Outlines of Universal History, Designed as a Text-book and for Private Reading

by George Park Fisher

II. ITALY.

GUELFS AND GHIBELLINES: FREEDOM IN THE CITIES.—The inveterate foes of Italy were foreign interference and domestic faction. After the death of Frederick II., the war of the popes against his successors lasted for seventeen years. After the defeat of Manfred (1266), Conradin, the last of the Hohenstaufens, died on the scaffold at Naples. Charles of Anjou lost Sicily through the rebellion of the Sicilian Vespers (1282); and dominion in that island, separated from Naples, passed to the house of Aragon. The papal states, after the election of Rudolph of Hapsburg, became a distinct sovereignty of the pontiffs. The bitter strife of the Guelfs and Ghibellines went on in the Italian cities. The Genoese, who were Guelfic, defeated the Pisans in 1284; and "Pisa, which had ruined Amalfi, was now ruined by Genoa." Florence, which was Guelfic, grew in strength. Genoa and Venice became rivals in the contest for the control of the Mediterranean. In Florence, new factions, the Neri and Bianchi (Blacks and Whites), appeared; the Neri being violent Guelfs, and the Bianchi being at first moderate Guelfs and then Ghibellines. Pope Boniface VIII. invited into Italy Charles of Valois. He was admitted to Florence (1301), and gave the supremacy there to the Guelfic side. The coming of the Emperor Henry VII. into Italy (1310) was marked by a temporary, but the last, revival of imperial feeling. The connection of the popes with the French houses of Anjou and Valois led to the "Babylonian Exile" at Avignon, during which Italy was comparatively free, both from imperial and papal control. During the period of the civil wars, while there was nominally a conflict between the party of the pope and the party of the emperor, the Guelfs were devoted to the destruction of feudalism, and to the building-up of commerce and republican institutions; while the Ghibellines, dreading anarchy, resisted the incoming of the new order of things. It was in this period that Dante produced his immortal poem, which sprang out of the midst of the contest of Guelf and Ghibelline (p. 307). Dante was himself a Ghibelline and an imperialist. In the course of these conflicts, the plebeian class, before without power, is advanced. Older families of nobility die out, or are reduced in influence. New families rise to prominence and power. The burghers band together in arts or guilds; and out of these, in their corporate character, the governments of the cities are formed. "Ancients," and "priors," the heads of the "arts," supersede the consuls. The "podesta" is more and more limited to a judicial function. In some of the Guelf cities, there is "a gonfalonier of justice," to curb the nobility. In Florence, there were also twenty subordinate gonfaloniers.

The final triumph of Guelfs and of republicanism in Florence was in 1253. The body of the citizens established their sovereignty. When, in 1266, citizenship was confined to those who were enrolled in the guilds, the nobles, or Grandi, were wholly excluded from the government. This led them to drop their titles and dignities in order to enroll themselves in these industrial societies. The feuds of factions, especially of the "Whites" and "Blacks," sprang up next. In the latter part of the fourteenth century, strife arose between the "Lesser Arts," or craftsmen whose trades were subordinate to the "Greater Arts," and these last. The mob in Florence drove the "Signory," or chief magistrates, out of the public palace. This was the "Tumult of the Ciompi,"—Ciompi signifying wool-carders, who gave their name to the whole faction. Afterwards, of their own accord, they gave back the government to the priors of the Greater Arts. The effect of these disturbances was to reduce all classes to a level. The way was open for families, like the Albizzi and Medici, to build up a virtual control by wealth and personal qualities.

THE GENERALS IN THE CITIES.—In the cities, there were "captains of the people," who carried on war,—leaders of the Guelfs or Ghibellines, as either might be uppermost. They were persons who were skilled in arms: these were often nobles who had been merged in the body of citizens. In this way, there arose in the cities of Northern Italy ruling houses or dynasties; as the Della Scala in Verona, the Polenta at Ravenna, etc. In Tuscany, where the commercial power of Florence was so great, the communes as yet kept themselves free from hereditary rulers; yet, from time to time, their liberties were exposed to attack from successful generals.

THE TYRANTS.—At the beginning of the fourteenth century, as the fury of the civil wars declined, the cities were left more and more under the rule of masters called "tyrants." Tyranny, as of old, was a term for absolute authority, however it might be wielded. The visits of the emperors Henry VII., and Louis IV. of Bavaria, and of John of Bohemia, son of Henry VII., had no important political effect, except to bring increased power to the Ghibelline despots. Thus, after the interference of Louis IV. (1327), the Visconti established their power in Milan. But the changes in Italy after this epoch gave to the Ghibellines no permanent advantage over their adversaries. The leader of the Guelfs for a long time was Robert, king of Naples (1309-1343).

THE CLASSES OF DESPOTS.—The methods by which the Emperor Frederic II. governed in Italy, and which he had partly learned from the Saracens in Sicily, furnished an example which the Italian despots followed later. He was imitated in his system of taxation, in his creation of monopolies, in the luxury and magnificence of his court, and in his patronage of polite culture. His vicar in the North of Italy, Ezzelino da Romano (1194-1259), who was captain, in the Ghibelline interest, in Verona, Padua, and other cities, was guilty of massacres and all sorts of cruelties, the story of which exercised a horrible fascination over others who came after. At last he was 'hunted down' by Venice and a league of cities, and captured; but he refused to take food, tore his bandages from his wounds, and died under the ban of the Church. The despots of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries have been divided by Mr. Symonds into six classes. The first class had a certain hereditary right from the previous exercise of lordship, as the house of Este in Ferrara. The second class, as the Visconti family in Milan, had been vicars of the empire. The third class were captains, or podestas, chosen by the burghers to their office, but abusing it to enslave the cities. Most of the tyrants of Lombardy got their power in this way. The fourth class is made up of the Condottieri, like Francesco Sforza at Milan. The fifth class includes the nephews or sons of popes, and is of later origin, like the Borgia of Romagna. Their governments had less stability. The sixth class is that of eminent citizens, like the Medici at Florence and the Bentivogli of Bologna. These acquired undue authority by wealth, sometimes by personal qualities and noble descent. Among those who are called "despots" were individuals of worth, moderation, and culture. The records of many of them are filled with tragic scenes of violence and crime. To maintain their hated rule, they were impelled to the practice of barbarities hardly ever surpassed. (J. A. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy, vol. i. chap, ii.)

CONDOTTIERI.—With the end of the civil wars, there appear "the companies of adventure," or mercenary troops. The burghers, having put down the nobility and achieved their independence, lay aside their arms. They are busy in manufactures and trade. The despots and the republics prefer to hire foreign adventurers, the "free companies," who were a curse to Italy. Their occupation, which was a profitable one, was taken up by natives. These were the condottieri. Their leaders introduced cavalry and more skillful methods of fighting. But the battles were bloodless games of strategy, and military energy declined. At the same time intrigue and state-craft were the instruments of political aggrandizement. One of these new leaders was Sforza Attendolo, whose son became Duke of Milan.

FIVE STATES IN ITALY.—In the middle of the fifteenth century, we find, as the political result of the changes of the preceding century and a half, five principal communities in Italy. These powers are the kingdom of Naples, the duchy of Milan, the republic of Florence, the republic of Venice, and the principality of the Pope. A brief sketch will be given of each of these states down to 1447, when Nicholas V. reëstablished the papacy in its strength at Rome, after the exile at Avignon (1305), and the ecclesiastical convulsions that followed it.

LOWER ITALY.—Robert the Wise (of Anjou) (1309-1343), the successor of Charles II. of Naples and the champion of the Guelfs, could not extend his power over Sicily, where Frederick II. (1296-1337), the son of Peter of Aragon, reigned. Robert's granddaughter, Joan I., after a career of crime and misfortune, was strangled in prison by Charles Durazzo, the last male descendant of the house of Anjou in Lower Italy (1382), who seized on the government. Joan II., the last heir of Durazzo (1414-1435), first adopted Alfonso V. of Aragon, and then Louis III. of Anjou and his brother Rene. Alfonso, who inherited the crown of Sicily, united both kingdoms (1435), after a war with Rene and the Visconti of Milan. By this contest, Italy was divided into two parties, composed of the respective adherents of the houses of Anjou and Aragon, The rights of Rene were to revert later to the crown of France, and to serve as a ground for new wars. For twenty-three years Alfonso reigned wisely and prosperously in Southern Italy. He was a patron of letters, and promoted peace among the Italian states.

THE MILANESE: SFORZA.—Another great power was growing up in the North. The greatness of the Visconti family dates from John, Archbishop of Milan, who reigned there, and died in 1354. Gian Galeazzo Visconti became sole master of Milan in 1385, and extended his dominion over Lombardy. He bought of the Emperor Wenceslaus the ducal title. Twenty-six cities, with their territories, were subject to him. But at Galeazzo's death, his state fell to pieces. The condottieri, whom he had kept under, broke loose from control; and in 1450, one of them, Francesco Sforza, with the help of the Venetians, seized on the supreme power, which his family continued to hold for fifty years.