II.
The Florentine conquest was the beginning of ninety years of slavery for Pisa—a terrible slavery, heavy with exaggerated imports, bitter with the tolerated plunder of private Florentines, humiliating with continual espionage. Ruin fell upon the lovely city; and as the waters of the sea crept slowly back over the reclaimed Maremma, they sapped the foundations of her fairest palaces. Malaria and decay went hand in hand along the streets; though round the ruined town, the only whole thing there, the strong forts of Florence, proclaimed the wealth and power of the oppressor. It was not that the Florentines were avaricious; they spent abundantly and lavishly on fortifications and garrisons for their soldiers; on a university in Pisa for their sons; and they paid the most imaginative of living Florentine painters to put his frescoes on the walls of the Pisan Campo Santo. But they spent their money in the Master’s way, declaring and sustaining the glory of Florence rather than alleviating the miseries of Pisa. And the Pisans themselves were unable either to supply the omissions of Florence, or to direct and advise a more efficient expenditure. They had descended into a nation of poor artizans, for all their ancient trades were now forbidden to them. Florence had secured the first place for her own manufactures, by absolutely prohibiting the wool-weaving, silk-spinning, ship-building, in which the Pisans had for so many centuries excelled. Moreover no Pisan might barter merchandise by land or sea. Restricted to the commonest handicrafts, they lost the resource of wealth; deprived of public office, denied the most ordinary civil rights, they sank into a mute and long-enduring slavery, secretly nourishing a spark of flame in their rebellious hearts.
Pisa was the Ireland of Florence, captive and yet unvanquished. Ever ready to revolt, never for an hour forgetful of her antique superiority. By means of the many exiles that Florence expelled from home, she kept continually in touch with the enemies of Florence. Men expelled for private crimes—the meanest of the Pisans—turned patriots in exile and dedicated the best of their souls to the service of an unhappy country. The Florentines, prosperous and successful, were divided among themselves into half-a-dozen different factions; and patriotism for them meant largely a pious self-satisfaction dashed with party principles. But the magic of an unfortunate glory, the pathos that hangs over the place of one’s birth when it has once been great and is fallen into ruin—this personal and omnipotent sentiment inspired every rank and every kind of Pisan. There was none of them that would have shrunk from any heroism, or (as it seemed to the Florentines) from any treachery, in order to reinstate his country in her ancient grandeur.
It was with Venice and with Milan that the Pisans held especial practice. It mattered little to them that at heart these two powers were deadly enemies; that ever since the death of Filippo Maria Visconti the Venetians had been plotting with Orleans to destroy the house of Sforza; that Lodovico il Moro left no chance unchallenged to limit the pretensions of his Adriatic rival. The Pisans were of neither party; their one political tenet was hatred of their conquerors, and (as a little later they declared) of the two, they preferred the Devil to the Florentines.
Such patience as theirs, ceaselessly labouring underground, never wearied, militant but not aggressive, does not fail to meet an opportunity. At last a favourable chance was offered to the Pisans. The King of France who in 1483 had disregarded the invitation of the Venetians, accepted, ten years later, the persuasions of Lodovico of Milan; and in the autumn of 1494, the armies of Charles VIII. poured into Italy.
It had been the custom of the Florentines, in times of war and danger, to call the heads of every Pisan household into Florence, as hostages for the good behaviour of their families and fellow citizens.
But in the autumn of 1494, Piero de’ Medici who forgot everything, who had forgotten to garrison his frontier, forgot to call the Pisan hostages to Florence, although the French were steadily advancing on Tuscany and the Pisans eager to rebel. Every Pisan household was intact at home on that memorable 30th of October when, in the snowy camp of the French outside Sarzana, Piero de’ Medici handed to the King of France the keys of the Tuscan fortresses. It was of course provided that Charles should restore the cities to the Florentines on his return from Naples: but many things might happen in those troublous times that would outweigh the value of an oath. In the advent of King Charles, the Pisans found the opportunity, so long, so patiently, so ardently desired; and the French army and the hope of liberty entered the unhappy city hand in hand.