, in the fourth volume of Glea7iings 
 of Past Years. 
 
 Such was the condition of affairs in the kingdom of 
 the Sicilies when, in the spring of i860. Garibaldi 
 heard that the standard of revolt had been raised in 
 Palermo, in Messina, and Catania. He resolved to 
 start at once for Sicily. What was Cavour to do? It 
 was impossible for the government to sanction an 
 expedition for the assistance of rebels in arms against 
 a friendly power; it was equally impossible to stop 
 Garibaldi and detain his followers. In the fever of 
 excitement which the news had created it was more 
 than the newly-won crown of Italy was worth. Cavour 
 took the only course open to him. Garibaldi and his 
 "thousand" were allowed to sail from Genoa, while to 
 the diplomatic world all responsibility for their actions 
 was strenuously disavowed. Nay, so consummate was 
 the acting of Cavour that the Mazzinians have always 
 continued to assert that he spared no pains to frustrate 
 the objects of the expedition. 
 
 Garibaldi waited for no leave. "I know," he wrote 
 on his departure to the king, "that I embark on a 
 perilous enterprise. If we achieve it, I shall be proud 
 to add to your majesty's crown a new and perhaps 
 more glorious jewel, always on the condition that your 
 majesty will stand opposed to counsellors who would 
 cede this province to the foreigner as has been done 
 with the city of my birth." Garibaldi was followed 
 by a Sardinian squadron. Its instructions were brief. 
 "Try to navigate," wrote Cavour to the admiral, 
 "between Garibaldi and the Neapolitan cruisers. I 
 hope you understand me." Admiral Persano's reply 
 
Garibaldi 293 
 
 was equally laconic. "I believe I understand you; if 
 I am mistaken, you can send me to prison." 
 
 When it was known that Garibaldi had actually 
 sailed, the excitement in the diplomatic world was 
 immense. England alone, whose sympathies were now 
 thoroughly arou&ed for the oppressed Sicilians, openly 
 rejoiced at the turn events had taken. Garibaldi 
 luckily was beyond the reach of diplomatic interfer- 
 ence. A "horde of pirates," "desperadoes," "ban- 
 dits," "dregs of the human race," — such were the 
 least opprobrious of the epithets bestowed on his 
 devoted band. Cavour had to bear the brunt of the 
 attack, but he was not dismayed. "Here things do 
 not go badly, ' ' he wrote from Turin to Palermo. ' ' The 
 diplomatists do not molest us too much. Russia made 
 a fearful hubbub; Prussia, less." Meanwhile Gari- 
 baldi's progress in the south was one series of 
 triumphs. Sicily was conquered in a few days. 
 Thence he crossed to Spartivento; drove Bomba into 
 Gaeta; and on the 7th of September entered Naples. 
 In a few days Garibaldi and his handful of followers 
 had made themselves masters of a kingdom. It is an 
 achievement which stands alone in modern history. 
 No wonder that it took the world by storm: that Gari- 
 baldi was regarded rather as the hero of a mythical 
 romance than an ordinary mortal of flesh and blood. 
 But though all that the intrepid leadership of the 
 chief and the unwavering confidence of followers could 
 do had already been achieved, yet the difficulties were 
 by no means over. Naples and Sicily were without a 
 government. Garibaldi, therefore, was proclaimed 
 dictator. 
 
294 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 ]\[eanwhile Cavour, alarmed at the rapidity with 
 which the Sicilian kingdoms had fallen before the 
 assault of Garibaldi: alarmed, too, at the growing 
 popularity of the chief; alarmed, above all, at the 
 news that Mazzini was in Naples, Cavour, I say, pro- 
 posed to his parliament the immediate annexation of 
 the newly-conquered province to the Italian kingdom. 
 "Italy," he wrote to Persano, "must be saved from 
 foreigners, evil principles, and madmen." He feared 
 the influence of Mazzini's fanatical republicanism on 
 the ingenuous mind of Garibaldi ; he feared also that, 
 flushed wath their triumph, they would march from 
 Naples straight on Rome. That step, as he well 
 knew, would involve the instant intervention of the 
 emperor of the French. Such a disaster must be 
 averted at all hazards, but how could it be done? The 
 Italian parliament had approved of annexation, but 
 would Garibaldi respect the vote? Garibaldi now de- 
 manded a confirmation of his own dictatorship, and 
 declared that he would not annex the provinces to the 
 Italian kingdom till he could proclaim Victor Em- 
 manuel king of Italy in Rome. Everything was now 
 at stake — the lifework of Cavour, the lifework of Maz- 
 zini, the lifework of Garibaldi himself. Cavour, in 
 this supreme moment of his great career, was equal to 
 the crisis. By a masterly stroke of policy the control 
 of the movement was taken out of the rash hands of 
 the knights-errant and confirmed in those of sober 
 statesmanship. He decided to despatch a royal army 
 to the Roman marches, and so to anticipate the 
 dreaded move of Garibaldi. "If we do not arrive on 
 the Volturno," he wrote to the Italian ambassadors 
 
Garibaldi 295 
 
 abroad, "before Garibaldi arrives at La Cattolica, the 
 monarchy is lost. Italy will remain a prey to revolu- 
 tion. " Napoleon had given a modified assent to this 
 step. "If Piedmont," he said, "thinks this absolutely 
 necessary to save herself from an abyss of evil, be it 
 so, but it must be done at her own risk and peril." 
 Cavour accepted full responsibility, and early in Sep- 
 tember the Sardinian army was marching south. At 
 Castelfidardo they met and completely routed the mer- 
 cenary forces — for most part Irish soldiers, commanded 
 by French officers — employed by the pope, and directly 
 afterward they occupied Ancona. 
 
 At the moment when the royal troops were march- 
 ing south, the Garibaldians were marching north. "If 
 you are not on your way toward Rome or Venice before 
 three weeks are over your initiative will be at an end. " 
 That was Mazzini's warning to the general, and the 
 advice was sound. Luckily for Cavour, luckily for 
 Italy, aye, and luckily for Garibaldi, the king of Naples 
 turned to bay at last and confronted him on the north- 
 ern bank of the Volturno. On the ist of October the 
 battle of the Volturno was fought: the Neapolitans 
 were scattered; //teir king took refuge in Gaeta, and 
 so Garibaldi was left face to face with /lis king — Victor 
 Emmanuel. In the mind of the single-hearted hero 
 the brief struggle was past. When he met the king it 
 was to lay down the authority he had perforce assumed ; 
 to offer to his master the "new and brilliant jewel" he 
 had promised for his crown. The day before the 
 king's entrance into Naples Garibaldi had issued a 
 farewell proclamation to the people. "To-morrow 
 Victor Emmanuel, the elect of the nation, will break 
 
2g6 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 down the frontier which has divided us for so many- 
 centuries from the rest of the country, and listening 
 to the unanimous voice of this brave people" (refer- 
 ring, of course, to the plebiscite which had just been 
 taken), "will appear amongst us. Let us worthily 
 receive him who is sent by Providence, and scatter in 
 his path, as the pledge of our redemption and our 
 affection, the flowers of concord, to him so grateful, 
 to us so necessary. No more political colors, no more; 
 parties, no more discords. Italy one, under the King 
 Galantiioino^ who is the symbol of our regeneration and 
 the prosperity of our country." On the yth of No- 
 vember the king and Garibaldi entered Naples side by 
 side. 
 
 And then, having thus introduced the king to the 
 new kingdom which his sword had won for him, the 
 simple-hearted chief, refusing all decorations, all 
 rewards, went quietly away to his island home in 
 Caprera, knowing well that for himself, for all con- 
 cerned, he was safest there. No wonder that the 
 imagination of the world was touched, as it is rarely 
 touched even by the grandest feats of arms, by this 
 act of dignified and simple self-renunciation. 
 
 " Not that three armies thou didst overthrow, 
 Not that three cities ope'd their gates to thee 
 I praise thee, chief ; not for this royalty, 
 Decked with new crowns, that utterly lay low ; 
 For nothing of all thou didst forsake, to go 
 And tend thy vines amid the Etrurian sea ; 
 Not even that thou didst ////i'— that history 
 Retread two thousand selfish years to show 
 Another Cincinnatus ! Rather for this — 
 The having lived such a life that even this deed 
 
Garibaldi 297 
 
 Of stress heroic natural seems, as is 
 
 Calm night, when glorious day it doth succeed, 
 
 And we, forwarned by surest auguries. 
 
 The amazing act with no amazement read." 
 
 On the 1 8th of February, 1861, a new parliament, 
 for the first time representative of all parts of Italy 
 except Venice and Rome, assembled at Turin. Its 
 first business was to establish on a legal basis the new 
 kingdom, and to proclaim the King Victor Emmanuel 
 II., by the grace of God and by the will of the nation, 
 king of Italy. Yet with all the triumphant enthusiasm 
 with which the proclamation was hailed, there still 
 mingled the thought of Venice and of Rome — two 
 gaping wounds, still unhealed, in the side of Italy. 
 We have already seen how powerfully the mere idea of 
 Rome acted on the imagination of Mazzini; how it 
 spurred on Garibaldi, despite all the intricacies of a 
 tedious diplomacy, to win Rome or die; how it had 
 led Cavour less excitedly but with no less determina- 
 tion to declare that "without Rome for a capital Italy 
 can never be firmly united." One must be Italian, 
 one must feel Southern blood in one's veins, must have 
 been educated in this glorious history under the 
 painted wings of classic poetry, to comprehend all the 
 influences that Rome exercises over the Italian mind. 
 Those who wished to make Italy a monarchy, and 
 afterward denied her the capital which is hers by 
 nature, did but construct a headless body.^ 
 
 There was no man, no party in Italy, which did not 
 fully realize this truth. Cavour felt it full as strongly 
 as Garibaldi or Mazzini. But there was divergence 
 
 ' Castelar. quoted by Miss Godkin. 
 
298 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 between them as to means. Cavour was weighted by 
 an official responsibility which the others never felt. 
 He saw difficulties which they did not, and conse- 
 quently he seemed to the more ardent spirits lacking 
 in the enthusia^sm by which all were, in reality, equally 
 inspired. To Garibaldi especially the attitude of 
 Cavour was exasperating, and a most painful scene in 
 the first Italian parliament was the unfortunate result. 
 On the i8th of April Garibaldi, in a most intemperate 
 speech, attacked the great minister with the utmost 
 bitterness. He declared, as he concluded an impas- 
 sioned harangue, that it would be for ever impossible 
 for him to clasp the hand of the man who had sold his 
 country to the foreigner, or to ally himself with a gov- 
 ernment whose cold and mischievous hand was trying 
 to foment fratricidal war. Cavour was deeply hurt, 
 but replied with marvelous self-control. "I know," 
 he said, ''that between me and the honorable General 
 Garibaldi there exists a fact which divides us two like 
 an abyss. I believed that I fulfilled a painful duty — 
 the most painful I ever accomplished in my life — in 
 counselling the king and proposing to parliament to 
 approve the cession of Savoy and Nice to France. By 
 the grief that I then experienced I can understand that 
 which the honorable General Garibaldi must have felt, 
 and if he cannot forgive me this act I will not bear 
 him any grudge for it." At the urgent entreaty of 
 the king himself the two men subsequently met, and a 
 reconciliation was effected. Three months later the 
 great statesman was no more. 
 
 Nothing, however, could shake in the least degree 
 Garibaldi's resolution to make an immediate assault 
 
Garibaldi 299 
 
 • 
 upon Rome. The ministries which followed the death 
 of Cavour undoubtedly bungled ; and rightly or wrongly 
 Garibaldi was led to suppose that the government 
 would oppose his attack upon Rome in much the same 
 sense that they had opposed his attack upon Sicily. 
 Never had the ripe wisdom of Cavour been more indis- 
 pensable. It was clearly impossible to allow a subject 
 to defy the government and act independently in a 
 matter so difficult and delicate as that of Rome. Gari- 
 baldi persisted; he was met on the march to Rome by 
 a royal army at Aspromonte, and his volunteers were 
 scattered far and wide. Garibaldi himself was 
 wounded, and carried a state prisoner to Varignano. 
 The wounded chieftain was a terrible embarrassment 
 to a government already somewhat discredited. Gari- 
 baldi was, indeed, as Mr. Bent has said, "the idol of 
 Italy, from the throne to the cottage; Italians wor- 
 shiped him, but they did not know what to do with 
 him." The enthusiasm aroused for him, reasoning 
 and unreasoning alike, may be illustrated by an inci- 
 dent related by the same author. His room at Varig- 
 nano was besieged by ladies of every degree, anxious 
 for the honor of ministering, in however small a meas- 
 ure, to the illustrious invalid. It was mentioned in 
 one of the English papers that Garibaldi had said that 
 the sound of an English voice did him good. Immedi- 
 ately there was a perfect exodus of English ladies 
 anxious to satisfy his slightest whim. Among them 
 was a worthy old woman from Reading, of quite hum- 
 ble circumstances, who set out with her daughter, with 
 more zeal than knowledge, for Varignano. Their jour- 
 ney accomplished, they demanded permission to nurse 
 
300 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 him, to apply the soothing voice for which he had 
 asked. Of course the permission was refused; the 
 women could not speak a word of the language ; they 
 had spent all their money, and had to be sent home 
 by the government. Not, however, it is satisfactory 
 to know, before they had spent a few raptured moments 
 in the chamber of the sufferer, and had obtained a 
 lock of hair and an unquestionable autograph. 
 
 After the general amnesty Garibaldi decided to 
 visit England, to try and arouse among the English 
 people a more- definite and fruitful enthusiasm on the 
 Roman question. Seldom, if ever, has such a wel- 
 come awaited a foreign visitor to England. I have 
 been told by one who witnessed his landing at South- 
 ampton that the poor general's garments were literally 
 torn to ribbons by enthusiastic admirers. The whole 
 English world, official and non-official, quite lost their 
 heads as well as their hearts. But there was one per- 
 son of some count in Europe who was by no means 
 well pleased at the reception accorded to Garibaldi in 
 this country. How much Napoleon's annoyance had 
 to do with the sudden departure of our guest is one of 
 those diplomatic mysteries which may never be cleared 
 up. Lord Palmerston repudiated the notion of official 
 interference. Anyhow, the whole of his provincial 
 engagements were suddenly abandoned, and Garibaldi 
 left for home. 
 
 There was work in Italy ready to his hand. In 
 1865 the capital had been transferred from Turin to 
 Florence — a stepping-stone to Rome, suggested by 
 the French government itself. In the following 
 year, 1866, Victor Emmanuel concluded an alliance 
 
Garibaldi 301 
 
 with Prussia, then on the eve of her duel with Austria. 
 On the 20th of June Italy declared war on Austria. 
 Both on land and sea Italy was badly beaten, but 
 Austria was so utterly crushed by Prussia in the brief 
 campaign which terminated at Sadowa that she no 
 longer offered any serious obstacle to the abandon- 
 ment of the Venetian provinces; and thus at last the 
 foreigner was finally expelled from Italy, and Venice 
 was united with the rest of Italy. 
 
 Meanwhile the Roman question, if not entirely 
 solved, was advancing rapidly toward solution. As 
 early as 1864 Victor Emmanuel had come to an under- 
 standing with Napoleon in the matter. "Of course," 
 said the French minister, "in the end you will go to 
 Rome. But it is important" (of course on account of 
 the relations of the government and. the Catholic 
 church at home) "that between our evacuation and 
 your going there, such an interval of time and such a 
 series of events should elapse as to prevent people 
 establishing any connection between the two facts; 
 France must not have any responsibility." In Sep- 
 tember, 1864, accordingly, France concluded a con- 
 vention by which she agreed to withdraw her troops 
 from Rome, while Victor Emmanuel engaged to respect 
 what remained of the temporal power. But the pro- 
 gress made or perhaps rather permitted by diplomacy, 
 was too slow for Garibaldi. He had once more fallen 
 under the influence of the extreme republicans, and in 
 1867 he declared that he would delay no longer in 
 planting the republican banner on the Vatican. 
 Between these hot-headed and fanatical republicans 
 on the one side, the Italian ultramontanes on another. 
 
302 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 and the French emperor on the third, the position of 
 Victor Emmanuel was anything but enviable. 
 
 In the autumn of 1867 Garibaldi was suddenly 
 arrested by the government, but released on condition 
 that he w^ould remain quietly at Caprera. But mean- 
 while the volunteers under Menotti Garibaldi (the 
 great chief's son) had advanced into the papal states. 
 The old warrior was burning to be with them. On the 
 14th of October he effected his escape from Caprera, 
 and managed eventually to join his son in the Ro- 
 magna. Together they advanced on Rome, and won, 
 after tremendous fighting, a great victory at Monte 
 Rotundo. Meanwhile an army of occupation sent by 
 the government from Florence had crossed the Roman 
 frontier, and a French force had landed on the coast. 
 Garibaldi's position was already critical, but his reso- 
 lution was unbroken. ' ' The government of Florence, 
 he said, in a proclamation to the volunteers, "has 
 invaded the Roman territory, already won by us 
 with precious blood from the enemies of Italy; we 
 ought to receive our brothers in arms with love, and 
 aid them in driving out of Rome the mercenary sus- 
 tainers of tyranny; but if base deeds, the continuation 
 of the vile convention of September, in mean consort 
 with Jesuitism, shall urge us to lay down our arms in 
 obedience to the order of the 2d December, then will 
 I let the world know that I alone, a Roman general, 
 with full power, elected by the universal suffrage of 
 the only legal government in Rome, that of the repub- 
 lic, have the right to maintain myself in arms in this 
 the territory subject to my jurisdiction ; and then, if 
 any of these my volunteers, champions of liberty and 
 
Garibaldi 303 
 
 Italian unity, wish to have Rome as the capital of 
 Italy, fulfilling the vote of parliament and the nation, 
 they must not put down their arms until Italy shall 
 have acquired liberty of conscience and worship, built 
 upon the ruin of Jesuitism, and until the soldiers of 
 tyrants shall be banished from our land." 
 
 The position taken up by Garibaldi is perfectly 
 intelligible. Rome we must have, if possible, by legal 
 process, in conjunction with the royal arms; but if 
 they will stand aside, even if they will oppose, none 
 the less Rome must be annexed to Italy. Unfortu- 
 nately Garibaldi had left out of account the French 
 force despatched by Napoleon III. to defend the tem- 
 poral dominions of the pope, a force which even at 
 this moment was advancing to the attack. The two 
 armies met near the little village of Mentana, ill- 
 matched in every respect. The volunteers, numerous 
 indeed but ill-disciplined and badly armed, brought 
 together, held together simply by the magic of a name, 
 the French, admirably disciplined, armed with the 
 fatal chassepots, fighting the battle of their ancient 
 church. The Garibaldians were terribly defeated. 
 Victor Emmanuel grieved bitterly, like a true, warm- 
 hearted father for the fate of his misguided but gener- 
 ous-hearted sons. *'Ah, those chassepots!" he would 
 exclaim sometimes; **they have mortally wounded my 
 heart as father and as king; I feel as if the balls had 
 torn my flesh here. It is one of the greatest griefs 
 I have ever known." Torn by anguish, he still main- 
 tained an attitude of unshaken dignity alike toward 
 the French and toward his own rebellious sons. To 
 the emperor of the French he wrote an ardent appeal 
 
304 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 begging him to break with the Clericals and put him- 
 self at the head of the Liberal party in Europe, at the 
 same time warning him that the old feeling of grati- 
 tude toward the French in Italy had quite disappeared. 
 "The late events have suffocated every remembrance 
 of gratitude in the heart of Italy. It is no longer in 
 the power of the government to maintain the alliance 
 with France. The chassepot gun at Mentana has 
 given it a mortal blow." At the same time the rebels 
 were visited with condign punishment. Garibaldi him- 
 self was arrested, but after a brief imprisonment at 
 Varignano was permitted to retire once more to 
 Caprera. A prisoner so big as Garibaldi is always an 
 embarrassment to jailers. 
 
 But the last act in the great drama, the slow devel- 
 opment of which you have with so much patience 
 watched, was near at hand. In 1870 the Franco- 
 German War broke out. The contest, involving as it 
 did the most momentous consequences, was as brief 
 as it was decisive. The French, of course," could no 
 longer maintain their position as champions of the 
 temporal power. Once more, therefore, the king of 
 Italy attempted, with all the earnestness and with all 
 tenderness at his command, to induce the pope to 
 come to terms and accept the position, at once digni- 
 fied and independent, which the Italian government 
 was anxious to secure to him. 
 
 "Most Blessed Father — With the affection of a son, 
 with the faith of a Catholic, with the soul of an Italian, 
 I address myself now, as on former occasions, to the 
 heart of your Holiness. 
 
 "A flood of dangers threatens Europe. Profiting 
 
Garibaldi 305 
 
 by the war which desolates the center of the Conti- 
 nent, the cosmopolitan revolutionary party increases in 
 boldness and audacity, and is planning, especially in 
 that part of Italy ruled by your Holiness, the direst 
 offenses against the monarchy and the papacy. I 
 know that the greatness of your soul will not be less 
 than the greatness of events; but I, being a Catholic 
 king and Italian, and as such guardian, by the dispo- 
 sition of Providence and the national will, of the des- 
 tinies of all the Italians, I feel it my duty to take, in 
 the face of Europe and Catholicity, the responsibility 
 of maintaining order in the peninsula and the safety 
 of the Holy See. . . . Permit me, your Holiness, 
 again to say that the present moment is a solemn one 
 for Italy and the Church. Let the popehood add effi- 
 cacy to the spirit of inextinguishable benevolence in 
 your soul toward this land, which is slIso your country, 
 and the sentiments of conciliation which I have always 
 studied to translate into acts, that satisfying the 
 national aspirations, the head of Catholicity, sur- 
 rounded by the devotion of the Italian people, should 
 preserve on the banks of the Tiber a glorious seat, 
 independent of every human sovereignty. Your Holi- 
 ness, by liberating Rome from foreign troops, will take 
 from her the constant danger of being the battle- 
 ground of subversive parties. You will accomplish a 
 marvelous work, restore peace to the church, and 
 show Europe, aghast at the horrors of war, how one 
 can win great battles and obtain immortal victories by 
 an act of justice, by one sole word of affection." 
 
 But the pope still unflinchingly adhered to the posi- 
 tion he had taken up. "I cannot," he wrote (11 
 
3o6 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 September, 1870,) admit the demands of your letter 
 nor accept the principles contained therein. I address 
 myself to God and place my cause in His hands, for it 
 is entirely His. I pray Him to concede abundant grace 
 to your Majesty, deliver you from every peril, and 
 render you a participator in all the mercies of which 
 you may have need." However one may sympathize 
 with the natural ambition of the new-born Italian 
 nation to have its capital in Rome; however clearly 
 we may realize, and it were the supremest folly to 
 ignore, the insuperable difficulties which the papal 
 claims involved; however much we may concur in the 
 justice of the national demand — it is at the same time 
 impossible, and I hope not wholly inconsistent, not to 
 feel a real admiration for the inflexible determination, 
 for the unbroken consistency which maintained in all 
 their integrity the claims of that sovereignty compared 
 with which, as Macaulay says, the "proudest royal 
 houses are but of yesterday" — that sovereignty which 
 "was great and respected before the Saxon had set 
 foot in Britain, before the Frank had passed the Rhine, 
 when Grecian eloquence still flourished at Antioch, 
 when idols were still worshipped in the temple of 
 Mecca." 
 
 But, however much of sympathy we may feel for 
 the fallen pontiff, our reason compels us to approve 
 the king. A feint of resistance was made, but on the 
 20th of September the royal troops entered Rome, and 
 the tricolor was mounted on the palace of the capitol. 
 So soon as might be a plebiscite was taken. The num- 
 bers are significant — for the king, 40,788; for the pope, 
 46. But though the work was thus accomplished in 
 
Garibaldi 307 
 
 the autumn of 1870, it was not until 2d of June, 187 1, 
 that the king made his triumphal entry into the capital 
 of Italy/ "The work," said the king in the first 
 speech he addressed to the parliament in Rome, "the 
 work to which we consecrated our lives is accom- 
 plished. After long trials Italy is restored to herself 
 and to Rome. Here where our people, scattered for 
 so many centuries, find themselves for the first time 
 reassembled in the majesty of their representatives, 
 here where we recognize the home of our thoughts, 
 everything speaks to us of grandeur, but at the same 
 time everything reminds us of our duties. . . . We 
 have arisen in the name of liberty, and in liberty and 
 order we ought to seek the secret of strength and 
 conciliation. . . . The future opens before us rich in 
 happy promise; it is for us to respond to the favors of 
 Providence by showing ourselves worthy to represent 
 amongst the great nations of the earth the glorious 
 part of Italy and of Rome." 
 
 My purpose is fulfilled. The work of Italian unifi- 
 cation is now complete. Look back for one instant 
 on the road that we have come, on the steps by which 
 the goal has been attained. See the Italy of the ante- 
 Neapoleonic days, hopeless, inert, benumbed; without 
 one generous impulse, without one hope, without one 
 thought of the possibility of better things to come. 
 See the Italy of 1815, molded by the whims of the 
 Viennese diplomatists; molded on the effete and worn- 
 
 * The king had already paid a private visit to Rome at the end of the 
 previous year (1870). A terrible inundation of the Tiber had taken place, 
 and the king at once set off for Rome to demonstrate his sympathy with the 
 distress of his new subjects. His conduct at this time won him the respect 
 and affection of many of those who had been the staunchest adherents of 
 the Temporal Power. 
 
3o8 The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 out principles of the hardened, faithless eighteenth 
 century; divided, dismembered, distraught; its peoples 
 bandied to and fro; its provinces distributed; here an 
 Austrian, there a Bourbon, but all equally degraded 
 beneath the ignoble yoke of alien tyranny. Then 
 look on Italy in the thirty years' agony before the 
 year of revolution; her noblest sons in exile; her 
 bravest patriots fretting out their souls in Austrian 
 dungeons; her poets silenced and her art in chains. 
 See the brief but splendid awakening of 1848; Italy 
 free; Italy at one when "the war-cry rang from Alp 
 to Etna"; when "her sons knew they were happy to 
 have looked on her, and felt it beautiful to die for 
 her." And then follow the era of diplomacy and 
 statesmanship. Shall I essay the graceless task of 
 appraising the comparative value of the work which, 
 under the calm and even inspiration, under the tem- 
 perate guiding of the king, the statesman, prophet, 
 and crusader, achieved for her who had the happiness 
 to call them sons? The task has been once for all 
 accomplished by a great writer.^ "Cavour had th^ 
 genius of statesmanship — a practical sense of what 
 could be done, combined with rare dexterity in doing 
 it, fine diplomatic and parliamentary tact, and noble 
 courage in the hour of need. Without the enthusiasm 
 amounting to the passion of a new religion which Maz- 
 zini inspired, without Garibaldi's brilliant achieve- 
 ments and the idolatry excited by this pure-hearted 
 hero in the breasts of all who fought with him and felt 
 his sacred fire, there is little doubt that Cavour would 
 not have found the creation of united Italy possible. 
 
 * Mr. John Addington Symonds. 
 
Garibaldi 309 
 
 But if Cavour had not been there to win the confi- 
 dence, support, and sympathy of Europe, if he had 
 not been recognized as a man whose work was solid 
 and whose sense was just in all emergencies, Mazzini's 
 efforts would have run to waste in questionable insur- 
 rections, and Garibaldi's feats of arms must have 
 added but one chapter more to the history of unpro- 
 ductive patriotism. While, therefore, we recognize 
 the part played by each of these great men in the 
 liberation of their country, and while we willingly 
 ignore their differences and disputes, it is Cavour 
 whom we must honor with the title of the maker of 
 Italian unity." 
 
 Italy is free; Italy is one. We have followed in 
 these last days her progress toward unity and freedom; 
 we have been watchers, as Mazzini finely says, "over 
 a mystery of dawning life, over the cradle of a people. " 
 In the presence of that mystery skepticism and unfaith 
 as to the future are impossible ; we have looked back 
 honestly, we may look forward calmly — calm in the 
 assurance that theie is in store for Italy a future, not, 
 be sure, without its trials, but at least not unworthy of 
 the traditions of her far-distant past; not unworthy 
 of the splendid achievements in times more recent of 
 her several but divided states; not unworthy of the 
 sons whose widely differing but convergent efforts 
 have combined to make her one. 
 
 QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 
 
 I. What actions of the Italian states made the terms of the 
 Peace of Villafranca impossible? 2. How did the different 
 powers of Europe act under the circumstances? 3. Give the 
 
3IO The Makers of Modern Italy 
 
 substance of Victor Emmanuel's message to the pope. 4. Con- 
 trast the opening of parliament in i860 with that of the previous 
 year. 5. Why did the cession of Savoy and Nice to France 
 seem inevitable? 6. How differently was it regarded by par- 
 liament, people, and Garibaldi? 7. Give an account of Gari- 
 baldi's life up to 1848. 8. Describe his army. 9. What did 
 Garibaldi accomplish by his guerilla warfare? 10. Describe 
 his defeat before Rome and the immediate events which fol- 
 lowed. II. What was the condition of things in the Two Sicilies 
 at this lime? 12. How did Cavour behave toward Garibaldi's 
 expedition to Sicily? 13. How did Garibaldi's success become 
 dangerous to the union of Italy? 14. How did Cavour act in 
 this crisis? 15. Describe the events which followed at Naples? 
 16. What was the condition of Italy when parliament met in 
 1861? 17. Describe the scene between Cavour and Garibaldi 
 in the first Italian parliament. 18. Why was Cavour compelled 
 to overthrow Garibaldi? 19. What change was made in the 
 Italian capital in "1865? 20. What was the result of the Italian 
 alliance with Prussia? 21. When did the French troops with- 
 draw from Rome, and why? 22. Why was Garibaldi arrested 
 in 1867? 23. Describe the contest over Rome and the defeat 
 of the volunteers. 24. How did the Franco-Prussian War 
 favor Victor Emmanuel's plans? 25. What appeal did he make 
 to the pope, and with what result? 26. Describe the occupation 
 of Rome by the king, 27. Compare the work of the four great 
 makers of Modern Italy. 
 
APPENDIX I 
 
 AUTHORITIES 
 
 I. — General Works. 
 
 Mr. Probyn's History of Italy (Cassells) contains a concise 
 but readable account of the history of the Italian move- 
 ment from 1815 to 1870. A still shorter sketch may be 
 found in Mackenzie's Ninetee7ith Century, or in A Cen- 
 tury of Continental History, by Mr. Rose. 
 
 Mr. Fyffe's History of Modern Europe, vol. ii, gives a good 
 account of the movement down to 1848. 
 
 Gallenga's two works, History of Piedniont, 3 vols., and 
 Italy Present and Future, 2 vols., may also be consulted, 
 together with the same author's {sub 710711 Mariotti) Italy 
 Past and Present, 2 vols., and Italy i7i 1848, i vol. 
 
 The articles in the new edition of the Encyclopcedia Brit- 
 an7iica on " Italy" (by J. A. Symonds) and on " Mazzini " 
 and "Cavour" are admirably done, and may with great 
 advantage be consulted. 
 
 Those who desire fuller and further information will find it 
 in the following works : 
 
 Cesare Balbo: So77i77iario . 
 
 Quinet : Revolutio7is dPtalie. 
 
 Reuchlin : Geschichte Italiens. 
 
 CoUetta : History of Naples. 
 
 Romanin : History of Ve7iice. 
 
 Horner : A Ce7itu7'y of Despotis77i i7i Naples and Sicily. 
 
 Nolan : The War i7i Italy (1859). 
 
 Rimini : The Truth Respecting Italy and Piedmont (1862). 
 
 S. W. Fullom : Rome U7ider Pius IX. Victor E77i77ta7iuel, 
 Ki7ig of Sardi7iia: results of his rule, by a7i Eye'wit7iess. 
 
 Bersezio : / Co7itempor^a7iei Italia7ii. 
 
 D'Azeglio : / Miei Ricordi. 
 
 Orsini : Austria7i Priso7is. 
 
 Silvio Pellico : Le Mie Prigio7ii. 
 
 Corresponde7ice relati7ig to the affairs of Italy. Presented 
 to Parliament, 1849. 
 
 Corresponde7ice, etc. 1860. 
 Mr. Swinburne's poems, "The Song of Italy" and "Super 
 
 311 
 
312 Appendix 
 
 Flumina Babylonis," and Mrs. Hamilton King's poem, " The 
 Disciples," w-ritten at the request of Mazzini, should be read by 
 all those who seek to realize the enthusiasm excited for the 
 cause of Italian independence in England. 
 
 2. — Special Works. 
 (a) Victor Emmanuel :— 
 
 Massari : La Vita ed il Regno di Vittorio Emanuele. 
 Godkin: Life of Victor Emmanuei. 2 vols. (Macmillan. 
 Dicey : Essay on Victor Emmanuel, i vol. 
 
 ifi) Mazzini :— 
 
 Life and Writings of foseph Mazzini. 6 vols. Smith, 
 Elder and Co., 1864-70. 
 
 This work, which is in part autobiographical, is essential to a 
 thorough understanding of Mazzini's career. 
 
 There is a good selection from his Essays published in the 
 Camelot Classics Series (W. Scott), edited by W. Clarke; but 
 two of the most important Essays, viz., Thouohts on Democracy 
 and the Duties of Man, are not included in this edition. They 
 are appended, however, to Madame E. A. Venturi's foseph 
 Mazzini, a Sleynoir (H. S. King.) References may also be 
 made to Mr. Mver's Modern Essays : to Mazzini, by Jules de 
 Breval (Vizetelly, 1853) ; and to Un Roi et un Conspirateur, by 
 Auguste Boullier (Libraire Plon, 1885.) 
 
 {c) Cavour : — 
 
 ?*Iassari's Life of Cavoier is the most elaborate bio- 
 graphy, but in default students may consult Mazade's 
 Life of Count Cavour (Chapman and Hall, 1877); or 
 Reminiscences of the Life and Character of Count 
 Cavour, by William de la Rive, translated by 
 Edward Romilly (Longmans, 1862); or Mr. Edward 
 Dicey's Memoir of Cavour (Macmillan, 1S61); or 
 Hay-ward's Essay on Cavour in his European States- 
 men. 
 
 {d) Garibaldi : — 
 
 Autobiography of Garibaldi, edited by Werner, 3 vols., 
 recently published, is by far the best account of Gari- 
 baldi's career ; but reference may also be made to 
 Mr. Theodore Bent's Garibaldi ; to Col. Chambers' 
 Garibaldi and Italian Unity; or to Recollections of 
 Garibaldi, by Elpis Melena (translated). 
 
INDEX 
 
 Actium, battle of, 48. 
 
 Adrian, 55. 
 
 Adrian IV.(NiciioIasBreakspear),96. 
 
 Agrippa, 51. 
 
 Alexander the Great, 32. 
 
 Alexander III., 98, 162. 
 
 Alexander V., 186. 
 
 Alexander VI., 199. 
 
 Alexandria, 98, 100. 
 
 Alfonso the Magnanimous, 188. 
 
 Andrea, Doria, 205. 
 
 Anzani, 284. 
 
 Archbishop Christian, 99. 
 
 Ariosto, 184. 
 
 Arnold of Brescia, 96. 
 
 Aurelius, Marcus, 56. 
 
 Bassi, Ugo, 288. 
 
 Belisarius, 65. 
 
 Benedict IX., 141. 
 
 Benevento, battle of, 132. 
 
 Benvenuto, Cellini, 203. 
 
 Beneventum, 26. 
 
 Berenger, 78. 
 
 Bernadone, Pietro, 106. 
 
 Boccaccio, 184. 
 
 Bocca degli Abbati, 129. 
 
 Boiardo, 184. 
 
 Boniface VIII., J40, seq. 
 
 Borgia, Caesar, 199. 
 
 Borgia, Rodrigo, Pope Alexander 
 
 VI., 199. 
 Boucicault, 185. 
 Braccio, 187, 188. 
 Brancaleone, d'Andolo, 126, seq. 
 Bretigny, peace of, 176, 
 Brunetto, Latini, 148. 
 Brutus, Junius, 47. 
 
 Caesar, Julius, 43, seq, 
 Caesar, Octavianus, 47. 
 
 Caligula, 54. 
 
 Camillus, 23. 
 
 Cannae, battle of, 31. 
 
 Carbonari, 223, 225, 226, 227, 229. 
 
 Carroccio, 91, 100, 129. 
 
 Carthage, 27, 32, 
 
 Catilina (see Sergius). 
 
 Cato (see Porcius). 
 
 Caudine Forks, 24. 
 
 Cavpur, 214, Part II., Chap. II., 243, 
 
 seq.; 283, 288, 292 seq.; 297, 308. 
 Celestine V., 140. 
 Cesara, massacre of, 177. 
 Chalons, battle of, 64. 
 Charlemagne, 66, 'j'j^ 78. 
 Charles II., 139. 
 Charles V., 203, 204, 205. 
 Charles VIII., 200. 
 Charles Albert of Piedmont, 227. 
 
 234, 235, 236, 248, 285. 
 Charles of Anjou, 131, seq.; 134, 135, 
 
 136, 137, 139. 
 Charles of Naples, 140, seq. 
 Chioggia, battle of, 167, 180. 
 Cinna, 42. 
 
 Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 43. 
 Clarendon, Lord, 264, 265. 
 Claudius, 54. 
 Clement III., 86. 
 Clement IV., 134. 
 Clement V., 142. 
 Clement VII., 178, 203, 204. 
 Columbus, Christopher, 166, 170. 
 Comitia Centuriata, 13. 
 Condottieri, 173, 176, 185, 193. 
 Congress of Paris, 264. 
 Congress of Vienna, 221, 
 Conrad, 87, 
 Conrad IV., 124, seq. 
 Conradin, 125, 133, seq. 
 
 313 
 
3H 
 
 Index 
 
 Constable de Bourbon. 203. 
 Constance, peace of. 101, 103. 115, 
 124. 
 
 Constantine the Great, 59. 
 Constantinople, 61. 
 Coriolanus. 23. 
 Cortenuova, battle of, 120. 
 Crassus, 43, 44. 
 Cremona, 29. 
 Cresentius, 79, 80. 
 Crete 165. 
 Cyprus, 165. 
 
 Daniel Manin. 235, 238. 
 
 Dante, 147, seq.; 167, 168, 184. 
 
 D'Azeglio, 247, 250, 253. 
 
 Delia Scala, The, 173, 
 
 Diocletian, 57. 
 
 Doge Orseolo, 156. 
 
 Dominicans or Black Friars, 117, 
 
 119. 
 Domitian, 55. 
 
 Eccelino, 120, seq.; 129. 
 Emmanuel Philibert, 205. 
 Emperor Baldwin, 163. 
 Emperor Rudolph, 135. 
 Enrico Dandolo, 161, 163, 170. 
 Estes, The, 173. 
 
 Fabius Maximus Quintus, 30. 
 Facino, Carre, 187. 
 Farinata degli Uberti, 128, seq. 
 Ferdinand I., 217. 221, seq. 
 Ferdinand II. (King Bomba). 233, 
 
 236, 245. 264, 293. 
 Ferdinand III., 217. 
 Ferdinand and Isabella, 200, 201. 
 Florence, 118, 127, 128, 147, 174. 177, 
 
 179, 1S2, 185, 188, 190. 194. 196 seq. 
 Francesco Carmagnola, 188, seq. 
 Francesco Foscari, 189. 
 Francesco Sforza, 192, seq., 194. 
 Francis I., 203, 204. 
 Francis II. of Austria, 217. 
 Frederick II., 105, 119, seq.; 121, 200. 
 Frederick Barbarossa, 95, seq.; 100, 
 
 joi, 103, seq.; 160, 162. 
 
 Garibaldi, 214, 271, Part III., Chap. 
 
 III., 278, seq. 
 Garibaldi, Menotti 302. 
 Gaultier de Brienne, 174. 
 Genoa. 90, 94, 99, 121, 165, 166, seq.; 
 
 170, 20S. 
 Ghibellines. 76, 92, 95, 98, 99. 116. 117, 
 
 118, 121, 124, 125, 127, 128, 129, 130, 
 
 133. 134. 135. 139- 142, 147, 150, 151, 
 
 167. 177, 179. 
 Ghirlandajo. 202. 
 Giacomo del Verme, 182. 
 Gioberti, 247. 
 Giotto, 184. 
 
 Godfrey de Bouillon, 83. 
 Gonzaga, 173. 
 Gonzaga of Mantua. 105. 
 Gonzalvo de Cordova, 201. 
 Gracchus, Caius. 38 
 Gracchus, Tiberius. 38. 
 Gregory IX., 113, 119, seq. 
 Gregory X., 134, 135. 
 Gregory XL, 178. 
 Gregory XII., 186. 
 Gregory XVI., 227, 233. 
 Guelphs, 76, 92, 95, 98, 100, 116. 117, 
 
 118, 120, 121, 124, 126, 127, 128, 129, 
 
 130, 133, 134, 135, 137, 139, 141, 142, 
 
 147, 150, 151, 167, 179. 
 Guido Malaspina, 152. 
 
 Hannibal, 29. 
 
 Haribert, Archbishop of Milan, 91. 
 
 Hawkwood, Sir John, 176. 
 
 Henry II., 205. 
 
 Henry III., 79. 
 
 Henry IV., 80, 81, 82, 83, 86, 87, 92. 
 
 Henry V., 93, 94. 
 
 Henry VI., 105. 
 
 Henry VII. of Germany, 125, 142. 
 
 Herculaneum, 5S. 
 
 Hildebrand (Pope Gregory \'lI.),8o, 
 
 81, 82, 83. 84, 86. 
 Holy League, 201. 
 Horace, 53. 
 
 Innocent III., 117, seq.; 162. 
 Innocent IV., 125. 
 
Index 
 
 315 
 
 Innocent VIII., 199. 
 Inquisition, The, 115, 119, 166. 
 Investitures, War of the, 81, 93. 
 Isaac Comnenus, 163. 
 
 Joanna II., 187, 188. 
 John of Procida, 136, 
 Josefa Barbaro, 170. 
 Jugurtha, 40. 
 Julius II., 199, 201, 202, 203. 
 
 Kablai Khan, 169. 
 
 King Bomba (see Ferdinand II.). 
 
 Ladislaus, 186, 187. 
 
 Lando, Michael, 179. 
 
 League of Cambray, 201. 
 
 League of Lombardy, 99, loi, 125, 
 
 161, 173, 174- 
 Leo III., ^']. 
 Leo IX., 85. 
 Leo X., 200. 
 
 Leonardo da Vinci, 202. 
 Lepidus, 47. 
 Lepi, 53. 
 
 Louis XII., 200, 201. 
 Luca Pitti, 194, 195. 
 
 Msecenas, 51. 
 
 Magenta, battle of, 268. 
 
 Manfred, 125, 128, 131, 132. 
 
 Manuel I., 160 seq. 
 
 Marco Polo, 168. 
 
 Marie Louise, 217. 
 
 Marino Faliero, 164, seq. 
 
 Marius, Caius, 40, seq. 
 
 Martel, Charles, 66. 
 
 Martin IV., 135, 140. 
 
 Matilda of Tuscany, 82, 84. 
 
 Maximilian of Germany, 200. 
 
 Mazzini, Giuseppe, Part III., Chap. 
 
 I., 211, seq.; 244, seq.; 250, 287. 
 Medici, The, 179, 196, 200, 204; de' 
 
 Medici, Cosimo, 190, seq.; 194; 
 
 Giovanni, 190; Guiliano, 195, 196: 
 
 Lorenzo, 190, 191, 195, seq.; 199; 
 
 Piero, 194, 200; Silvestro, 179, 190. 
 Meloria, battle of, 167. 
 Mentana, battle of, 303. 
 
 Metternich, 217, 220, seq.; 227, 233, 335. 
 Michael Angelo Buonarotti, 202, seq, 
 Milan, 91, 92, 95, 97, 100, 126, J30, 182, 
 
 Mithridates, 42, 43. 
 Monte Aperto, battle of. 128, 129. 
 Monte Rotundo, battle of, 302. 
 Montferrat, 205; Marquis of, 173. 
 Mylae, battle of, 28. 
 
 Napoleon, 215; seq. 
 
 Napoleon III., 238, 26=;, 266, 267, 268, 
 
 271, 279. 
 Neo-Guelphs, 233, 247, 284. 
 Neri Capponi, 194. 
 Nero, 54. 
 Nerva, 55. 
 
 Nicaea, council at, 61. 
 Nicholas III., 135. 
 Nicholas IV., 139. 
 Nicholas V., 193. 
 Nicolo Piccinino, 192. 
 Normans, 76, 85, 86, 160. 
 Novara, battle of, 236, 243, 270. 
 
 Otho the Great, 78, 79. 
 Oudinot, 238. 
 Ovid, 53. 
 
 Pascal I., 87. 
 
 Pascal II., 94. 
 
 Pavia.92. 
 
 Persano, Admiral, 292. 
 
 Perugia, 185, 186. 
 
 Petrarch, 168, 184. 
 
 Pharsalus, battle of, 4S. 
 
 Philip II., 205. 
 
 Philip le Bel, 141. 
 
 Philippi, battle of, 48. 
 
 Piedmont, 205, 222, 243, 248. 
 
 Pio Nono, 233, 247. 
 
 Pisa, 90, 92, 94, 99, 118, 159,167, 185, 
 
 186. 
 Pius VII. ,217. 
 Placentia, 29. 
 Plebeians, 15, 19, 20. 
 Porcius, Cato, Marcus, 32. 
 Pompeii, 55. 
 Pompey, 42, seq. 
 
3i6 
 
 Index 
 
 Praetorian Guard, 60. 
 Propertius, 53. 
 Pulci, 184. 
 
 Punic Wars, 27, seq. 
 Phyrrhus, 26. 
 
 Radetzky, 236, 249. 
 
 Regulus, 28. 
 
 Richard Coeur de Lion, 166. 
 
 Rienzi, 143, seq. 
 
 Rinaldo degli Albizzi, 191. 
 
 Robert Guiscard, 84, 86, 92, 157. 
 
 Rodolph, Duke of Swabia, 83. 
 
 Rome, II, 12, seq.; 13, seq.; 15, 18, 
 
 25, 96, 9^. 99. no, 118, 126, 193, 199, 
 
 203, 237, 238, 306. 
 Rossi, Count, 237. 
 
 St. Francis of Assisi, 106, seq. 
 
 St. George, 166. 
 
 St. Mark, 158; Church of, 157. 
 
 Saladin, 103. 
 
 Sallust, 52. 
 
 San Martino, battle of, 268. 
 
 Saracens, 76, 120, 125, 159, 160, 
 
 Savonarola, 197, seq.; 200. 
 
 Scipio, 31. 
 
 Scipio iEmilianus, 32. 
 
 Sergius, Lucius, Catilina, 43. 
 
 Sertorius, 43. 
 
 Severus, Septimus, 57. 
 
 Sforza, Attendole, 187,188, 
 
 Sforza, Ludovico, 201. 
 
 Siccardi, Count, 251. 
 
 Sicilian Vespers, 137. 
 
 Siena, 128, 185, 186. 
 
 Sixtus IV., 196. 
 
 Solferino, battle of, 268. 
 
 Stefano Colonna, 143, 144, 145. 
 
 Sulla, Lucius Cornelius, 40. 
 
 Tancred de Hauteville, 85. 
 Tancred the Crusader, 93. 
 Tarentum, 26. 
 Tasso, 184. 
 Theodoric, 65. 
 Theodosius, 61. 
 Tiberius Caesar, 53. 
 Tibullus, 53. 
 Titus, 54. 
 
 Tours, battle of, 66. 
 Trajan, 55. 
 
 Trasimenus, lake, battle of, 30. 
 Two Sicilies, 75, 93, 103, 105, 122, 128, 
 134, 135. 
 
 Ugolino della Gheradesca, 167, 
 Urban IL, 87. 
 Urban IV., 131. 
 Urban VI., 178. 
 
 Veil, 23. 
 
 Venice, 65, 85, 90, 94, 121, 155, seq.; 
 180, 188,201. 
 
 Vercellae, battle of, 41. 
 
 Vergil, 52. 
 
 Vespasianus, Flavius, 54. 
 
 Victor III., 98. 
 
 Victor Emmanuel, 84, 214, 223, 236, 
 243, 248, seq.; 269, seq.; 273, 279, 
 seq.; 295,297,300, seq.; 303, seq. 
 
 Villafranca, peace of, 278. 
 
 Visconti, The, 173, 177, 178, 181; Bar- 
 nabo, 177, 181; Filippo Maria, 187, 
 188, 192; Galeazzo, 178, 184; Gian 
 Galeazzo, 181, 182, 185; Otho, 135. 
 
 Volturno, battle of the, 295. 
 
 Zama, battle of, 31. 
 Zara, siege of, 164. 
 Zeno, 180. 
 
 H 81-^79 m 
 
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