The philosophers Montesquieu[14] and Gibbon,[15] the economist Sismondi,[16] the doctrinaire Guizot,[17] the republican Michelet,[18] the eclectic Schlosser,[19] high tory Alison,[20] moderate Merivale,[21] democrat Bancroft,[22] quasi conservative, quasi liberal Charles Kingsley,[23] wide apart as the poles on all else, agree to name as a cause of Roman ruin the system of forced labor.
But after the Roman downfall the straggle of Italy with her upper caste seems singularly fortunate. At an early day her cities by commerce became rich and strong. Then in the natural course of things—first, free ideas, next, free institutions, next, war upon the nobles to make them respect these ideas and institutions.
The war of municipalities against nobles was successful. Elsewhere in Europe cities sheltered themselves behind lords; in Italy lords sheltered themselves in cities. Elsewhere the lord dwelt in the castle above the city; in Italy the lord was forced to dwell in his palace within the city.[24]
The victory of freedom seemed complete. The Italian republics were triumphant; the nobility were, to all appearance, subdued.
But those republics made a fearful mistake. They had a great chance to destroy caste and lost it. They allowed the old caste spirit to remain, and that evil leaven soon renewed its work. The republics showed generalship in war, but in peace they were outwitted.
First, the nobles insisted on pretended rights within the city, and stirred perpetual civil war to make these rights good.[25]
Beaten at this they had yet a worse influence. Those great free cities would not indeed allow the nobles to indulge in private wars, but gradually the cities caught the infection from the nobles. The cities caught their aristocratic spirit of jealousy,—took nobles as leaders,—ran into their modes of plotting and fighting, and what I have called the Vitriolic period set in.
Undoubtedly some of this propensity came from other causes, but the main cause was this domineering aristocracy in its midst, giving tone to its ideas. Free cities in other parts of Europe disliked each other,—a few fought each other,—but none with a tithe of the insane hate and rage shown by the city republics of Italy.[26]
Hence arose that political product sure to rise in every nation where an aristocracy shape policy, the Spirit of Disunion. Its curse has been upon Italy for five hundred years. Dante felt it when he sketched the torments of Riniero of Corneto and Riniero Pazzo,[27] and the woes brought on Florence by the feuds of the Neri and Bianchi.[28] Sismondi felt it when his thoughts of Italian disunion wrung from his liberty-loving heart a longing for Despotism.[29] All Italy felt it when Genoa, in these last years, solemnly restored to Pisa the trophies gained in those old civil wars, and hung them up in the Campo Santo behind the bust of Cavour.
No other adequate reason for the chronic spirit of disunion in Italy than the oppressive aristocratic spirit can be given. Italy was blest with every influence for unity;—a most favorable position and conformation, boundaries sharply defined on three sides by seas and on the remaining side by lofty mountains, a great devotion to trade, a single great political tradition, a single great religious tradition, both drawing the nation toward one great central city.