TUSCANY
[1600-1670 A.D.]
From the affairs of Mantua, we may pass to those of Tuscany; but the transition is attended with little augmentation of interest. A common dearth of attraction marks the annals of most of the despotisms of Italy; and when Tuscany descended to the rank of a duchy, her pre-eminence of splendour survived only in the past, and her modern story sank into the same ignominious obscurity with that of Parma, and Modena, and Mantua. We are reminded only of the existence of the solitary republic which survived in this quarter of Italy, to wonder how Lucca escaped subjugation to the power whose dominions encircled and hemmed in her narrow territory; and we are permitted to contemplate her ancient republican rivals, Florence, Siena, and Pisa, only as the capital and the provincial cities of the ducal sovereigns of Tuscany. Of these princes of the house of Medici, four reigned successively during the seventeenth century. At its commencement, the ducal crown was worn by Ferdinand I, whose personal vices and political talents have been already noticed. After the failure of his project to throw off the Spanish yoke, his efforts were exclusively devoted to the encouragement of commerce and maritime industry among his subjects; and the enlightened measures to which he was prompted by a thorough knowledge of the science of government, and a keen perception of his own interests, were rewarded with signal success. To attract the trade of the Mediterranean to the shores of Tuscany, he made choice of the castle of Livorno (Leghorn) for the seat of a free port. He improved the natural advantages of its harbour, which had already excited the attention of some of his predecessors, by several grand and useful works; he invested the town which rose on the site with liberal privileges; and from this epoch, Livorno continued to flourish, until it attained the mercantile prosperity and opulence which have rendered it one of the first maritime cities of the peninsula. The skilful policy which Ferdinand I pursued in this and other respects produced a rapid influx of wealth into his states; and before his death, which occurred in 1609, he had amassed immense treasures.
Several of the first princes of the ducal house of Medici seemed to have inherited some portion of that commercial ability by which their merchant ancestors had founded the grandeur of their house; and they profited by the contempt or ignorance which precluded other Italian princes from rivalling them in the cultivation of the same pursuits. Cosmo II, the son and successor of Ferdinand, imitated his example with even more earnest zeal, and with more brilliant success. But on his death, in 1621, the minority of his son Ferdinand II destroyed the transient prosperity of the ducal government. The rich treasury of the two preceding dukes was drained in furnishing troops and subsidies to Spain and Austria; and Ferdinand, who was left under the guardianship of his grandmother and mother, was only released from female tutelage on attaining the age of manhood, to exhibit during his long reign all the enfeebling consequences of such an education. His character was mild, peaceable, and benevolent; and his administration responded to his personal qualities. From this epoch, the political importance of Tuscany entirely ceased; the state was stricken with moral paralysis; and lethargy and indolence became the only characteristics of the government and the people.
Ferdinand II, however, was not destitute of talents; and the enthusiasm with which the grand-duke and his brother promoted the cultivation of science at least protected his inactive reign from the reproach of utter insignificance. But his son, Cosmo III, who ascended his throne in 1670, reigned with a weakness which was relieved by no intellectual tastes. Unhappy and suspicious in his temper, his life was embittered by domestic disagreements with his duchess; fanatical and bigoted, he was constantly surrounded and governed by monks; and at the close of the seventeenth century, Florence, once the throne of literature, the fair and splendid seat of all the arts which can embellish and illumine life, was converted into the temple of gloomy superstition and hypocrisy.