XV.
Turning now to a general view of the Italian statutes, we must remark that although the history of statutory law presents many difficulties, owing to the infinite number of different provisions to be found in it, the diversity of these provisions is chiefly due to accidental and temporary causes, extraneous to the natural and spontaneous development of the law itself, which, examined apart and with reference to its essential characteristics, presents a striking uniformity. It may, however, be noted that in the republics of Northern Italy the Longobard law is far more predominant; while in those of Central and Southern Italy Roman law obtains an early and rapid ascendancy, and, subject to the changes which have been indicated, ends by dominating at all points. This progress becomes more apparent from year to year, so that even in examining the statutes, the very same conflict of antagonistic elements which we have already noted, throughout the entire history of the communes and of Italian civilisation, is brought before our eyes in civil wars, in sanguinary struggles between Guelphs and Ghibellines, in art, in literature, in all things. It is true that the statutes only treat of juridical ideas and enactments; but these seem to strive with the same ardour, and to aim at the same ends, as the men whom they control.
Towards the close of the fourteenth century Italian commerce began to make enormous advance, and this gave a new impetus to Italian legislation. In fact, we find a series of enactments enabling all mercantile affairs to be transacted with much greater celerity, avoiding legal quibbles, releasing merchant's credits from mortgage or sequestration, and severely punishing all frauds and fraudulent bankruptcies. In a word, we clearly discern the inchoation of the modern commercial code with which these enactments are frequently in unison.
But in all these laws we always recognise the consequences of commerce being divided and split into a multitude of separate associations with statutes of their own, judges of their own, and an exuberance of vitality. At the same time, we recognise that the central authority, though aware that its natural rights are threatened and usurped on all sides, continues to exert its influence, without method, indeed, or uniformity, but not without vigour, and occasionally even with violence. At one moment it seems to be vanquished; at another it comes forth victorious. The entire history of the Commune demonstrates a constant tendency to harmonise all these distinct and often jarring elements—political, social, and legislative—but this problem it never succeeds in solving, and ends by relapsing into despotism. A true conception of social unity was wanting; the idea of a due distribution of authority was still unknown, either in real life or in theory; accordingly whoever happened to have a share in the executive authority, also assumed, as necessarily connected with it, a share not only in judicial, but likewise in administrative and legislative functions. Wherefore it seemed that the only way to preserve liberty was to parcel out the government among an infinity of hands, and so to contrive that parties, associations, cliques (consorterie), families, and quarters of the town should each and severally serve as checks upon all the others. In this process of division and subdivision all the elements afterwards constituting modern society were prepared, but the State, in its true sense, was never discovered. Without ballast to steady her, the ship of the Commune, driven hither and thither in a ceaseless storm and buffeted by winds from all quarters, could neither find anchorage nor keep a settled course. No clear and certain conception was ever reached of that law which, by limiting and defining the amount of liberty guaranteed to each individual, secures freedom to all.
The political life of communes, moreover, was always confined within the walls of the dominant cities, since not only the outlying territory was excluded from it, but likewise all towns that had been annexed or conquered. Every form of representative government was as yet unknown. All who enjoyed political rights entered, each in his turn, the Councils of the Republic, and sooner or later nearly all rose to power. This made it necessary that the States should have very circumscribed borders, as otherwise it would have been impossible to govern them at all. The French Revolution, by achieving for the first time, in behalf of the nation at large, what the Italian communes had effected for the cities, was able to proclaim the civil and political equality of all who formed part of the nation, and who were in consequence to be recognised as citizens. From that time democracy became the predominant characteristic of modern societies which, by means of representative institutions, have found it possible to secure freedom, even in large states, reconciling the unity and vigorous action of the central government with personal independence and with local liberty and activity. But the Commune always wavered between the opposing elements of which it was made up and which it never succeeded in fusing into a true political organism.
The history of our republics may, in fact, be summed up in an account of the varying predominance of one or other of the great associations of which they were composed. In Florence, we have, first of all, the conflict of nobles and commons which is maintained with changing fortunes. When the fraternities (consorterie) of the leading magnates obtained such ascendancy as to menace popular liberties and destroy the social balance, notable reforms were made in the statutes; the Commune was completely transformed, and by means of the Ordinances of Justice (of which we shall soon have to speak), the nobles were overthrown and their associations broken up. But as these associations were an integral part of the State, their downfall was followed by a phase of rapid corruption and decay. To the passions and interests of caste succeeded personal ambitions, hatreds and passions of a still more dangerous character. Families began to be at strife; men who were at once powerful and ambitious, came to the front; and Corso Donati, or some other like him, would have soon become master and tyrant of the Republic, save for the fact that a mighty people, enriched by the speedy gains of an extended commerce, devoted to freedom and opposed to the nobility, had first to be disarmed. Thus to the supremacy of the leagues of the magnates succeeded the predominance of the Greater Guilds, between whom and the Lesser Guilds a struggle was entered upon in the course of which the latter obtained, in their turn, a share of power. At a later period, the populace, represented by the plebeian Ciompi, comes to the front, and threatens the utter dissolution of the old social form of the Republic. Then new personal ambitions, more fatal to freedom because more fortunate, occupy the scene. The struggle between the Albizzi, Pitti, and Medici terminates in the triumph of the last-named family in the person of Cosimo the Elder, who slew the Republic. Yet nothing of all this should cause us much surprise. For if we bear in mind the beginnings of the Commune and the elements out of which it was constituted, we may readily see that all that happened was, in the main, unavoidably bound to occur.