Duplicity, fraud and treachery took the place of frank and fearless honesty. Entire towns were infected with these vices like a species of leprosy. The inhabitants of Borsonasca acquired a wide reputation for shrewd frauds and deceptions. They understood every sleight of hand, learned foreign tongues and imitated them with admirable skill; they had cunning artifices for getting other people’s purses, and they travelled in every country in Europe. Though born in the woods, they entered boldly the palaces of nobles and even of princes, dressed as physicians, merchants, bishops and cardinals. They sold charms, medicines, false titles and privileges with such perfect art that they often acquired extravagant wealth and high rank.[55]
Italy, sore wounded, did not die at once. Latin virtue and civilization were so tenacious of life, that whereas nations usually grow barbarous with the loss of liberty, Italy, trodden by foreign and domestic tyrannies, preserved a remnant of her culture, and, though barren of political genius, adorned her sunset with the splendours of science and art.
It was then that speculative philosophy achieved its greatest triumphs among us. Pomponaceo, Telesio, Cardano, Bruno and Campanella, precursors of Cartheusius and Bacon, opened new roads for the progress of the sciences. Strange, too, but true, when Italy was perishing, she produced her greatest soldiers—soldiers who led every other people but their own to victory. The age of our prostration and servitude produced Trivulzio, Medici, Gonzaga, Farnese, Colonna, Doria, Spinola, Strozzi, and Orsini.
But Genoa, perhaps the last to die, was the first to rise; the day came when, purified by suffering, she found strength to avenge in a tempestuous uprising of her people the shame of her long humiliation.[56]
INDEX.
Abbatelli, the, conspirators in Palermo, [87]
Adorno, Antoniotto, retires from the Dogate in 1527, [43];