CHAPTER XV. THE BEGINNING OF THE AGE OF SLAVERY
From 1530 to 1796, that is, for a period of nearly three centuries, the Italians had no history of their own. Their annals are filled with records of dynastic changes and redistributions of territory, consequent upon treaties signed by foreign powers, in the settlement of quarrels which nowise concerned the people. Italy only too often became the theatre of desolating and distracting wars. But these wars were fought for the most part by alien armies; the points at issue were decided beyond the Alps; the gains accrued to royal families whose names were unpronounceable by southern tongues. That the Italians had created modern civilisation for Europe availed them nothing. Italy, intellectually first among the peoples, was now politically and practically last; and nothing to her historian is more heart-rending than to watch the gradual extinction of her spirit in this age of slavery.—J. A. Symonds.[b]
[1530-1600 A.D.]
The first circumstance, after the fall of Florence, which interrupted the ignominious repose of Italy, was the renewal of hostilities between Francis I and the emperor. During the expedition of Charles V against Tunis, the French monarch availed himself of the distraction of the imperial strength to commence his offensive operations. His troops broke into the territories of the duke of Savoy, against whom he had some causes of dissatisfaction, and easily wrested all Savoy, and the greater part of Piedmont, from that feeble prince; while the imperialists took possession of the remainder of his states, under pretence of defending them. Meanwhile the death of Francesco Sforza, who left no posterity, revived the long wars for the possession of the Milanese state. On the one hand, Francis I, alleging that he had only ceded that duchy to Sforza and his descendants, insisted that his rights returned to him in full force by the decease of that prince without issue; on the other, Charles V anticipated his designs by seizing the duchy as a lapsed fief of the empire. Francis I, after some hollow negotiations with his crafty rival, once more staked the decision of his pretensions on a trial of arms. Lombardy became again the theatre of furious contests between the French and the imperialists; but the usual fortunes of Francis still pursued him; and although his troops inflicted a sanguinary defeat on their opponents in the battle of Cerisole, the fruits of their victory were lost by the necessity, under which the French monarch was placed, of turning his strength to the defence of the northern frontiers of his own kingdom. The peace of Crespy, in 1544, left Charles in possession of Lombardy; and though Francis still retained part of the dominions of the duke of Savoy, the despotic authority of his rival over Italy remained unshaken.
[1535-1554 A.D.]
The tranquillity restored to the peninsula by the peace of Crespy was not materially disturbed for several years. This period was indeed signalised by the abortive conspiracy of Fiesco at Genoa, and earlier by the separation of Parma and Piacenza from the papal dominions, and their erection into a sovereign duchy. These territories, which originally formed part of the Milanese states, had first been annexed to the holy see by the conquests of Julius II; they had frequently changed masters in the subsequent convulsions of Italy; and their possession had finally been confirmed to the papacy by the consent of Francesco Sforza. By the subserviency of the sacred college, the reigning pontiff, Paul III, of the family of Farnese, was suffered to detach these valuable dependencies from the holy see, and to bestow them upon his son with the ducal dignity. But neither the trifling change which was wrought in the divisions of Lombardy by the creation of the duchy of Parma and Piacenza, nor the dangerous conspiracy of Fiesco, affected the general aspect and the quietude of Italy.
Shortly after the death of Pope Paul III, however, the determination of the emperor to spoil his family obliged Ottavio Farnese, the reigning duke of Parma, to throw himself into the arms of Henry II, the new monarch of France; and thus a new war was kindled in Lombardy and Piedmont, in which the French appeared, as the defenders of Ottavio, against the forces of Charles V and of the new pope, Julius III (1551). The war of Parma produced no memorable event, until it was extended into Tuscany by the revolt of Siena against the grievous oppression of the Spanish garrison, which the people had themselves introduced to curb the tyranny of the aristocratical faction of their republic. After expelling their Spanish masters, the Sienese invited the aid of the French for the maintenance of their liberties against the emperor (1552).[c]