The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 09

by Unknown

GENERAL CONDITIONS

[1600-1700 A.D.]

In attempting to bring the unimportant fortunes of Italy during the seventeenth century into a general point of view, we should find considerable and needless difficulty. In the beginning of the century, a quarrel between the popedom and Venice appeared likely to kindle a general war in the peninsula; but the difference was terminated by negotiation (1627).

Twenty years later, the disputed succession of the duchy of Mantua created more lasting troubles, and involved all Lombardy in hostilities; in which the imperialists, the Spaniards, the French, and the troops of Savoy once more mingled on the ancient theatre of so many sanguinary wars and calamitous devastations. But this uninteresting struggle, if not marked by less cruelty and rapine towards the inhabitants of the country, was pursued with less destructive vigour and activity than in the preceding century; nor were the French arms attended by those violent alternations of success and failure which had formerly inflicted such woes upon the peninsula. From the epoch at which Henry IV excluded himself from Italy by the Savoyard treaty, until the ambitious designs of Cardinal Richelieu involved France in the support of the pretensions of the Grisons over the Valtelline country against Spain, the French standards had not been displayed beyond the Alps. But from the moment at which the celebrated minister of Louis XIII engaged in this enterprise, until the Peace of the Pyrenees, the incessant contest of the French and Spanish monarchies, in which the dukes of Savoy and other Italian powers variously embarked, was continually extended to the frontiers of Piedmont and Lombardy.

The arms of the combatants, however, seldom penetrated beyond the northern limits of Italy; and their rivalry, which held such a fatal influence on the peace of other parts of the European continent, can scarcely be said to have materially affected the national affairs of the peninsula. Meanwhile, the few brief and petty internal hostilities which arose and terminated among the Italian princes were of still less general consequence and interest. The subsequent gigantic wars into which Louis XIV, by his insatiable lust of conquest, forced the great powers of Europe, were little felt in Italy until the close of the century—except in the territories of the dukes of Savoy. Thus, altogether, instead of endeavouring to trace the history of Italy during the seventeenth century as one integral and undivided subject, it will be more convenient still to consider the few important events in the contemporary annals of her different provinces as really appertaining, without much connection, to distinct and separate states.

The immediate dominion of the Spanish monarchy over great part of Italy lasted during the whole of the seventeenth century. Naples, Sicily, Milan, and Sardinia were exposed alike to the oppression of the Spanish court, and to the inherent vices of its administration. Its grievous exactions were rendered more ruinous by the injudicious and absurd manner of their infliction; by the private rapacity of the viceroys, and the peculation of their officers. Its despotism was aggravated by all the wantonness of power, and all the contemptuous insolence of pride. But of these four subject states, the last two, Milan and Sardinia, suffered in silence; and except that the Lombard duchy was almost incessantly a prey to warfare and ravages from which the insular kingdom was exempted, a common obscurity and total dearth of all interest equally pervade the annals of both. But the fortunes of the two kingdoms of Naples and Sicily were more remarkable from the violent efforts of the people, ill conducted and unsuccessful though these were, to shake off the intolerable yoke of Spain.

The decline of the Spanish monarchy, which had already commenced in the reign of Philip II, continued rapidly progressive under his successors, the third and fourth Philip, and the feeble Charles II, so the necessities of the Spanish government became more pressing, and its demands more rapacious and exorbitant. Of the revenue of about 6,000,000 gold ducats, which the viceroys extorted from the kingdom, less than 1,500,000 covered the whole public charge, civil and military, of the country; and after all their own embezzlements and those of their subalterns, they sent yearly to Spain more than 4,000,000, no part of which ever returned. Thus was the kingdom perpetually drained of wealth, which nothing but the lavish abundance of nature in that most fertile of regions could in any degree have renovated. But even the luxuriant opulence of Naples could neither satisfy the avarice of the court of Madrid, nor protect the people from misery and want under a government whose impositions increased with the public exhaustion, and were multiplied with equal infatuation and wickedness upon the common necessaries of life. In this manner, duties were established upon flesh, fish, oil, and even upon flour and bread; and the people found themselves crushed under taxation, to pay the debts and to feed the armies of Spain. Their wealth and their youth were alike drawn out of their country, in quarrels altogether foreign to the national interests; in the unfortunate and mismanaged wars in the Spanish court in Lombardy and Catalonia, and in the Low Countries and Germany. Meanwhile, as during the last century, the interior of the kingdom was almost always infested with banditti, rendered daring and reckless of crime by their numbers and the defenceless state of society; and so ill-guarded were the sea coasts that the Turkish pirates made habitual descents during the whole course of the century, ravaged the country, attacked villages and even cities, and carried off the people into slavery.

Well near the Piazza dei Signori, Verona

It cannot excite our surprise that the evils of the Spanish administration filled the Neapolitans with discontent and indignation; we may only wonder that any people could be found abject enough to submit to a government at once so oppressive and feeble. The first decided attempt to throw off the foreign yoke had its origin among an order in which such a spirit might least be anticipated. In the last year of the sixteenth century, Tommaso Campanella, a Dominican friar, had, on account, says Giannone, of his wicked life and the suspicion of infidelity, incurred the rigours of the Roman Inquisition. On his release he laboured, in revenge for the treatment which he had received at Rome, to induce the brethren of his own order, the Augustines, and the Franciscans, to excite a religious and political revolution in Calabria. He acquired among them the same reputation for sanctity and prophetic illumination which Savonarola had gained at Florence a hundred years before. He secretly inveighed against the Spanish tyranny; he declared that he was appointed by the Almighty to overthrow it, and to establish a republic in its place; and he succeeded in enlisting the monastic orders and several bishops of Calabria in the cause. By their exhortations, a multitude of people and banditti of the province were roused to second him, and his design was embraced by great numbers of the provincial barons, whose names the historian declares that he suppresses from regard to their descendants. Campanella relied likewise on the assistance of the Turks in the meditated insurrection. But the secret of so extensive a conspiracy could not be preserved; the government got notice of it before it was ripe for execution; and Campanella and his chief priestly associates, with other conspirators, were adroitly arrested. Many of them were put to death under circumstances of atrocious cruelty; but Campanella himself, in the extremity of his torments, had the consummate address to render his confession so perplexed and incoherent that he was regarded as a madman, and sentenced only to perpetual imprisonment; from which he contrived at length to escape. He fled to France, and peaceably ended his life many years afterwards at Paris.

[1600-1647 A.D.]

After the suppression of this conspiracy, Naples was frequently agitated at different intervals by commotions, into which the lower people were driven by misery and want. These partial ebullitions of popular discontent were not, however, marked by any very serious character until the middle of the century, when the tyranny of the viceregal government and the disorders and wretchedness of the kingdom reached their consummation. The Spanish resources of taxation had been exhausted on the ordinary articles of consumption; the poor of the capital and kingdom had been successively compelled to forego the use of meat and bread by heavy duties; and the abundant fruits of their happy climate remained almost their sole means of support. The duke of Arcos, who was then viceroy, could find no other expedient to meet the still craving demands of his court upon a country already drained of its life-blood, than to impose a tax upon this last supply of food; and his measure roused the famishing people to desperation.

An accidental affray in the market of Naples swelled into a general insurrection of the populace of the capital; and an obscure and bold individual from the dregs of the people immediately rose to the head of the insurgents. Tommaso Aniello, better known under the name of Masaniello, a native of Amalfi and servant of a fisherman, had received an affront from the officers of the customs and sought an occasion of gratifying his lurking vengeance. Seizing the moment when the popular exasperation was at its height, he led the rioters to the attack and demolition of the custom-house. The flames of insurrection at once spread with uncontrollable violence; the palace of the viceroy was pillaged; and Arcos himself was driven for refuge to one of the castles of Naples. The infuriated populace murdered many of the nobles, burned the houses of all who were obnoxious to them, and filled the whole capital with flames and blood. Their youthful idol Masaniello, tattered and half naked, with a scaffold for his throne and the sword for his sceptre, commanded everywhere with absolute sway.

The viceroy, terrified into virtue at these excesses, which the long oppression of his court and his own tyranny had provoked, and finding the insurrection spreading through the provinces, consented to all the demands of Masaniello and his followers. By a treaty which he concluded with the insurgents, he solemnly promised the repeal of all the taxes imposed since the time of Charles V, and engaged that no new duties should thenceforth be levied; he guaranteed the ancient and long-violated privileges of parliament; and he bound himself by oath to an act of oblivion. A short interval of calm was thus gained; but the perfidious viceroy employed it only in gratifying the vanity of Masaniello by caresses and entertainments; until, having caused a potion to be administered to him in his wine at a banquet, he succeeded in unsettling his reason. The demagogue then by his extravagances and cruelties lost the affection of the people; and Arcos easily procured his assassination by some of his own followers.

[1647-1648 A.D.]

The viceroy had no sooner thus deprived the people of their young leader, whose native talents had rendered him truly formidable, than he immediately showed a determination to break all the articles of his compact. But the people, penetrating his treachery, flew again to arms; and the insurrection burst forth in the capital and provinces with more sanguinary fury than before. Again Arcos dissembled; and again the deluded people had laid down their arms; when, on the appearance of a Spanish fleet before Naples, the citadels and shipping suddenly opened a tremendous cannonade on the city; and at the same moment some thousand Spanish infantry disembarked and commenced a general massacre in the streets. The Neapolitans were confounded and panic-stricken at the aggravated perfidy; but they were a hundred times more numerous than the handful of troops which assailed them. When they recovered from their first consternation, they attacked their enemies in every street; and after a frightful carnage on both sides, the Spaniards were driven either into the fortresses or the sea.

After this conflict, the people, who, since the death of Masaniello, had fallen under the influence of Gennaro Annese, a soldier of mean birth, resolved fiercely and fearlessly to throw off the Spanish yoke altogether. It chanced that Henry, duke of Guise, who by maternal descent from the second line of Anjou had some hereditary pretensions to the Neapolitan crown, was at this juncture at Rome on his private business; and to him the insurgents applied, with the offer of constituting him their captain-general. At the same time they resolved to erect Naples into a republic under his presidency; and the duke, a high-spirited prince, hastened to assume a command which opened so many glorious prospects of ambition. The contest with the Spanish viceroy, his fortresses, and squadron, was then resumed with new bloodshed, and with indecisive results. But though the Neapolitans had hailed the name of a republic with rapture, they were, of all people, by their inconsistency and irresolution, least qualified for such a form of government. In this insurrection, they had for some time professed obedience to the king of Spain, while they were resisting his arms; and even now they wavered, and were divided among themselves. On the one hand, the duke de Guise, outraged by their excesses, and grasping perhaps at the establishment of an arbitrary power in his own person, began to exercise an odious authority, and showed himself intolerant of the influence of Annese: on the other, that leader of the people was irritated at finding himself deprived of all command. In his jealousy of Guise, he basely resolved to betray his countrymen to the Spaniards; and in the temporary absence of the duke, who had left the city with a small force to protect the introduction of some supplies, he opened the gates to the enemy (1648 A.D.). When the Spanish troops re-entered the capital the abject multitude received them with loud acclamations; and the duke of Guise himself, in endeavouring to effect his flight, was made prisoner, and sent to Spain. In one of those gloomy Spanish dungeons he was kept a prisoner and mourned for some years the vanity of his ambition.

[1648-1674 A.D.]

Thus, in a few hours, was the Spanish yoke again fixed on the necks of the prostrate Neapolitans; and it was riveted more firmly and grievously than ever. As soon as their submission was secured, almost all the men who had taken a prominent share in the insurrection, and who had been promised pardon, were seized, and under various pretences of their having mediated new troubles, were either publicly or privately executed. The traitor Gennaro Annese himself shared the same fate—a worthy example that neither the faith of oaths, nor the memory of eminent services are securities against the jealousy and vengeance of despotism. That despotism had no longer anything to fear from the degraded people who had returned under its iron sceptre. The miseries of Naples could not increase; but they were not diminished until the death of Charles II and the extinction of the Austrian dynasty of Spain in the last year of the century.

The sister kingdom of Sicily had long shared the lot of Naples, in all the distresses which the tyrannical and impolitic government of Spain could inflict upon the people. The Sicilians were only more fortunate than their continental neighbours, as the inferior wealth and resources of their island rendered them a less inviting prey to the insatiable necessities of Spain, to the drain of her wars, and the rapacity of her ministers. But even in Sicily, which by the excellence of its soil for raising corn seems intended to be the granary of Italy, the Spanish government succeeded in creating artificial dearth and squalid penury; and in the natural seat of abundance, the people were often without bread to eat. Their misery goaded them at length nearly to the commission of the same excesses as those which have just been described at Naples. A few months earlier than the revolt under Masaniello the lower orders rose at Palermo, chose for their leader one Giuseppe d’Alessi, a person of as low condition as the Neapolitan demagogue, and under his orders put their viceroy, the marquis of los Velos, to flight. But this insurrection at Palermo was less serious than that of Naples and, after passing through similar stages, was more easily quelled. The Sicilian viceroy, like Arcos, did not scruple at premeditated violation of the solemnity of oaths. Like him, he swore to grant the people all their demands, and a total amnesty; and yet, after perfidiously obtaining the assassination of the popular leader, he caused the inhabitants to be slaughtered in the streets, their chiefs to be hanged, and the burdens which he had been forced to remove to be laid on again.

This detestable admixture of perfidy and sanguinary violence bent the spirit of the Palermitans to the yoke, and Sicily relapsed into the tameness of suffering for above twenty-seven years; until this tranquillity was broken, during the general war in Europe, which preceded the Treaty of Nimeguen, by a new and more dangerous insurrection. The city of Messina had, until this epoch, in some measure enjoyed a republican constitution and was governed by a senate of its own, under the presidency only of a Spanish lieutenant, with very limited powers. This freedom of the city had insured its prosperity: its population amounted to sixty thousand souls, its commerce flourished, and its wealth rivalled the dreams of avarice. The Neapolitan historian asserts that the privileges of the people had rendered them insolent; but there is more reason to believe that the Spanish government looked with a jealous and unfriendly eye upon a happy independence, which was calculated to fill their other Sicilian subjects with bitter repinings at the gloomy contrast of their own wretched slavery. Several differences with successive viceroys regarding their privileges had inspired the citizens of Messina with discontent; and at length they rose in open rebellion against their Spanish governor, Don Diego de Soria, and expelled him from the city (1674 A.D.). Despairing of defending their rights, without assistance, against the whole power of the Spanish monarchy, they had then recourse to Louis XIV, and tempted him with the offer of the sovereignty of their city, and the eventual union of their whole island with the French dominions. Louis eagerly closed with a proposal, which opened at least an advantageous diversion in his war against Spain. He was proclaimed king of Sicily at Messina, and immediately despatched a small squadron to take possession of the city in his name.

[1674-1679 A.D.]

The arrival of his force was succeeded, early in the following year, by that of a formidable French fleet, under the duke de Vivonne; and the Messinese, being encouraged by these succours, rejected all the Spanish offers of indemnity and accommodation. On the other hand, the court of Madrid, being roused to exertion by the danger of losing the whole island, had fitted out a strong armament to secure its preservation and the recovery of Messina; and a Dutch fleet under the famous De Ruyter arrived in the Mediterranean to co-operate with the Spanish forces. The war in Sicily was prosecuted with fury on both sides for nearly four years; and several sanguinary battles were fought off the coast, between the combined fleets and that of France. In all of these the French had the advantage: in one, the gallant De Ruyter fell; and in another, the French, under Vivonne and Duquesne, with inferior force, attacked the Dutch and Spanish squadrons of twenty-seven sail of the line, nineteen galleys, and several fire-ships at anchor, under the guns of Palermo, and gained a complete victory. This success placed Messina in security, and might have enabled both Naples and Sicily to throw off the onerous dominion of Spain. But the spiritless and subjugated people evinced no disposition to rise against their oppressors; and all the efforts of the French eventually failed in extending the authority of their monarch beyond the walls of Messina.

The French king had lost the hope of possessing himself of all Sicily, and was already weary of supporting the Messinese, when the conferences for a general peace were opened at Nimeguen. There, dictating as a conqueror, he might at least have stipulated for the ancient rights of the Messinese, and insisted upon an amnesty for the brave citizens, who, relying on the sacred obligation of protection, had utterly provoked the vengeance of their Spanish governors by placing themselves under his sceptre. But, that his pride might not suffer by a formal evacuation of the city as a condition of the approaching peace, he basely preferred the gratification of this absurd punctilio to the real preservation of honour and the common dictates of humanity. His troops were secretly ordered to abandon Messina before the signature of peace; and so precipitate was the embarkation that the wretched inhabitants, stricken with sudden terror at their impending fate, despairing of pardon from their former governors, and hopeless of successful resistance against them, had only a few hours to choose between exile and anticipated death. Seven thousand of them hurried on board the French fleet, without having time to secure even their money or portable articles, and the French commander, fearing that his vessels would be overcrowded, sailed from the harbour; while two thousand more of the fugitives yet remained on the beach with outstretched arms, in the last agonies of despair, vainly imploring him with piercing cries not to abandon them to their merciless enemies.

The condition of the Messinese who fled for refuge to France, and of those who remained in the city, differed little in the event. Louis XIV, after affording the former an asylum for scarcely more than one short year, inhumanly chased them in the last stage of destitution from his dominions. About five hundred of them, rashly venturing to return to their country, under the faith of Spanish passports, were seized on their arrival at Messina, and either executed or condemned to the galleys. Many others, even of the highest rank, were reduced to beg their bread over Europe, or to congregate in bands, and rob on the highways; and the miserable remnant, plunged into the abyss of desperation, passed into Turkey, and fearfully consummated their wretchedness by the renunciation of their faith. Their brethren, who had not quitted Messina, had meanwhile at first been deluded with the hope of pardon by the Spanish viceroy of Sicily. But the amnesty which he published was revoked by special orders from Madrid; and all, who had been in any way conspicuous in the insurrection, were either put to death or banished. Messina was deprived of all its privileges; the town-house was razed to the ground; and on the spot was erected a galling monument of the degradation of the city—a pyramid surmounted by the statue of the king of Spain, cast with the metal of the great bell which had formerly summoned the people to their free parliaments. The purposes of Spanish tyranny were accomplished: the population of Messina had dwindled from sixty to eleven thousand persons; and the obedience of the city was insured by a desolation from which it has never since risen to its ancient prosperity.

[1600-1679 A.D.]

Thus were the annals of Naples and Sicily distinguished only, during the seventeenth century, by paroxysms of popular suffering. The condition of central Italy was more obscure and tranquil; for the maladministration of its rulers did not occasion the same resistance. Yet if the papal government was less decidedly tyrannical and rapacious than that of Spain, the evils, which had become inherent in it during preceding ages, remained undiminished and incurable; and agricultural and commercial industry was permanently banished from the Roman states. Meanwhile the succession of the pontiffs was marked by few circumstances to arrest our attention. To Clement VIII, who reigned at the opening of the century, succeeded in 1604 Leo XI, of the family of Medici, who survived his election only a few weeks; and on his death the cardinal Camillo Borghese was raised to the tiara by the title of Paul V. Filled with extravagant and exploded opinions of the authority of the holy see, Paul V signalised the commencement of his pontificate by the impotent attempt to revive those pretensions of the papal jurisdiction and supremacy over the powers of the earth, which, in the dark ages, had inundated Italy and the empire with blood. He thus involved the papacy in disputes with several of the Catholic governments of Europe, and in a serious difference with Venice in particular. After his merited defeat on this occasion, he cautiously avoided to compromise his authority by the repetition of any similar efforts; and during the remainder of his pontificate of sixteen years, his only cares were to embellish the ecclesiastical capital, and to enrich his nephews with vast estates in the Roman patrimony, which thus became the hereditary possessions of the family of Borghese.

THE RECANTATION OF GALILEO

Paul V, on his death in 1621, was succeeded by Gregory XV, whose insignificant pontificate filled only two years; and in 1623 the conclave placed the cardinal Maffeo Barberini in the chair of St. Peter, under the name of Urban VIII. This pope, during a reign of twenty-one years, was wholly under the guidance of his two nephews, the cardinal Antonio and Taddeo Barberini, prefect of Rome. These ambitious relatives were not satisfied with the riches which he heaped upon them; and their project of acquiring for their family the Roman duchies of Castro and Ronciglione, fiefs held of the church by the house of Farnese, involved the papacy in a war with Parma. Odoardo Farnese, the reigning duke of Parma, had contracted immense debts to charitable foundations at Rome, of which he neglected to pay even the interest. He thus afforded Taddeo Barberini, as prefect of that capital, a pretext for summoning him before the apostolic chamber; and on his contemptuous neglect of the citation, the Barberini obtained an order for sequestrating his Roman fiefs. The duke of Parma had recourse to arms for his defence; the pope excommunicated him; and hostilities commenced between him and Taddeo, who acted as general of the church. But this war of the Barberini, as it has been named, the only strictly Italian contest of the century, produced no decisive result. It was invested with a ridiculous character by the cowardice of Taddeo and the papal troops, who, to the number of eighteen thousand, fled before a handful of cavalry under the duke Odoardo. After this disgraceful check, the Barberini were but too happy to obtain a suspension of arms; and the war was shortly terminated by a treaty, which left the combatants in their original state (1644).

Urban VIII, or rather his nephews, had thus failed in gaining possession of the fiefs of Castro and Ronciglione; but the pope had succeeded some years before in securing to the holy see a much more important acquisition, which he did not venture to appropriate to his family. This was the duchy of Urbino, which had remained under the sovereignty of the family of Rovere since the beginning of the sixteenth century, when Julius II had induced the last prince of the line of Montefeltro to adopt his nephew for a successor. The house of Rovere had for 120 years maintained the intellectual splendour of the little court of Urbino, the most polished in Italy; but Urban VIII persuaded the aged duke, Francesco Maria, who had no male heirs, to abdicate his sovereignty in favour of the church. The duchy of Urbino was annexed to the Roman states; and the industry and prosperity for which it had been remarkable under its own princes immediately withered.[c]