CHAPTER XVI
LAST FLICKER OF THE EMPIRE (1309-1313)
After the Papacy had been dragged in servitude to France, the Empire, like a dying soldier who gets on his feet to shout one shout of triumph over his enemy's fall, made a last gallant effort to recover life and strength. The effort was very gallant but very ineffectual, and owes its chief celebrity to its connection with the great man, who summed up and reiterated the Imperial creed, somewhat in the same way that Pope Boniface had summed up and reiterated the papal creed. Both creeds were dead, but each man believed his fervently, and as Boniface's bulls set forth the doctrines of Hildebrand and Innocent III, so Dante's treatises and letters set forth the beliefs of Barbarossa and Frederick II.
The year of Boniface's jubilee is the year to which Dante assigns his journey to the abodes of departed spirits, and as the jubilee marked the close of the mediæval Papacy, so the "Divine Comedy" marks the close of mediæval theology, and Dante himself stands as the greatest mark at the boundary between the old world passing away and the modern world coming in. Giovanni Villani, who was about fifteen years younger, described him in this way: "He was deeply versed in almost all learning, although he was a layman; he was a very great poet, a philosopher, and a complete master of rhetoric in prose and verse as well as in public speech; a most noble writer, very great in rhyme, with the most beautiful style that ever was in our language up to his time and since. In his youth he wrote the book on 'The New Life of Love,' and then when he was in exile he composed twenty ethical poems and many admirable poems on love; and he wrote among others three noble epistles; one he sent to the government of Florence, complaining of his banishment from no fault of his; another he sent to the Emperor Henry, when he was at the siege of Brescia, blaming him for his delay, in the tone of a prophet; the third to the Italian cardinals, during the vacancy after the death of Pope Clement (V), that they should come to an accord and elect an Italian Pope; all in Latin, in lofty style, with excellent reasonings and appeals to authority, which were much praised by men of judgment. This Dante by reason of his knowledge was somewhat arrogant, haughty, and disdainful, and, like an ungracious philosopher, he could not talk easily with unlearned men; but because of his other merits, the learning and the worth of this great citizen, it seems fitting to give him perpetual remembrance in this chronicle of mine, notwithstanding that his noble works left to us in writing bear true testimony to what he was and confer honourable fame upon our city."[12]
Dante, by passages in his "Divine Comedy," but more particularly by his treatise "De Monarchia" (On Universal Empire), enables us to understand how the Empire could raise its head in Italy sixty years after Frederick II had died. In Germany after an interregnum, the House of Hapsburg had mounted the throne, but no one had ventured to cross the Alps for the Imperial crown. Nevertheless, Dante and the Ghibellines could not bring themselves to believe that the old familiar institution had fulfilled its function and was to be cast aside. The conception of Europe as a group of equal nations had not yet arisen, and Ghibellines still believed that a Roman Emperor could put down confusion, anarchy, political chaos, and cure all the ills of Italy. The Ghibellines believed in the Emperor as Mohammedans believed in Mohammed; if he should return, exiles (like Dante) would be restored, peace would bloom, and Rome again become the head of a just and universal empire. Dante, in the "De Monarchia," first contends that universal empire is necessary to the well-being of the world; having established that proposition, he argues that this universal empire rightly belongs to the Roman people, and proves his point by appeals to Virgil and the New Testament; then he proceeds to show that the authority of the Empire is derived directly from God. "Some say," he says, "that Constantine when he was cleansed of the leprosy by the prayers of Silvester, then Pope, gave the seat of the Empire, to wit Rome, to the Church, together with many other dignities appertaining to the Empire. Therefore, they argue, since then no one can receive those dignities, except he shall receive them from the Church, to whom they belong.... This proposition I deny; and when they put forth their proof, I say it proves nothing, because Constantine could not alienate the dignities of the Empire, nor the Church receive them.... No man has a right to do things by means of an office entrusted to him, which go directly counter to that office.... Therefore an Emperor has no right to divide the Empire ... and the Church in no wise is able to receive temporal things because the precept expressly forbids it, as we have it in Matthew 'Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses, nor scrip for your journey,' etc."
This Ghibelline theory was in flat contradiction to Boniface's theory, just as the Imperial creed had always contradicted the papal creed. In Dante's time the two conflicting theories seemed to have become mere ghosts; when of a sudden the Imperial theory started up in reality. A new king of the Romans, Henry VII, announced that he was coming into Italy to take his Imperial crown. The Ghibellines welcomed him with boundless enthusiasm. Dante, in undeserved exile from Florence, flushed with the hope of return to his dearly beloved city, wrote a circular letter to all the princes of Italy:—
"Behold now is the acceptable time, in which arise signs of consolation and peace. For a new day begins to shine, showing the dawn that shall dissipate the darkness of long calamity. Now the breezes of the East begin to blow, the lips of heaven redden, and with serenity comfort the hopes of the peoples. And we who have passed a long night in the desert shall see the expected joy.
"Rejoice, O Italy, pitied even by the heathen, now shalt thou be the envy of the earth, because thy bridegroom, the comfort of the world and the glory of the people, the most merciful Henry, Divus, Augustus, Cæsar, hastens to thy espousals. Dry thine eyes, put off the trappings of woe, O thou Fairest; for he is at hand who shall free thee from the prison of the ungodly, who shall smite the malignant, and destroy them with the edge of the sword, and shall give his vineyard to other husbandmen, who will render the fruits of justice in the time of harvest."
The hope that Henry would restore peace and establish order warmed even the Guelfs; and almost all the Italian cities, excepting stubborn Florence, sent envoys to greet him as he came to take the Imperial crown. The French Pope was greatly perplexed as to what to do. On the one hand, he had begun to wish for an Emperor to subdue the Roman barons and to be a counterweight to the French king, whom he found too masterful a protector; on the other hand, he was afraid to displease the French king, and to do anything that might set the Ghibellines on their feet again. So he played a double game: he encouraged Henry in the North, and in the South he strengthened the Angevin King of Naples, the leader of the Guelfs. Henry VII crossed the Alps in October, 1310. He was brave, honest, and just; he believed devoutly in his Imperial mission, desired peace, and wished to be Emperor of Guelf and Ghibelline alike. At first all went well; many cities opened their gates and received Imperial vicars; Milan lowered her flags as Henry entered, and her Guelf archbishop put the iron crown of Lombardy upon his head. But this happy calm could not last long. Henry was poor, he asked Milan for a great deal of money, and then demanded, ostensibly as a guard of honour for his journey to Rome but really as hostages, fifty noblemen from each of the two parties. The Ghibellines assented: but the Guelfs suspected treachery and refused; their leaders fled and their houses were sacked and burned. This was the end of peace. Henry attempted to enforce obedience. He sacked Cremona, razed her walls to the ground, and laid siege to Brescia. The horrors of the siege were fearful; the citizens fought with desperation, but yielded at last to famine and pestilence. The unfortunate Henry had now been forced into the old position of German tyrant and Ghibelline party chief; and, instead of marching directly on Rome, or on rich Florence which was the head and front of the Guelf cause in the North, he had wasted valuable time in taking unimportant cities. The Ghibellines were in a fever of impatience. Dante wrote:—
"To the most holy Conqueror, and only lord, our lord Henry, by divine providence King of the Romans, ever Augustus, your Dante Alighieri, a Florentine and undeserving exile, and all Tuscans everywhere, who wish for peace on earth, kiss your feet.
"For a long time have we wept by the rivers of confusion, and have incessantly prayed for the protection of a just king, who should ... put us back in our just rights. When you, successor of Cæsar and Augustus, crossing the ridges of the Apennines, brought back the venerable insignia of Rome ... like the sun suddenly uprising, new hope of better time for Italy shone out. But now men think you delay, or surmise that you are going back ... and we are constrained by doubt to stand uncertain and to cry, like John the Baptist, Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?... Do you not know, most excellent of Princes, do you not see from the watch-tower of your exalted height, where the stinking little fox lurks, safe from the hunters? In truth, the evil beast does not drink of the headlong Po, nor of your Tiber, but its wickedness pollutes the rushing waters of the Arno, and the name of this dire, pernicious creature (do you not know?) is Florence. She is the viper turned against the breast of its mother; she is the sick sheep that contaminates the whole herd of her master. Indeed with the fierceness of a viper she strives to tear her mother; she sharpens the horns of rebellion against Rome, who made her in her own image and likeness....
"Up, then, break this delay, take confidence from the eyes of the Lord God of Hosts, in whose sight you act, and lay low this Goliath with the sling of your wisdom and the stone of your strength; for with his death the dark night of fear shall cover the camp of the Philistines, and they shall flee, and Israel shall be set free. And just as now, exiles in Babylon, we mourn remembering holy Jerusalem, so, then, citizens and at home, we shall breathe in peace and turn the miseries of confusion into joy.
"Written in Tuscany ... fourteen days before the kalends of May, 1311, in the first year of the coming into Italy of the divine and most happy Henry."
Henry did go south, but there were greater obstacles in his way than Dante imagined. The spirit of the age was against him. It was vain to try to bring back the past. Florence shut her gates, manned her walls, sent more money to his enemies, and headed a league of the Guelf cities in Tuscany and Umbria. Even Rome was half against him. The Ghibelline nobles received him and took him to their part of the town; but the Guelfs held St. Peter's, and though there was fierce fighting in the streets, the Guelfs stood their ground, and Henry was forced to receive the Imperial crown from the papal legate (the Pope was too prudent to leave Avignon) in the basilica of St. John Lateran. Here the luckless Emperor stayed for a time in the midst of ruin, material, political, and moral. Then he attempted to crush Florence, the ringleader of disobedience, but her walls were too strong; the impotent Emperor could do no more than harry the country-side. He fell back upon Ghibelline Pisa, and set patiently to work to gather together a new army. The Ghibellines gallantly responded to his call, and Henry actually set forth on his way to Naples, to punish the House of Anjou and avenge the Hohenstaufens, but death cut short his lofty plans. He died in a little town near Siena (1313), and the hopes of Dante and the Ghibellines were ruined forever. The last flicker of the Empire had gone out.
Other Emperors, it is true, crossed the Alps, but not as masters. The connection of Italy with the Holy Roman Empire ends with the death of the gallant Henry. The mediæval Papacy and the mediæval Empire had passed away, for the Middle Ages themselves had come to an end.
FOOTNOTE:
[12] Storia di Firenze, lib. ix, cap. cxxxv.