11. Write a brief report on the commercial history of one of the following towns: Frankfort on the Main, Leipzig (or Leipsic), Hamburg, Bremen. [Encyc.; Homans, Cyc. of commerce, for the early nineteenth century.]
12. Effect of the protective tariff in building up the Prussian silk industry. [Schmoller, Merc. syst., pp. 81-91.]
13. Indicate on a sketch map of Austria-Hungary the spaces occupied by the following peoples: Germans, Bohemians, Ruthenians, Hungarians, Southern Slavs. [Atlas, Encyc.]
14. The wars with the Turks: how long did they last; how far did the Turks penetrate Europe; what was the effect on industry? [S. Whitman, Austria, N. Y., Putnam, 1899, $1.50, chap. 16; E. A. Freeman, Ottoman power in Europe, London, 1877, chaps. 4, 5.]
15. Reforms in Austria in the eighteenth century, and their effect. [L. Leger, Hist. of Austro-Hungary, N. Y., Putnam, 1889, 379 ff., 388 ff.].
16. Write a brief report on the commercial history of Vienna. [Encyc.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Writings in German are voluminous; English books on the history of the period are concerned almost entirely with political affairs. The translation of Janssen’s *History, St. Louis, Herder, 1897 ff., can be recommended for the beginning of the period, and Freytag’s *Pictures of German life, London, 1862, contains some readable and useful descriptions.
CHAPTER XXVII
ITALY AND MINOR STATES
306. Political condition of Italy in the modern period.—In the history of Germany we have seen the fate of a country that entered the modern period lacking a political organization that would enable it to hold its own in competition with rivals. The history of Italy in this period presents the same conditions and the same results. At the end of the Middle Ages there were five important states in the peninsula: Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome, and Naples. None was strong enough to unite the country; each was strong enough to prevent another from reaching that end. The border territory of Savoy, whose rulers have united the peninsula in recent times, resolving, in the words of one, to “treat Italy as an artichoke, to be eaten leaf by leaf,” counted as yet for little. The quarrels of the Italian states invited interference by stronger neighbors, Spanish, French, and Austrian; and Italy became the prey of adventurers and tyrants who lived as parasites on the resources that should have nourished industry and commerce.