We see, from what has been said, that it was impossible Fieschi should have had truthful historians in the provinces ruled by Charles V. It was not to be expected in Genoa, where the supreme authority of the Dorias compelled even the least servile writers to the most skilful management of conscience and speech.
Neither in Tuscany, where the seeds of the Medicean tyranny were already springing up; not in Lombardy, which was the battle-ground of the two opposing factions; not in the kingdom of Naples tossed like a foot-ball from one master to another, but at the moment in the grasp of Cæsar. Finally, not in Rome where the Spanish government, in its war to the death upon the spirit of civil and religious liberty, found a swift accomplice in the Papal court which employed the zeal and devotion of its inquisitors in consigning to the flames both books and their authors. It is enough that no writer in Italy was permitted to answer the blind devotee of Rome, Baronius.
A few noble spirits arose to tell the truth of the Austro-Spanish power; such as Bandello, Ariosto, Boccalini and Tassoni; nevertheless in the period between Charles V. and the middle of the 17th century no true light of history shone on the Peninsula.
Learned and literary men lived in the courts, then the only dispensers of fame, and writers were more valued for their promptness in serving masters than for their mental acquirements. Even the best writers exhausted their ambition in the chase for courtly favour. It is not true that the protection of princes was useful to letters and arts; it only seduced them from the path of duty. Truth was banished from books because it displeased our masters, and history was sure to be smothered if it contained more than panegyric. Spanish wordiness had corrupted liberal studies and Italians were no longer honestly indignant against the oppressors of their country. They descended from employing their imaginations in intellectual creations to pandering to the senses. Literary entertainments, like falcons and buffoons, served for the sport of courtiers, as an instrument of corruption rather than a stimulant to generous pursuits. Intellect being thus prostrated, Fieschi could find no historian courageous enough to clear away the falsehoods that blackened his fame and constrain his calumniators to an honest confession. Cybo, Farnese, and whoever else, following the footsteps of Fieschi, opposed at the price of their lives Spanish influence, shared the historical misfortune of the Count of Lavagna.
It was necessary, then, to rewrite this history and I resolved to attempt the task. There are subjects (and the conspiracy of Fieschi is one of them) which seen from a distance fill us with apprehension, but when we approach and handle them, the alarm which possessed us generally disappears. I approached my subject with honest boldness and having studied it intimately, I have dared to rebel against the common opinion of the learned. If it were necessary to quote all the authorities for a conviction so opposed to the current of corrupted history the list would be too long. I, therefore appeal to the cultivated who will, I hope, bear me witness that very little within the range of the subject has escaped my notice. I ought, however, to remark that the Archives of Madrid and Paris have furnished me with foreign notices of the revolts of Fieschi and his partisans, and that more perfect information has been obtained from the Archives of Genoa, Florence, Parma, Massa and Carrara, and from some codexes and manuscripts which once belonged to Cardinal Adriano Fieschi (the last of the Savignone branch of the Fieschi family) whose heir, Count Alessandro Negri di S. Front, kindly permitted me to consult them at my pleasure. I render him my most hearty thanks. I have drawn other materials from the writings of the sacred college of Padua in favour of the Republic and the pleadings of the famous jurists who sustained the Fieschi party. Many other notices have been taken from private libraries in Genoa, which are at once so numerous and so difficult of access. Some documents very favourable to the cause of Fieschi were recently published by the erudite Bernardo Brea, but the greater part of them were already familiar to me; for the history which I now send to the press was written several years ago—a proof of which is that many extracts from it were then published in the journals. It is hardly worth while to dwell upon the reasons which kept me from publishing the work: The times were not, and are not, propitious to historic studies; yet I am forced in my own despite to bring my manuscript to light, lest I be accused of treading in the footsteps of a great author who has recently removed many a stain from the name of Fieschi and lashed his detractors with the severest condemnation.[2]
A modest cultivator of peaceful studies, I do not fear that any will suspect me of aiming to destroy the reverence due to a great name; or that I shall receive the sentence pronounced by Richelieu, who, on reading the conspiracy of Fieschi written by Cardinal de Retz in his youth, prophesied that the author would develop a turbulent and revolutionary spirit.
My humble condition and the honesty of my intentions render me safe from similar vacticinations. Though in my opinions upon the conspiracy I depart from the paths beaten by other writers, it is not without adequate reasons. I feel that the religion of truth, has had hitherto too few worshippers, that reverence for the unfortunate great of Italy has been long put under ban, and do not hesitate to say that if what I shall dare to write was not unknown by others it was most certainly concealed. What were the aims of Fieschi? What of Andrea Doria? Whither tended the uprising of the people? Who breathed life into the cause of national independence? To these questions, so far as I know, no one has yet made a sufficient answer; and, indeed, how can one write of Fieschi and Doria without investigating their personal motives, prying into the secrets of their hearts? Our historians, copying each other and compressing the tragedy of a century into a few pages, have given us only the conspiracy and the uprising, that is the least philosophic moment. For us, history begins where the strife ends. The designs which animate the combatants do not die with them, and they expand into the most interesting questions. Let the writer who does not feel the greatness of his mission shun these questions, I prefer that the reader shall not believe me a timorous friend of truth.
If once terror chained men’s souls, if great names could not be discussed, to-day, delivered from the febrile excitements of our predecessors, we may freely praise and blame the men and deeds of three centuries ago.
Nor is this all. A general history of Italy remains to be written, and the materials are scattered in the archives of our communes. Italy will write it when she shall have secured independence and a true national unity. In the meantime, mindful of the saying of Vico that, “we ought to seek for minute notices of facts and their antecedents rather than general causes and events, since by an accurate study of the facts themselves it becomes easy to find the causes and to clear up effects which often seem incredible to us,” I have devoted my utmost strength to removing a portion of that veil which covers the name of Fieschi, happy if I am able in this effort to correct some erroneous opinions and to prepare matter for the future historian of the nation.