Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) by John Addington Symonds

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RENAISSANCE IN ITALY

The Age of the Despots

by

JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS

Author of _Studies of the Greek Poets_, _Sketches in Italy and Greece_,
etc.

'Di questi adunque oziosi principi, e di queste vilissime armi, sara
piena la mia Istoria'

Mach. 1_st_. _Fior_. lib. i.

New York
Henry Holt and Company

1888

TO

MY FRIEND

JOHN BEDDOE, M.D., F.R.S.,

I DEDICATE MY WORK

ON

THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE.

AUTHOR'S EDITION

AUTHOR'S NOTE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.

Though these books taken together and in the order planned by the author
form one connected study of Italian culture at a certain period of
history, still each aims at a completeness of its own, and each can be
read independently of its companions. That the author does not regard
acquaintance with any one of them as essential to a profitable reading
of any other has been shown by the publication of each with a separate
title-page and without numeration of the volumes, while all three bear
the same general heading of "Renaissance in Italy."

PREFACE.

This volume is the First Part of a work upon the 'Renaissance in Italy.'
The Second Part treats of the Revival of Learning. The Third, of the
Fine Arts. The Fourth Part, in two volumes, is devoted to Italian
Literature.

Owing to the extent of the ground I have attempted to traverse, I feel
conscious that the students of special departments will find much to be
desired in my handling of each part. In some respects I hope that the
several portions of the work may complete and illustrate each other.
Many topics, for example, have been omitted from Chapter VIII. in this
volume because they seemed better adapted to treatment in the future.

One of the chief difficulties which the critic has to meet in dealing
with the Italian Renaissance is the determination of the limits of the
epoch. Two dates, 1453 and 1527, marking respectively the fall of
Constantinople and the sack of Rome, are convenient for fixing in the
mind that narrow space of time during which the Renaissance culminated.
But in order to trace its progress up to this point, it is necessary to
go back to a far more remote period; nor, again, is it possible to
maintain strict chronological consistency in treating of the several
branches of the whole theme.

The books of which the most frequent use has been made in this first
portion of the work are Sismondi's 'Republiques Italiennes'; Muratori's
'Rerum Italicarum Scriptores'; the 'Archivio Storico Italiano'; the
seventh volume of Michelet's 'Histoire de France'; the seventh and
eighth volumes of Gregorovius' 'Geschichte der Stadt Rom'; Ferrari's
'Rivoluzioni d' Italia'; Alberi's series of Despatches; Gino Capponi's
'Storia della Repubblica di Firenze'; and Burckhardt's 'Cultur der
Renaissance in Italien.' To the last-named essay I must acknowledge
especial obligations. It fell under my notice when I had planned, and in
a great measure finished, my own work. But it would be difficult for me
to exaggerate the profit I have derived from the comparison of my
opinions with those of a writer so thorough in his learning and so
delicate in his perceptions as Jacob Burckhardt, or the amount I owe to
his acute and philosophical handling of the whole subject. I must also
express a special debt to Ferrari, many of whose views I have adopted in
the Chapter on 'Italian History.' With regard to the alterations
introduced into the substance of the book in this edition, it will be
enough to say that I have endeavored to bring each chapter up to the
level of present knowledge.

In conclusion, I once more ask indulgence for a volume which, though it
aims at a completeness of its own, is professedly but one part of a long
inquiry.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

THE SPIRIT OF THE RENAISSANCE.

Difficulty of fixing Date--Meaning of Word Renaissance--The Emancipation
of the Reason--Relation of Feudalism to the Renaissance--Mediaeval
Warnings of the Renaissance--Abelard, Bacon, Joachim of Flora, the
Provencals, the Heretics, Frederick II.--Dante, Petrarch,
Boccaccio--Physical Energy of the Italians--The Revival of Learning--The
Double Discovery of the World and of Man--Exploration of the Universe
and of the Globe--Science--The Fine Arts and Scholarship--Art Humanizes
the Conceptions of the Church--Three Stages in the History of
Scholarship--The Age of Desire--The Age of Acquisition--The Legend of
Julia's Corpse--The Age of the Printers and Critics--The Emancipation of
the Conscience--The Reformation and the Modern Critical
Spirit--Mechanical Inventions--The Place of Italy in the Renaissance P. 1.

CHAPTER II.

ITALIAN HISTORY.

The special Difficulties of this Subject--Apparent Confusion--Want of
leading Motive--The Papacy--The Empire--The Republics--The Despots--The
People--The Dismemberment of Italy--Two main Topics--The Rise of the
Communes--Gothic Kingdom--Lombards--Franks--Germans--The Bishops--The
Consuls--The Podestas--Civil Wars--Despots--The Balance of Power--The
Five Italian States--The Italians fail to achieve National Unity--The
Causes of this Failure--Conditions under which it might have been
achieved--A Republic--A Kingdom--A Confederation--A Tyranny--The Part
played by the Papacy P. 32.

CHAPTER III.

THE AGE OF THE DESPOTS.

Salient Qualities of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries in
Italy--Relation of Italy to the Empire and to the Church--The
Illegitimate Title of Italian Potentates--The Free Emergence of
Personality--Frederick II. and the Influence of his Example--Ezzelino da
Romano--Six Sorts of Italian Despots--Feudal Seigneurs--Vicars of the
Empire--Captains of the People--Condottieri--Nephews and Sons of
Popes--Eminent Burghers--Italian Incapacity for Self-government in
Commonwealths--Forcible Tenure of Power encouraged Personal Ability--The
Condition of the Despot's Life--Instances of Domestic Crime in the
Ruling Houses--Macaulay's Description of the Italian
Tyrant--Savonarola's and Matteo Villani's Descriptions of a Tyrant--The
Absorption of Smaller by Greater Tyrannies in the Fourteenth
Century--History of the Visconti--Francesco Sforza--The Part played in
Italian Politics by Military Leaders--Mercenary Warfare--Alberico da
Barbiano, Braccio da Montone, Sforza Attendolo--History of the Sforza
Dynasty--The Murder of Galeazzo Maria Sforza--The Ethics of Tyrannicide
in Italy--Relation of the Despots to Arts and Letters--Sigismondo
Pandolfo Malatesta--Duke Federigo of Urbino--The School of Vittorino and
the Court of Urbino--The Cortegiano of Castiglione--The Ideals of the
Italian Courtier and the Modern Gentleman--General Retrospect P. 99.

CHAPTER IV.

THE REPUBLICS.

The different Physiognomies of the Italian Republics--The Similarity of
their Character as Municipalities--The Rights of Citizenship--Causes of
Disturbance in the Commonwealths--Belief in the Plasticity of
Constitutions--Example of Genoa--Savonarola's
Constitution--Machiavelli's Discourse to Leo X.--Complexity of Interests
and Factions--Example of Siena--Small Size of Italian Cities--Mutual
Mistrust and Jealousy of the Commonwealths--The notable Exception of
Venice--Constitution of Venice--Her wise System of Government--Contrast
of Florentine Vicissitudes--The Magistracies of Florence--Balia and
Parlamento--The Arts of the Medici--Comparison of Venice and Florence in
respect to Intellectual Activity and Mobility--Parallels between Greece
and Italy--Essential Differences--The Mercantile Character of Italian
Burghs--The 'Trattato del Governo della Famiglia'--The Bourgeois Tone of
Florence, and the Ideal of a Burgher--Mercenary Arms P. 193.

CHAPTER V.

THE FLORENTINE HISTORIANS.

Florence, the City of Intelligence--Cupidity, Curiosity, and the Love of
Beauty--Florentine Historical Literature--Philosophical Study of
History--Ricordano Malespini--Florentine History compared with the
Chronicles of other Italian Towns--The Villani--The Date
1300--Statistics--Dante's Political Essays and Pamphlets--Dino
Compagni--Latin Histories of Florence in Fifteenth Century--Lionardo
Bruni and Poggio Bracciolini--The Historians of the First Half of the
Sixteenth Century--Men of Action and Men of Letters; the
Doctrinaires--Florence between 1494 and 1537--Varchi, Segni, Nardi,
Pitti, Nerli, Guicciardini--The Political Importance of these
Writers--The Last Years of Florentine Independence, and the Siege of
1529--State of Parties--Filippo Strozzi--Different Views of Florentine
Weakness taken by the Historians--Their Literary Qualities--Francesco
Guicciardini and Niccolo Machiavelli--Scientific Statists--Discord
between Life and Literature--The Biography of Guicciardini--His 'Istoria
d'Italia,' 'Dialogo del Reggimento di Firenze,' 'Storia Fiorentina,'
'Ricordi'--Biography of Machiavelli--His Scheme of a National
Militia--Dedication of 'The Prince'--Political Ethics of the Italian
Renaissance--The 'Discorsi'--The Seven Books on the Art of War and the
'History of Florence. P. 246.

CHAPTER VI.

'THE PRINCE' OF MACHIAVELLI.

The Sincerity of Machiavelli in this Essay--Machiavellism--His
deliberate Formulation of a cynical political Theory--Analysis of 'The
Prince'--Nine Conditions of Principalities--The Interest of the
Conqueror acknowledged as the sole Motive of his Policy--Critique of
Louis XII.--Feudal Monarchy and Oriental Despotism--Three Ways of
subduing a free City--Example of Pisa--Principalities founded by
Adventurers--Moses, Romulus, Cyrus, Theseus--Savonarola--Francesco
Sforza--Cesare Borgia--Machiavelli's personal Relation to
him--Machiavelli's Admiration of Cesare's Genius--A Sketch of Cesare's
Career--Concerning those who have attained to Sovereignty by
Crimes--Oliverotto da Fermo--The Uses of Cruelty--Messer Ramiro d'
Orco--The pessimistic Morality of Machiavelli--On the Faith of
Princes--Alexander VI.--The Policy of seeming virtuous and
honest--Absence of chivalrous Feeling in Italy--The Military System of a
powerful Prince--Criticism of Mercenaries and Auxiliaries--Necessity of
National Militia--The Art of War--Patriotic Conclusion of the
Treatise--Machiavelli and Savonarola P. 334.

CHAPTER VII.

THE POPES OF THE RENAISSANCE.

The Papacy between 1447 and 1527--The Contradictions of the Renaissance
Period exemplified by the Popes--Relaxation of their hold over the
States of the Church and Rome during the Exile in Avignon--Nicholas
V.--His Conception of a Papal Monarchy--Pius II.--The
Crusade--Renaissance Pontiffs--Paul II.--Persecution of the
Platonists--Sixtus IV.--Nepotism--The Families of Riario and Delia
Rovere--Avarice--Love of Warfare--Pazzi Conspiracy--Inquisition in
Spain--Innocent VIII.--Franceschetto Cibo--The Election of Alexander
VI.--His Consolidation of the Temporal Power--Policy toward Colonna and
Orsini Families--Venality of everything in Rome--Policy toward the
Sultan--The Index--The Borgia Family--Lucrezia--Murder of Duke of
Gandia--Cesare and his Advancement--The Death of Alexander--Julius
II.--His violent Temper--Great Projects and commanding Character--Leo
X.--His Inferiority to Julius--S. Peter's and the Reformation--Adrian
VI.--His Hatred of Pagan Culture--Disgust of the Roman Court at his
Election--Clement VII.--Sack of Rome--Enslavement of Florence P. 371.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE CHURCH AND MORALITY.

Corruption of the Church--Degradation and Division of Italy--Opinions of
Machiavelli, Guicciardini, and King Ferdinand of Naples--Incapacity of
the Italians for thorough Reformation--The Worldliness and Culture of
the Renaissance--Witness of Italian Authors against the Papal Court and
the Convents--Superstitious Respect for Relics--Separation between
Religion and Morality--Mixture of Contempt and Reverence for the
Popes--Gianpaolo Baglioni--Religious Sentiments of the
Tyrannicides--Pietro Paolo Boscoli--Tenacity of Religions--The direct
Interest of the Italians in Rome--Reverence for the Sacraments of the
Church--Opinions pronounced by Englishmen on Italian Immorality--Bad
Faith and Sensuality--The Element of the Fancy in Italian Vice--The
Italians not Cruel, or Brutal, or Intemperate by Nature--Domestic
Murders--Sense of Honor in Italy--Onore and Onesta--General
Refinement--Good Qualities of the People--Religious Revivalism P. 447.

CHAPTER IX.

SAVONAROLA.

The Attitude of Savonarola toward the Renaissance--His Parentage, Birth,
and Childhood at Ferrara--His Poem on the Ruin of the World--Joins the
Dominicans at Bologna--Letter to his Father--Poem on the Ruin of the
Church--Begins to preach in 1482--First Visit to Florence--San
Gemignano--His Prophecy--Brescia in 1486--Personal Appearance and Style
of Oratory--Effect on his audience--The three Conclusions--His
Visions--Savonarola's Shortcomings as a patriotic Statesman--His sincere
Belief in his prophetic Calling--Friendship with Pico della
Mirandola--Settles in Florence, 1490--Convent of San Marco--Savonarola's
Relation to Lorenzo de' Medici--The death of Lorenzo--Sermons of 1493
and 1494--the Constitution of 1495--Theocracy in Florence--Piagnoni,
Bigi, and Arrabbiati--War between Savonarola and Alexander VI.--The
Signory suspends him from preaching in the Duomo in 1498--Attempts to
call a Council--The Ordeal by Fire--San Marco stormed by the Mob--Trial
and Execution of Savonarola P. 497.

CHAPTER X.

CHARLES VIII.

The Italian States confront the Great Nations of Europe--Policy of Louis
XI. of France--Character of Charles VIII.--Preparations for the Invasion
of Italy--Position of Lodovico Sforza--Diplomatic Difficulties in Italy
after the Death of Lorenzo de' Medici--Weakness of the Republics--Il
Moro--The year 1494---Alfonso of Naples--Inefficiency of the Allies to
cope with France--Charles at Lyons is stirred up to the Invasion of
Italy by Giuliano della Rovere--Charles at Asti and Pavia--Murder of
Gian Galeazzo Sforza--Mistrust in the French Army--Rapallo and
Fivizzano--The Entrance into Tuscany--Part played by Piero de'
Medici--Charles at Pisa--His Entrance into Florence--Piero Capponi--The
March on Rome--Entry into Rome--Panic of Alexander VI.--The March on
Naples--The Spanish Dynasty: Alfonso and Ferdinand--Alfonso II. escapes
to Sicily--Ferdinand II. takes Refuge in Ischia--Charles at Naples--The
League against the French--De Comines at Venice--Charles makes his
Retreat by Rome, Siena, Pisa, and Pontremoli--The Battle of
Fornovo--Charles reaches Asti and returns to France--Italy becomes the
Prize to be fought for by France, Spain, and Germany--Importance of the
Expedition of Charles VIII. P. 537.

* * * * *

APPENDICES.

No. I.--The Blood-madness of Tyrants 589

No. II.--Translations of Nardi, 'Istorie di Firenze,' lib. l. cap. 4;
and of Varchi, 'Storia Fiorentina,' lib. iii. caps. 20,
21, 22; lib. ix. caps. 48, 49, 46 592

No. III.--The Character of Alexander VI., from Guicciardini's
'Storia Fiorentina,' cap. 27 603

No. IV.--Religious Revivals in Mediaeval Italy 606

No. V.--The 'Sommario della Storia d' Italia dal 1511 al 1527,
by Francesco Vettori 624

RENAISSANCE IN ITALY.

CHAPTER I.

THE SPIRIT OF THE RENAISSANCE.

Difficulty of fixing Date--Meaning of Word Renaissance--The Emancipation
of the Reason--Relation of Feudalism to the Renaissance--Mediaeval
Warnings of the Renaissance--Abelard, Bacon, Joachim of Flora, the
Provencals, the Heretics, Frederick II.--Dante, Petrarch,
Boccaccio--Physical Energy of the Italians--The Revival of Learning--The
Double Discovery of the World and of Man--Exploration of the Universe
and of the Globe--Science--The Fine Arts and Scholarship--Art Humanizes
the Conceptions of the Church--Three Stages in the History of
Scholarship--The Age of Desire--The Age of Acquisition--The Legend of
Julia's Corpse--The Age of the Printers and Critics--The Emancipation of
the Conscience--The Reformation and the Modern Critical
Spirit--Mechanical Inventions--The Place of Italy in the Renaissance.

The word Renaissance has of late years received a more extended
significance than that which is implied in our English equivalent--the
Revival of Learning. We use it to denote the whole transition from the
Middle Ages to the Modern World; and though it is possible to assign
certain limits to the period during which this transition took place, we
cannot fix on any dates so positively as to say--between this year and
that the movement was accomplished. To do so would be like trying to
name the days on which spring in any particular season began and ended
Yet we speak of spring as different from winter and from summer. The
truth is, that in many senses we are still in mid-Renaissance. The
evolution has not been completed. The new life is our own and is
progressive. As in the transformation scene of some great Masque, so
here the waning and the waxing shapes are mingled; the new forms, at
first shadowy and filmy, gain upon the old; and now both blend; and now
the old scene fades into the background; still, who shall say whether
the new scene be finally set up?

In like manner we cannot refer the whole phenomena of the Renaissance to
any one cause or circumstance, or limit them within the field of any one
department of human knowledge. If we ask the students of art what they
mean by the Renaissance, they will reply that it was the revolution
effected in architecture, painting, and sculpture by the recovery of
antique monuments. Students of literature, philosophy, and theology see
in the Renaissance that discovery of manuscripts, that passion for
antiquity, that progress in philology and criticism, which led to a
correct knowledge of the classics, to a fresh taste in poetry, to new
systems of thought, to more accurate analysis, and finally to the
Lutheran schism and the emancipation of the conscience. Men of science
will discourse about the discovery of the solar system by Copernicus and
Galileo, the anatomy of Vesalius, and Harvey's theory of the circulation
of the blood. The origination of a truly scientific method is the point
which interests them most in the Renaissance. The political historian,
again, has his own answer to the question. The extinction of feudalism,
the development of the great nationalities of Europe, the growth of
monarchy, the limitation of the ecclesiastical authority and the
erection of the Papacy into an Italian kingdom, and in the last place
the gradual emergence of that sense of popular freedom which exploded in
the Revolution; these are the aspects of the movement which engross his
attention. Jurists will describe the dissolution of legal fictions based
upon the false decretals, the acquisition of a true text of the Roman
Code, and the attempt to introduce a rational method into the theory of
modern jurisprudence, as well as to commence the study of international
law. Men whose attention has been turned to the history of discoveries
and inventions will relate the exploration of America and the East, or
will point to the benefits conferred upon the world by the arts of
printing and engraving, by the compass and the telescope, by paper and
by gunpowder; and will insist that at the moment of the Renaissance all
these instruments of mechanical utility started into existence, to aid
the dissolution of what was rotten and must perish, to strengthen and
perpetuate the new and useful and life-giving. Yet neither any one of
these answers taken separately, nor indeed all of them together, will
offer a solution of the problem. By the term Renaissance, or new birth,
is indicated a natural movement, not to be explained by this or that
characteristic, but to be accepted as an effort of humanity for which
at length the time had come, and in the onward progress of which we
still participate. The history of the Renaissance is not the history of
arts, or of sciences, or of literature, or even of nations. It is the
history of the attainment of self-conscious freedom by the human spirit
manifested in the European races. It is no mere political mutation, no
new fashion of art, no restoration of classical standards of taste. The
arts and the inventions, the knowledge and the books, which suddenly
became vital at the time of the Renaissance, had long lain neglected on
the shores of the Dead Sea which we call the Middle Ages. It was not
their discovery which caused the Renaissance. But it was the
intellectual energy, the spontaneous outburst of intelligence, which
enabled mankind at that moment to make use of them. The force then
generated still continues, vital and expansive, in the spirit of the
modern world.

How was it, then, that at a certain period, about fourteen centuries
after Christ, to speak roughly, the intellect of the Western races awoke
as it were from slumber and began once more to be active? That is a
question which we can but imperfectly answer. The mystery of organic
life defeats analysis; whether the subject of our inquiry be a
germ-cell, or a phenomenon so complex as the commencement of a new
religion, or the origination of a new disease, or a new phase in
civilization, it is alike impossible to do more than to state the
conditions under which the fresh growth begins, and to point out what
are its manifestations. In doing so, moreover, we must be careful not
to be carried away by words of our own making. Renaissance, Reformation,
and Revolution are not separate things, capable of being isolated; they
are moments in the history of the human race which we find it convenient
to name; while history itself is one and continuous, so that our utmost
endeavors to regard some portion of it independently of the rest will be
defeated.

A glance at the history of the preceding centuries shows that, after the
dissolution of the fabric of the Roman Empire, there was no immediate
possibility of any intellectual revival. The barbarous races which had
deluged Europe had to absorb their barbarism: the fragments of Roman
civilization had either to be destroyed or assimilated: the Germanic
nations had to receive culture and religion from the people they had
superseded; the Church had to be created, and a new form given to the
old idea of the Empire. It was further necessary that the modern
nationalities should be defined, that the modern languages should be
formed, that peace should be secured to some extent, and wealth
accumulated, before the indispensable conditions for a resurrection of
the free spirit of humanity could exist. The first nation which
fulfilled these conditions was the first to inaugurate the new era. The
reason why Italy took the lead in the Renaissance was, that Italy
possessed a language, a favorable climate, political freedom, and
commercial prosperity, at a time when other nations were still
semi-barbarous. Where the human spirit had been buried in the decay of
the Roman Empire, there it arose upon the ruins of that Empire; and the
Papacy, called by Hobbes the ghost of the dead Roman Empire, seated,
throned and crowned, upon the ashes thereof, to some extent bridged over
the gulf between the two periods.

Keeping steadily in sight the truth that the real quality of the
Renaissance was intellectual, that it was the emancipation of the reason
for the modern world, we may inquire how feudalism was related to it.
The mental condition of the Middle Ages was one of ignorant prostration
before the idols of the Church--dogma and authority and scholasticism.
Again, the nations of Europe during these centuries were bound down by
the brute weight of material necessities. Without the power over the
outer world which the physical sciences and useful arts communicate,
without the ease of life which wealth and plenty secure, without the
traditions of a civilized past, emerging slowly from a state of utter
rawness, each nation could barely do more than gain and keep a difficult
hold upon existence. To depreciate the work achieved during the Middle
Ages would be ridiculous. Yet we may point out that it was done
unconsciously--that it was a gradual and instinctive process of
becoming. The reason, in one word, was not awake; the mind of man was
ignorant of its own treasures and its own capacities. It is pathetic to
think of the mediaeval students poring over a single ill-translated
sentence of Porphyry, endeavoring to extract from its clauses whole
systems of logical science, and torturing their brains about puzzles
hardly less idle than the dilemma of Buridan's donkey, while all the
time, at Constantinople and at Seville, in Greek and Arabic, Plato and
Aristotle were alive but sleeping, awaiting only the call of the
Renaissance to bid them speak with voice intelligible to the modern
mind. It is no less pathetic to watch tide after tide of the ocean of
humanity sweeping from all parts of Europe, to break in passionate but
unavailing foam upon the shores of Palestine, whole nations laying life
down for the chance of seeing the walls of Jerusalem, worshiping the
sepulcher whence Christ had risen, loading their fleet with relics and
with cargoes of the sacred earth, while all the time within their
breasts and brains the spirit of the Lord was with them, living but
unrecognized, the spirit of freedom which erelong was destined to
restore its birthright to the world.