lands they had seized the absolute power just as the kings
CHAP. V.] GERMANY AND ITALY FROM 1453 TO 1494. 55
had done in their kingdoms. " They do everything that
they please," said an almost contemporary writer. The
revolution remarked in France, England, and Spain had
then also taken place in the empire, but to the profit of the
princes, not to that of the emperor. In 1502 the seven
electors concluded the electoral union, through which they
bound themselves to meet annually in order to provide
means for maintaining their independence and for arresting
the encroachments of imperial authority. Their fears were
groundless; two things were lacking to give Maximilian suc-
cess, money and perseverance. Ail his life he rushed from
one project to another, and all his life he was, as the Italians
called him, Massimiliano pochi danari (Max the Penniless).
The political history of the empire is as empty under
Maximilian I. as under Frederick III. And it is less as
emperor that he takes part in the chief affairs of Europe
than as father of the ruler of the Netherlands or as Arch-
duke of Austria. It is under this title that he signs with
Charles VIII. the treaty of Senlis, which brings him Artois
and Franche Comte (1493), that he carries on a disastrous
war against the Swiss and concludes with them the peace
of Basel (1499), tnat h' e joins the league against
Charles VIII., later that of Cambrai against Venice (1508),
that later still he joins the coalition against Louis XII.,
and that he gains the battle of Guinegate (1513). A quar-
rel arising as to the Bavarian succession, in which he
interfered, brought him many cities and much territory
upon the Inn ; the death of a count of Goritz and Gra-
disca endowed him with those two territories ; finally,
that of the archduke Sigismund of the Tyrolese branch
reunited in his hands all the possessions of Austria. His
life was sufficiently prolonged to see the immense exten-
sion given to the power of his house by the marriage of
Philip the Fair with Joanna the Foolish, heiress of Spain,
Naples, and the New World ; and he prepared the marriage
of his grandson Ferdinand with the sister of Louis II.,
which assured him the succession to the crowns of Hun-
gary and Bohemia. But he saw also the beginning of what
was one of the principal obstacles to this power, the Refor-
mation. He died in 1519, and Luther at that date had
already broken with Rome. It is reported that to familiar-
ize himself with death Maximilian carried his coffin with
him during the last year of his life.
56 REVOLUTION IN THE POLITICAL ORDER. [BOOK ].
At the moment of the invasion of the French, Italy
was the center of all the Mediterranean commerce. There
was then in Europe no country where agri-
second haif^f culture was so wisely conducted, where busi-
the fifteenth ne ss was so active. " The manufactures of
silk, wool, flax, skins, the quarrying of Car-
rara marble, the foundries of Maremma, the manufacture
of alum, sulphur, and bitumen, were still in full activity.
The system of cultivation by petty farmers, so superior at
this epoch to whatever was carried on in the rest of Europe,
assured Italy a fertility augmented in Lombardy by the
hydraulic labors of Ludovico il Moro, in Tuscany by pre-
cautions taken against inundations and stagnant waters,
which even to-day render desolate countries formerly
fertile. The villages, where the peasants intrenched
themselves behind ramparts, bore witness to a comfort
which corresponded to the splendor of the great cities ;
and in them there were so many charms in the relations
of life, so much courtesy and a courtesy so exquisite, so
much intelligence, in a word, of that which renders life
sweet and easy, that the Italian, the richest, the happiest,
the most civilized of European nations, could treat other
nations as barbarians who were always ready to admire its
splendid cities and to sit in its learned schools" (Zeller).
Despite all that, Italy was the most feeble of European
nations. She had artists and merchants, but not a people.
She had condottieri, but no soldiers. The Italians, so skillful
in conspiracy, no longer knew how to fight : at the battle of
Anghiari they contended four hours and nobody was killed
save a horseman suffocated in the crowd. Such were the
bitter fruits of despotism ; as there no longer existed liberty
or fatherland there no longer existed citizens or courage.
More divided than Germany, Italy had not even a name
which was accepted by all, as that of the emperor, nor au-
thority which was at least sometimes respected, as that of the
diet. Her different states, completely independent, had no
other bond among them than similarity of language and
customs.
In the middle of the fifteenth century a new situation
was beginning for the peninsula. It was no longer Guelph
or Ghibelline, pontifical or imperial ; above all, it was no
longer republican, but princely. A condottiere, Sforza, had
founded a ducal line at Milan, and many others had equally
CHAP. V.] GERMANY AND ITALY FROM 1453 TO 1494. 57
good fortune in Romagna and Emilia. A family of bankers,
the Medici, ruled at Florence, the King of Aragon at
Naples. It was important to know if these princes were
going at least to act in concert to defend against the
foreigner the independence of Italy which they had sub-
jected. Without speaking of the pretensions and the cupid-
ities which menaced from the side of France and Germany,
great dangers were created for Italy b.y the capture of Con-
stantinople by the Ottomans, and by the efforts, already suc-
cessful, to find a sea route to India. Her existence was
perhaps to be called in question, certainly her prosperity.
In fact by the fall of the Eastern Empire she had lost the
principal source of her commerce. If now the Portuguese
closed to her the route to India via Alexandria by rendering
this route useless, and if the Ottomans, her enemies upon the
Greek peninsula, were to make themselves masters of
Egypt, Italian commerce would be annihilated. Let us add
that these Ottomans, who were soon to capture Egypt,
launched their cavalry into Friuli and their fleets upon the
Italian shores. The doge was no longer the sole spouse of
the Adriatic.
Apparently in the presence of such perils the Italians
would have no other thought than union. This was in fact
the first sentiment inspired in them by the terrible blow
which had just smitten the Greek Empire. They forgot
their ancient animosities and swore eternal concord at Lodi
(1454), a precarious peace due to the wisdom of the great
men who were then the arbiters of Italian destinies : Fran-
cisco Sforza, Duke of Milan ; Cosmo de Medici, to whom
Florence had decreed the beautiful surname Father of the
Country ; Alphonso V. the Magnanimous ; Popes Calixtus
III. and Pius II. (1455-64), who desired that every morn-
ing the "bell of the Turks" should be rung throughout
all Christendom.
But Alphonso died (1458). The Angevine prince John
of Calabria claimed his crown and Italy was thrown into
inextricable confusion. The Pope diverted Scanderbeg
from his heroic struggle to mix him up with those impious
wars (1462). He sustained John of Calabria. Francisco
Sforza, who also dreaded a French pretender, the Duke of
Orleans, heir of the Viscontis, whom he had dispossessed,
took sides for the Aragonese, and aided Ferdinand, King of
Naples, to repulse his competitor (1463).
58 REVOLUTION IN THE POLITICAL ORDER. [BOOK I.
Peace, re-established in the peninsula by the defeat of
John of Calabria at Troja, was anew compromised by the
almost simultaneous death of Cosmo (1464), of Francisco
Sforza (1466), and of Pius II., who expired at Ancona in
sight of the fleet upon which he was to cross to Greece (1464).
In 1478 coalition against Florence ; in 1482 coalition
against Venice. The Ottomans took advantage of this con-
dition of things. They surprised Otranto (1480), butchered
or made slaves 12,000 Christians, and sawed the governor
in two. Italy grew accustomed to the dread of the Otto-
man as she had grown accustomed to her tyrants. The
generation of superior men whom she possessed at the
middle of the century left only unworthy successors. Let
us look into the interior of each state and then we shall
see under the splendor of a material and corrupt civiliza-
tion all the signs of political and moral death.
At Milan the Sforzas since 1450 had replaced the Vis-
contis. The fortune of this family was remarkable. One
day at the beginning of the fifteenth century the peasant
Attendolo while he was working in the fields saw soldiers
pass ; he threw down his spade and ran to enlist ; he pos-
sessed courage and intelligence; he changed his name into
that of Sforza (the brave), became a captain, chief of a com-
pany of bandits, the most dreaded condottieri of Italy, and
bequeathed his renown, his talents, his soldiers, and a num-
ber of strongholds to his natural son, Francisco Sforza, who
obtained from the Pope the march of Ancona, then, in the
interests of Venice and Florence, defeated the Duke of
Milan, who disarmed him by the gift of his daughter's hand.
The duke dead, Milan became a republic and engaged
Sforza to protect her against Venice. He defended her at
first and conquered the Venetians, but then subdued the
Milanese and obliged them to proclaim him duke (1450).
He reigned sixteen years, respected by the sovereigns, who
sought his alliance, as did Louis XL, to whom he sent suc-
cor during the League of Public Welfare. His unworthy son,
Galeazzo Maria, extended over all the duchy a rapacious and
violent tyranny which no longer respected the honor or life
of the citizens. In the midst of his guards he was assassi-
nated by the grandees in the church of St. Stephen (1476).
He left a child eight years old, Giovanni Galeazzo, who suc-
ceeded him under the guardianship of his mother, Bonna of
Savoy, and of the chancellor Simonetta. But the uncle of
CHAP. V.] GERMANY AND ITALY FROM 1453 TO 1494. 59
the young prince, Ludovico Sforza, surnamed il Moro, put
the minister to death, drove away the regent, and governed in
the name of his nephew, whom he declared of age (1480).
Quickly throwing aside the mask, he shut up Giovanni Gale-
azzo in the castle of Pavia with his young wife Isabella,
granddaughter of the King of Naples, who menaced the
usurper with war if he did not restore the power to the
legitimate sovereign. It was then that Ludovico, fearing
there would be formed a league of Italian states against
him, invited Charles VIII. to cross the Alps.
Nevertheless the Milanais was always one of the richest
countries of the world, and the Lombards continued as in the
Middle Ages to be bankers for a part of Europe, thanks to
the abundance of capital which a perfected agriculture,
flourishing manufactures, and extended commerce collected
in their hands. They hurried in crowds to the fair of Beau-
caire and to that of Lyons, which Louis XL had just estab-
lished. At Bruges and Flanders they possessed a great
entrepot of their merchandise, which from there spread
into the north of France, into Germany and England ; the
vessels of the Hanseatic League thence transported it
even as far as the Scandinavian countries. They also culti-
vated the arts. Ludovico il Moro retained at Milan the
illustrious Leonardo da Vinci and continued the cathedral,
that marble mountain covered by an entire population of
statues which is eclipsed in grandeur only by St. Peter's at
Rome.
As to Genoa, ceded by Louis XL to Francisco Sforza in
1464, she recovered a few moments of liberty after the death
of Galeazzo Maria in 1476, only to fall once more under the
yoke of Ludovico il Moro, who obtained from Charles VIII.
the investiture of Genoa as a fief of the French crown
(1490).
The first rank among Italian states belonged to Venice.
During fifty years she had profited by every discord to
increase her power. From 1423 to 1453 she acquired four
provinces on the Italian peninsula, but these ruinous acqui-
sitions had diminished her revenues 100,000 ducats. When
the terrible news of the capture of Constantinople by
Mohammed II. fell upon Italy, she rallied to the other
princes and signed with them the peace of Lodi ; but the
following year she forgot the crusade and treated with
Mohammed II. When reproached with this hasty defection
60 REVOLUTION IN THE POLITICAL ORDER. [BOOK I.
the Venetians replied : " We are Venetians first, Christians
second." However, their possessions in the Archipelago
and in Greece rendered peace with the Ottomans impos-
sible. War broke out in 1464 ; the Ottomans captured
Negropont and Scutari, crossed the Piave, and ravaged
everything as far as the lagoons. From Venice the)' saw
the conflagration. She treated once more, and this time
submitted to shameful conditions ; she paid tribute to the
Mussulmans (1479). But four years earlier she had acquired
Cyprus by maintaining in the island one of her patricians,
Catherine Cornaro, " the daughter of St. Mark," who
declared the republic her heir in 1489. Venice did not
scruple to demand of the Sultan of Egypt investiture of this
ancient kingdom of the Lusignans.
Venice seemed then at the apogee of her power. With
her 3000 ships, her 30,000 sailors, her numerous and veteran
army, her famous factories of plate glass, silk stuffs, and
gold and silver objects, her immense commerce, and her
despotic but skillful government, she could have played a
mighty role against the stranger ; but " she remained apart
in her importunate and mad ambition, believing that the
wind blew always on her stern, and never considering it a
fault to gain at the expense of each ; thus was she hated
by all." This hatred was first shown in 1482. The Duke
of Ferrara had attempted to establish salt works at Com-
niachio in order to escape buying salt, according to the
treaties, in the warehouses of Venice. Venetian opposition
to this attempt was the pretext for a league formed by all
the princes against her. The true cause was the jealousy
which Venice inspired. The King of Naples, Milan, Man-
tua, Florence, and soon the Pope, sustained the Duke of
Ferrara. But Venice braved the armies of the allies like
the excommunications of the Pope, and at the peace gained
Polesina from Rovigo.
She had also a government fully able to bestow on her,
if not liberty, at least power and wealth. As far as possible
she had developed her aristocracy. The authority of the
doge, already so sustained by the Grand Council, and then
by the Council of the Ten, had become purely nominal after
the creation in 1454 of the three state inquisitors, now the
real masters of Venice. They could without giving
account of their decision pronounce sentence of death and
dispose of the public funds. Justly the ambition of these
CHAP. V.] GERMANY AND ITALY FROM 1453 TO 1494. 61
three men was feared, to whom all authority was com-
mitted; hence two with the approval of the doge could con-
demn the third. The three inquisitors of state had the
right of making their own statutes, and of changing them as
they pleased, so that the republic was ignorant even of the
law which governed it. To this regime Venice owed an
internal peace which contrasted with the ceaseless agita-
tions of the other Italian cities. Everywhere was admired
the wisdom of this government, which maintained its sub-
jects in tranquillity, and knew how at the same time to pro-
cure their welfare by assuring them labor. No city was
vaunted like Venice for its pleasures, and for the luxurious
life there led by the rich and ofttimes by the people. But
there the spy and the informer reigned, being encouraged,
paid, and organized, and terror hovered over every head,
so that material prosperity was insufficient. The noble who
spoke ill of the government was twice warned, the third
time drowned; every workman who exported any commodity
useful to the republic was stabbed. Judgment, execution,
all was secret. The mouth of the lion of St. Mark received
the anonymous denunciations, and the waves which passed
under the Bridge of Sighs carried away the corpses.
To preserve herself from the ascendancy of generals and
the influence of armies Venice employed only condottieri
and foreign chiefs, near whom she kept as supervisors two
proveditors. Thus without peril she was unable to under-
take offensive war and win conquests, for she floated always
between the fear of too great success, which would render
the general too powerful, and of treason, which would make
him pass to the enemy. The trial of the condottiere Car-
magnola had been carried on during eight months without
the count having any intimation of the danger which he
ran ; he was left at the head of his army and heaped with
honor when he had been already condemned to perish
On the other side of Italy in the valley of the Arno rose
Florence the Beautiful. Long troubled by the quarrel of
the Guelphs and Ghibellines, she had found peace again
only in 1343, when all the classes of the population were
confounded in political equality. The nobles, long held
apart from government, were raised to the rank of citizens.
The constitution of Florence was remarkable ; the execu-
tive power belonged to a college of six priors which was
62 REVOLUTION IN THE POLITICAL ORDER. [BOOK I.
renewed every two months ; the legislative power to two
assemblies, the council of the people and the council of the
commune, whose members were nominated for four months.
In order to avoid cabals they had recourse to lot, both for
the nomination of the councilors and for that of the priors.
Moreover, the general assembly of the people remained sole
sovereign, and must be convoked every time that there was
a question of modifying fundamental law.
Just as the Athenian democracy excluded the metoikoi,
or domiciliated strangers, from its bosom, the Florentine
democracy did not admit to political power the non-privi-
leged artisans, the Ciompi, or Wooden Shoes. The latter
rose in 1378. But the citizens remained masters of
authority.
This victory profited only the great families of the city,
first, that of the Albizzis ; second, that of the Medicis. This
house, which was to become so powerful, had rendered itself
popular by raising the citizens of the second class, or, as
they said at Florence, the minor arts, to political rights.
After Sylvestro, Cosmo de Medici acquired by commerce,
and especially by banking, an immense fortune. He used it
to assist the poor and to gain friends among the rich by
lending them money. He found himself quickly the bene-
factor or the creditor of the majority of the Florentine
citizens. At this the Albizzis took umbrage and banished
him. But this exile established his power ; at the end of
a year Cosmo returned in triumph (1434). It depended
only upon himself whether he would assume the supreme
power. He cared little for a sounding title : his authority
was only the more absolute and more durable. All public
functions, all the offices, belonged to his friends. He was
in appearance a simple banker ; in reality he was the master,
and continued such all his life (1434-64).
Those were glorious years for Florence. The shadow of
republican government existed, and that sufficed for much.
Peace and order reigned to the profit and satisfaction of all.
Letters and arts flourished, thanks to the protection of
Cosmo and to the increasing progress of industry and com-
merce; thus grateful Florence decreed to her chief the name
of Father of his Country. He expended 6,000,000 dollars
in the construction of palaces, hospitals, and libraries, but he
led himself the most simple life, and instead of seeking
princely alliances for his children, he married them into
CHAP. V.] GERMANY AND ITALY FROM 1453 TO 1494. 63
Florentine families, so that his sons remembered they were
the equals of their fellow-citizens before being their rulers.
But after the first generation, heredity of power in a family
of parvenus produced its too common results ; the Medicis
forgot their citizen origin, considered themselves as princes,
and Florence lost even the appearance of its ancient liberty.
This liberty in 1465 w;is demanded back from Pietro I.,
by the nobles. He foiled their plots, but one of his sons
fell their victim (1478). Pope Sixtus IV., blinded by his
affection for one of his nephews, Girolamo Riario, wished to
conquer for him a principality in the Romagna. This would
have destroyed the Italian equilibrium and violated the
treaty of Lodi. The Florentines protested. Irritated by
this resistance, Riario took part in the conspiracy of the
Pazzis. They were to assassinate Guiliano and Lorenzo de
Medici during mass at the elevation of the Host (1478).
Guiliano was slain, but Lorenzo escaped and punished the
murderers. Among the accomplices was the Archbishop
of Pisa, Salviati, who was hung in his pontifical robes at a
window of his palace. Therefore an excommunication was
launched against the Medici and war burst forth, in which
all the Italian powers took part. During this war the
Ottomans sacked Otranto.
This apparition of the crescent on the very soil of Italy
appalled the princes. Sixtus IV. opened his eyes and con-
sented to treat. Peace was anew established by the pru-
dence of Lorenzo de Medici, who betook himself to Naples
in order to negotiate with Ferdinand.
Lorenzo deserved his surname of Magnificent and Father
of the Muses by his zeal for learned men and artists. He
welcomed the Greeks driven from Constantinople, had
Plato translated by Ficino, published an edition of Homer
by Chalcocondylas, encouraged Angelo Politano, an eru-
dite poet, le Poggio, a learned man of letters, and had cast
by Ghiberti the doors of the baptistery of St. John,
" worthy," said Michael Angelo, " to be the gates of para-
dise." In 1490 Lorenzo, ruined by his magnificence, was
almost bankrupt. Florence to save him from this disgrace
became bankrupt herself. She reduced by one-half the
interest on the public debt and by one-fifth the nominal
value of the specie deposited in the treasury, whence it was
issued at its former rate. A single voice dared to protest
against this omnipotence of the Medici, that of the Domini-
64 REVOLUTION IN THE POLITICAL ORDER. [BOOK I.
can monk of Ferrara, Girolamo Savonarola. He wished
to restore to the clergy purity of manners ; to the people,
liberty ; to letters and the arts, religious sentiment. When
Lorenzo was on his deathbed in 1492 he adjured him to give
back liberty to Florence, demanding it as the price of abso-
lution. Lorenzo refused. " Then," cried the monk, " the
time has come. A man will arise who in a few weeks will
invade Italy without drawing the sword. He will pass the
mountains like Cyrus, and the rocks and fortresses will fall
before him."
The son of Lorenzo, Pietro II., showed only incapacity.
He isolated himself from the plebeians, lived like a prince,
and aroused violent hatred by his debaucheries. Two
parties were then formed in the city that of the young
nobles, the arrabiati, or madmen, and that of the people,
the fratesc/ii, or friends of the monks. Savonarola was at
the head of the latter. The disorders of Pietro only con-
firmed the monk in the thought that a terrible punishment
was reserved for Italy ; and he himself was one of those
who made the highways easy for the foreign conqueror.
" O Italy ! O Rome ! " said Savonarola. " The barbar-
ians are coming famished like lions . . . and the mortal-
ity shall be so great that the grave diggers will go through
the streets crying, ' Who has any dead ?' and then one will
bring out his father, another his son. . . O Rome ! I
repeat it to thee, do penance ; do penance, O Venice !
O Milan ! "
The Council of Basel had ended the schism of the Church,
and after 1447 Christianity had but one chief, Nicholas V.,
a lettered man and protector of the learned. The conspir-
acy of Stefano Porcaro (1453), who endeavored to establish
at Rome the republican government, and the capture of
Constantinople by the Ottomans, against whom he himself
preached a crusade in 1455, had troubled his pontificate.
His successor, the Spaniard Alphonso Borgia, Pope under
the name of Calixtus III., had prepared the way for honors
to his family, which was destined to a shameful celebrity.
In 1458 the pontifical tiara had been given to the former
secretary of the Council of Basel, ^Eneas Silvius Piccolomini,
celebrated as Pius II. Pope Paul II. (1464-71) was still
animated by the grand thought of the crusade. He sus-
tained Scanderbeg, he armed the Persians against the Otto-