At this time, although his health was ruined by mental worry and bodily hardship, his purse emptied, and his army melted away, the emperor was still calm and hopeful. In Pisa he made many attempts to pursue the war by legal devices: depriving the Florentines of their judicial rights, dismissing their judges and notaries, imposing heavy fines, and condemning many of their citizens to confiscation and punishment. And regardless of the fact that these sentences had no effect, he continued to launch them as before. He prohibited the Florentines from coining money, while permitting Ubizzo Spinola of Genoa and the Marquis of Monferrato to fabricate within their own territories false florins marked with the Florentine stamp. Naturally an act so damaging to the public credit provoked severe blame.[605] He condemned King Robert as a traitor to the Empire, and made alliance with Frederic of Sicily and the Genoese. He also determined to march against Naples, although the Pope had threatened excommunication on any one attacking that kingdom, which was considered a fief of the Church. Burning with zeal for this new enterprise, he demanded money and men from Lombardy and Germany. He was thus enabled to collect 2,500 foreign and 1,500 Italian horse, besides an army of foot soldiers. Seventy galleys were equipped by the Genoese; fifty by King Frederic. The Pisans, who had already sacrificed everything to his cause, managed to furnish twenty galleys. He also obtained a certain amount of money, and set off on the 8th of August, 1313, with some reasonable hope of success. But his sudden death at Buonconvento, on the 24th of May, brought everything to an end.
On the 27th of the same month the Florentines exultantly announced to their allies that "Jesus Christ had procured the death of that most haughty tyrant, Henry, entitled King of the Romans and Emperor, by the rebel persecutors of Holy Church, to wit, your Ghibellines and our foes."[606] During Henry's life they had conferred the lordship of Florence on Robert for five years, and now stretched the term to three more, on the well-understood condition that their free, Guelph, and popular government should be left intact. All they asked from him was a military leader bearing the king's flag, acting in his name, contributing a few sturdy men at arms, and competent to take command of the citizen army in order to protect the Republic from possible attacks on the part of Pisa or Genoa, and against Ghibelline captains such as Uguccione della Fagguiola and others. Pisa and Uguccione were their most dreaded foes. The latter, indeed, had already hired one thousand of Henry's soldiers, composing the first of those Free Companies destined to speedily become the real scourge of Italy.[607]
The Pope, now reduced to be the slave of France, threw himself into the arms of King Robert, and named him Senator of Rome, thus causing the return thither of Angevin vicars. As the Pontiff hoped to be able to assume the authority of the Empire during the interregnum, he annulled Henry's decree against Robert, and appointed him Imperial Vicar in Italy for a term extending to two months after the election of the next emperor.
Notwithstanding Robert's augmented power and his lordship over their city, the Florentines were now vastly improved in strength, both morally and materially, since they had foreseen future events far more accurately than others, had been the chief authors of all that had occurred, and were the friends and allies of those who had triumphed with them. The people were substantially supreme; the magnates were overthrown; and trade which had gone on uninterruptedly during the war, attained more vigorous development now that peace was restored. But what had become of the Guelph Federation, and of the name of Italy invoked to call it into being? All had vanished in a flash. The very fact of the Florentines now feeling compelled to crave protection from a king, clearly proves that their vast prosperity, notwithstanding the Republic, had neither sufficient self-reliance nor strength to preserve its independence unaided. This state of things necessarily involved new complications and new dangers which could be in no case long averted. The Italian Commune was doomed to decay; the modern State destined to be born; but the moment of its birth lay beyond a period of oppression. The same fate was already distantly impending over Florence.
After Henry VII. was dead, both the nature of the Empire and its relations with Italy were changed. So, too, the Pope's alliance with France radically transformed the attitude of the Papal power towards the Italian communes, for it became increasingly hostile to their freedom and independence. The Middle Ages had come to an end, and an entirely new epoch was now opening in the history of Florence and of Italy in general.
THE END.
[FOOTNOTES]
[1] Originally published in the Milan Politecnico, March, 1866.
[2] "Lettres sur l'hist. de France." close of Letter xxv.