But the successes of Albornoz appeared more like the conquests of a foreign power than the restoration of a legitimate authority. The long residence in Avignon had alienated Italian sympathies from |Return of the Popes to Rome.| the Papacy. The Visconti embarked in open war with the Popes after the fall of Bologna, and they had many advantages on their side. The ecclesiastical thunders which had frightened Lewis the Bavarian into submission had no terrors for Italian princes. When Bernabo Visconti received a bull of excommunication from the Pope, he forced the legates to eat the parchment and the leaden seal. It was evident that nothing but a return to Italy could render permanent the restored secular authority of the Popes. Urban V., who succeeded Innocent VI. in 1362, was induced by the arguments of Albornoz and the personal influence of Charles IV. to disregard the prejudices of the cardinals, and in 1368 he entered Rome, where he was joined by the emperor. But Urban was soon discouraged by the death of Albornoz, and the obvious weakness of imperial support. He had no natural interests in Italy, which was a foreign country to him, and he found Rome quite as uncomfortable a place of residence as it had been represented. In 1370 he embarked for Marseilles, and returned to Avignon. His departure had the most disastrous results. Papal authority was repudiated by the cities of Romagna, and the Visconti hastened to take advantage of the altered conditions. Even Gregory XI., who had been chosen by the cardinals as the least likely candidate to quit Avignon, found it necessary to follow his predecessor’s example and return to Italy. But his experience in Rome convinced him that the enterprise was hopeless, and his departure was only prevented by his death (March, 1378). The choice of an Italian, Urban VI., as his successor was a partial concession to the violence |The Schism, 1378-1418.| of the Roman mob. On the first pretext the French cardinals deserted their nominee, and the election of a rival Pope, Clement VII., inaugurated the Great Schism which lasted for forty years. During this period the temporal authority of the Papacy was again annihilated, and it was not till the Council of Constance had restored unity in 1418 that its revival could once more be seriously undertaken.
The history of Florence in the fourteenth century is filled with a continuous struggle of classes and families for political |Florence.| ascendency. Though the details of the struggle are complicated and wearisome, it is necessary to pay some attention to its general character in order to understand the conditions under which the later authority of the Medici grew up. The expulsion of the Duke of Athens had been followed by a settlement by which the grandi were excluded from political power, which was to be shared between the members of the greater and the lesser guilds. But as time went on, and the memory of previous disasters was effaced, the popolo grasso began to aim at the |Class jealousies.| recovery of their former preponderance in the city. To propose a direct change of the constitution might provoke a rising of the artisans, so it was decided to obtain the desired end by indirect methods. A law of 1301, of which it was forbidden to propose the revocation under heavy penalties, decreed that a Ghibelline, or any man suspected of not being a true Guelf, was to be incapable of holding office. For the carrying out of this law there grew up the practice of ammonizio, which has been called the ostracism of Florence. If a charge of Ghibellinism were brought against a man, and supported by six witnesses, who swore to public report, the priors were bound to admonish the accused, and any person thus admonished (ammonito) was excluded from office. His name was not placed in the bags, or if it were already included, it was put on one side when drawn out and another name drawn in its place. This party device was now employed by the wealthy burghers to recover a monopoly of power for their class. By systematically bringing a charge of Ghibellinism against the members of the lesser guilds who were likely to obtain office, their exclusion could be effected without any open assertion of disqualification. In carrying out this policy the plutocrats were aided by the organisation of the parte Guelfa (vide p. [35]), which was the stronghold of oligarchical interests within the republic. The accusations were managed by the captains of the parte, and they could always find the necessary six witnesses. The pretext for so strict an enforcement of the law against Ghibellinism was found in the two Italian visits of Charles IV. in 1353 and 1368, though the emperor did nothing whatever to excite the alarm of the Guelfs.
No sooner had the wealthy burghers won their victory by the abuse of what should have been a legal proceeding, than they were divided by the family quarrel of the Albizzi and the Ricci. Both families belonged to the popolo grasso, and |The Albizzi and Ricci.| their feud had at first none of the political significance which came to be associated with it. In fact, the Ricci were the first to urge the harsh enforcement of the anti-Ghibelline laws, hoping to discredit their opponents, who came originally from the Ghibelline town of Arezzo. But the Albizzi succeeded in gaining the support of the parte Guelfa, and were thus enabled to turn the tables on their rivals. The ammonizio was as useful a weapon against the Ricci faction as against the popolo minuto. By 1374 the Albizzi and their supporters had got the government into their hands. But the indiscreet violence of their proceedings provoked serious opposition. The ammoniti, constantly increasing in number, became more and more formidable. The desire for office, such a passion among the Florentines, was not merely due to ordinary ambition, but also to the fact that the taxes were assessed by the arbitrary will of the state officials. The dominant faction, however, failed to appreciate the dangers that confronted them, and in seven months of 1377 more than eighty persons were admonished. This recklessness brought about their ruin. In May 1378, Salvestro de’ Medici, who belonged to the Ricci party, was drawn as gonfalonier. The bags were so depleted that the possibility of his selection was foreseen, but his attachment to Guelf principles was so well known that it was considered unsafe to accuse him. In his second month of office he proposed a law to lessen the power of the parte Guelfa, and to facilitate the recovery of civic rights by the ammoniti. As the scheme met with opposition in the council, one of Salvestro’s supporters, Benedetto Alberti, called the people to arms, and the law was carried under the pressure of mob violence. The result was an unforeseen revolution. The Ricci had been driven by common grievances into an alliance with the lesser guilds, but the |Rising of the Ciompi, 1378.| demand for redress was taken up by the Ciompi, the lowest class of all. They were influenced, not so much by the wish to obtain political power as by the desire to extort better terms from their employers. Their movement was half revolution and half strike. The rising of the mob, which speedily passed beyond the control of those who had called in its aid, might have destroyed the foundations of the state but for the action of a poor wool-comber, Michel Lando, who was raised to the office of gonfalonier by the accident of popular caprice. He succeeded in suppressing disorder, while he satisfied the more rational demands of his own class. A number of new guilds were formed of artisans who had hitherto been unorganised. Of the eight priors, three were to be taken from the arti maggiori, three from the arti minori, and two from the new guilds. After effecting this settlement, Lando, with a modesty as rare as the untaught statesmanship he had displayed, resigned his office. His retirement left the chief power in the hands of the party which had started the movement, but had been unable to control its course. Salvestro de’ Medici had disappeared from public life. Though he was only a distant relative of the later Medici, his career served to associate the family name with the popular cause, and to give them a cue for the policy they afterwards pursued. The leadership of his party fell into the hands of a triumvirate, consisting of Benedetto Alberti, Tommaso Strozzi, and Giorgio Scali. Alberti was a fairly moderate politician, but his two associates were ambitious demagogues, who imitated the abuses of the Albizzi, and employed the ammonizio to rid |Counter-revolution in 1382.| themselves of their personal enemies. The inevitable reaction set in in 1382. A hostile signoria came into office, and a servant of Giorgio Scali was arrested on a charge of bearing false witness. Strozzi fled from the city, but Scali, trusting in the favour of the mob, determined to resist. His attempt to rescue his servant was a failure, and he himself was seized by the priors. The populace would not rise on his behalf, and he was put to death. A counter-revolution undid all the changes of 1378. A balia constituted by a parliament abolished the new guilds, and decreed that the priors should be chosen, four from the greater, and four from the lesser guilds. The gonfalonier was always to belong to the former, who thus secured a majority in the signory. The Albizzi and other exiles were recalled to the city.
For the next fifty years after 1382, Florence was ruled by an ever-narrowing oligarchy. First, the greater guilds |Oligarchical rule in Florence.| recovered a practical monopoly of office. Later, certain members of these guilds obtained such complete ascendency that the government almost ceased to be a republic, and thus the way was prepared for the absolutism of the Medici. In 1387 Benedetto Alberti, the most blameless of the leaders in 1378, was driven into exile. A new squittinio filled the bags with the names of partisans of the dominant faction. A separate bag was formed for the chief leaders of the faction, and two priors were to be drawn from among them (Priori del Borsellino). Six of the priors were to belong to the greater guilds, and only two to the lesser. In 1393 Maso Albizzi, the leader of the oligarchy, held the office of gonfalonier, and further measures were taken to strengthen its supremacy. If a gonfalonier were drawn who was displeasing to the rulers, another was to be drawn in his place, though the former was to remain one of the priors. Three priors instead of two were to be taken from the borsellino, or special bag. The signory was allowed to raise troops, and to levy taxes for their payment, without having to obtain the consent of the councils. These measures provoked a rising among the artisans. The rioters repaired to the house of Vieri de Medici, and invited him to lead them against the Albizzi. Vieri, who was a kinsman of Salvestro de’ Medici, refused the offer of the mob, and the movement was suppressed. In 1397 another rebellion, in which two members of the Medici family were concerned, was also put down, and the rule of the dominant oligarchy was more firmly established than ever.
The great characteristic of this period of oligarchical government is the activity and aggressiveness of the republic |Growth of Florentine dominions.| in its external relations. Before 1342 Florence had acquired the rule of considerable territories beyond the limits of its own contado, but most of these dominions were lost in the disturbances which accompanied the expulsion of the Duke of Athens. The great service which the oligarchy rendered to Florence was the recovery of its ascendency in northern Tuscany. Prato, Pistoia, Volterra, San Miniato, and several lesser towns were acquired between 1350 and 1368. In 1387 the important town of Arezzo was sold to the Florentines by Enguerrand de Coucy, who had held it as the lieutenant of Louis of Anjou. For some years after this the growth of Florence was checked by a desperate war against the encroachments of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, who threatened to unite Tuscany and Lombardy under his rule. It was in this war that Sir John Hawkwood commanded for Florence against the Milanese condottiere, Jacopo del Verme. After Hawkwood’s death in 1394, the republic was for a time in serious danger. To save their independence, the Florentines took the unusual step of appealing for German assistance, and urged the Elector Palatine, Rupert, who had been elected king of the Romans in opposition to Wenzel of Bohemia, to make war against the lord of Milan. The defeat of the German army at the battle of Brescia left Florence in greater straits than ever, when the sudden death of Gian Galeazzo in 1402 not only saved the Florentines from Milanese aggression, but enabled them to resume their policy of expansion. Within the next twenty years Pisa, Cortona, and Livorno had been added to the dominions of Florence.
In northern Italy the fourteenth century witnessed the final struggle between the two great maritime republics, |Venice and Genoa.| Venice and Genoa. Ever since the beginning of the Crusades they had been rivals for commercial and political ascendency in the Levant. At first the advantage had been on the side of the Venetians, and the diversion of the Fourth Crusade in 1204 to attack the Eastern Empire had given them a dominant position in the islands and coasts of the Ægean. But the Genoese had their revenge in 1261, when they aided to overthrow the Latin Empire, and to establish Michael Palæologus in Constantinople. As a reward for their services they received the suburb of Pera with the fortress of Galata, whence they could dictate to the occupants of the imperial throne. The control of the straits enabled them to assume a virtual monopoly of the trade of the Black Sea, and their port of Caffa in the Crimea became one of the most flourishing cities in the east. Pisa, which had once been the equal or even the superior of Genoa, lost all maritime importance after the battle of Meloria (1284). For the next century Venice and Genoa contended on fairly equal terms. In wealth and maritime power they were evenly matched. Genoa had most of the northern trade that passed through the Black Sea and Constantinople; but Venice, which retained possession of Negropont, Crete, and other islands, had the advantage in the other two channels of eastern trade, through Asia Minor and Egypt. Genoa, however, was ready to seize any opportunity of contesting this southern trade with her rival. The occupation of Chios gave her a valuable port in the Ægean. Cyprus, which became an important commercial centre after the fall of Acre (1291), was the scene of many conflicts between the two republics. The people and the ruling house of Lusignan were in favour of Venice, but the Genoese went to war to secure their interests, and the seizure of Famagusta in 1373 gave them for some time the upper hand in Cyprus. On the African coast they also succeeded in establishing trade settlements. Farther west, the Genoese had several things in their favour. The occupation of Corsica gave them a great addition of maritime strength, though their dispute with Aragon for the possession of Sardinia exposed them to the enmity of the Catalans, who ranked after Venice and Genoa as the third naval power in the Mediterranean. On the mainland the mountains which confined Genoa to a narrow strip of coast, and prohibited territorial expansion, served also to protect her from continental enemies. Venice, on the other hand, ever since the war with Mastino della Scala had given her territories on the mainland, was exposed to the hostility of her neighbours, especially the kings of Hungary and the lords of Padua. If these states were allied with Genoa, Venice ran the risk of being cut off from supplies both by sea and land. As against this balance of strength in east and west, there was one important difference between the two states which ultimately turned the scales decisively in favour of Venice. By the beginning of the century she had built up a constitution which, whatever its narrowness and other defects, had the supreme merit of stability. The so-called conspiracy of Marin Falier, which led to the execution of the Doge in 1355, only served to prove the strength of the edifice which he proposed to attack, and the impotence of the chief magistrate to resist the Council of Ten. Genoa, on the other hand, was one of the most turbulent and factious of Italian cities. For a long time the leaders of these domestic feuds were the four noble houses of Doria, Fieschi, Spinola, and Grimaldi, who disguised their family jealousies under the names of Ghibelline and Guelf. In 1339 the Genoese, weary of their factions, adopted for their chief magistracy the title of Doge, and conferred it by acclamation upon an eminent citizen, Simone Boccanegra. After the fashion of Florence and other Tuscan communes, the nobles were disqualified from holding political office. But in Genoa the remedy proved wholly illusory. The nobles continued to command the military and naval forces of the republic, and were thus enabled to retain their predominance in the state. The offices, which they could not hold themselves, were conferred upon their plebeian adherents, as the Adorni and Fregosi, who for a long time succeeded each other in the dogeship according to the fluctuations of power among their noble patrons. As Commines tells us, ‘the nobles in Genoa could appoint a doge, though they could not hold the office themselves.’ Thus Genoa continued to be distracted by factions, and when the citizens sought a brief interval of repose, the only method by which they could secure it was to sacrifice their liberty to a foreign ruler—sometimes to Milan, and sometimes to France.
The attempt of the Genoese merchants at Caffa to exclude the Venetians from the lucrative free trade with the Tartars led to numerous quarrels in the Black Sea, and |War of Venice and Genoa, 1350-5.| ultimately to open warfare between the two states. Venice secured the support of John Cantacuzene, the Greek emperor, who disliked Genoese dictation at Pera, and of Peter of Aragon, who was contending with Genoa for the possession of Sardinia. In 1352 Niccolo Pisani, with a powerful fleet of Venetian, Greek, and Catalan vessels, sailed to attack Pera, which was defended by the Genoese admiral, Paganino Doria. In the narrow waters of the Bosphorus the allies were unable to make full use of their numbers, and a furious storm threw their vessels into such disorder that they did more harm to each other than to the enemy. Pisani was forced to retire, but Doria, though victorious, had suffered such losses that he was superseded by Antonio Grimaldi. In 1353 the Aragonese, who had fewer interests in the Levant than their allies, insisted upon transferring hostilities to the coast of Sardinia. In the open water off Cagliari the Venetians and Catalans gained a complete victory, and Grimaldi with difficulty escaped to carry the news of this crushing disaster to Genoa. Pisani was too weakened by the encounter to venture a direct attack upon Genoa, but the Genoese were so panic-stricken that they offered the lordship of the city to Giovanni Visconti, in order to gain the aid of Milan. Venice replied to this move by an alliance with the opponents of Milan on the mainland, but the struggle continued to be fought out at sea. Paganino Doria, restored to the command after Grimaldi’s defeat, once more carried the war into eastern waters. Pisani, after an uneventful campaign in 1354, had retired into winter quarters at Portolungo on the coast of the Morea, under the shelter of the island of Sapienza. There the Venetians were surprised by Doria, and their fleet was completely annihilated (November 4, 1354). The battle of Sapienza was the most decisive engagement of the struggle. It was followed by the conspiracy and death of Marin Falier, and the Venetians were so discouraged by the combination of external defeat and domestic treason that they concluded peace with Genoa in 1355. All demands for concessions in the Black Sea were abandoned, and Genoa retained its superiority in the northern trade.
For the next twenty years the two republics remained at peace with each other. Genoa succeeded in throwing off the Milanese yoke in 1356, with the result that the factions resumed their quarrels. Venice became involved in a war with Lewis the Great of Hungary (1356-8), in which Dalmatia was lost and Treviso was only retained with difficulty. This was followed by a revolt in Crete which was put down (1364), and by almost continuous quarrels with Francesco Carrara of Padua. These events forced the Venetians to maintain a policy of peace in the east. Even the war of 1373 in Cyprus, which subjected that island to the suzerainty of Genoa, failed to provoke more than a verbal protest from Venice. But events in the Eastern Empire at last drove the two republics to resume hostilities. John Palæologus had promised to Venice the rocky island of Tenedos, which commanded the entrance to the Hellespont. The Genoese, regarding this as threatening their security in Pera, organised a palace revolution in Constantinople, and seated Andronicus on the throne in place of his father. In return for this aid the usurper ceded Tenedos to his allies. But the governor of the island refused to recognise the authority of Andronicus, and handed his charge over to the Venetians. This was the immediate occasion for war. Vettor Pisani, in 1378, defeated the Genoese fleet off Cape Antium, and cleared the Adriatic of |War of Chioggia, 1378-81.| the pirates who plundered Venetian commerce. The winter he spent in the harbour of Pola, and was still there when he was confronted by Luciano Doria in command of another Genoese force (May 7, 1379). In the battle which followed Pisani was completely defeated, and was sentenced by the indignant Venetians to six months’ imprisonment and exclusion from any command for five years. Pietro Doria, the successor of Luciano who had been killed in the engagement, led the victorious fleet to the lagoons of Venice. The town of Chioggia, which commanded one of the main entrances from the open sea, was taken after an obstinate defence, and the way was opened to Venice itself. A prompt attack would probably have been successful, but Doria preferred the slower and surer method of a blockade. In this he reckoned upon the aid of Francesco Carrara, who eagerly welcomed the opportunity of humbling the formidable republic, and undertook to prevent the transit of supplies from the mainland. Never had the Venetians been in such a strait, but the courage of the citizens rose to meet the danger. Every vessel in Venetian waters was equipped and manned, and Vettor Pisani, the idol of the sailors, was released from prison to assume the chief command. Messengers were sent eastwards to recall Carlo Zeno, who had been despatched to the Levant at the beginning of the war with the second Venetian fleet. Meanwhile Pisani undertook the defence of Venice, and gradually drove the Genoese back to their stronghold of Chioggia. There he determined to shut them in by blocking the main outlets to the sea. Ships full of stones were sunk in the channels of Brondolo, Chioggia, and Malamocco, and thus the blockaders were in their turn blockaded. But Pisani’s force was hardly strong enough to maintain the blockade during the storms of winter. If reinforcements came from Genoa he would be forced to retire, and Venice would once more be in imminent danger. So conscious were the Venetian leaders of the risk of ultimate defeat that they even discussed the possible abandonment of their islands and the transference of the republic to Crete. On the 1st of January 1380 sails were seen in the distance, but as they approached they proved to be the long-expected fleet of Zeno. This sealed the fate of the Genoese in Chioggia. Every effort to force a passage, or to cut a canal through the low-lying barrier between them and the sea, was foiled by the vigilance of the besiegers, and on June 24 the whole of the Genoese force was compelled to capitulate.
By the fall of Chioggia Venice secured a magnificent and permanent triumph over her great Italian rival. The naval |Decline of Genoa.| power of Genoa never recovered from the blow which it then received, and commercial superiority could only be maintained by maritime ascendency. Chagrined at such a sudden change from anticipated triumph to humiliating defeat, distracted by domestic feuds, and perpetually endangered by the aggressive policy of Milan, the Genoese sought to escape from their troubles by accepting the suzerainty of Charles VI. of France, and admitting a French governor into the city (1396). For the next century Genoa enters into history mainly as an object of contention between France and Milan, and the greatness of the republic perished with its independence.
But Venice had to pay more than one heavy penalty for her success. In the east the war of the two republics had been |Venice after the War.| suicidal. In their mutual jealousy they had completely lost sight of their common interest in upholding the Eastern Empire against the Turks. The struggle between Venice and Genoa was among the chief causes of the rapid growth of the Ottoman power, which was destined to be fatal to both the contending states. The more Venice gained in the east by the decline of Genoa the more she stood to lose to the advancing Turks; and nearer home the struggle was costly to Venice. By the peace of Turin, in 1381, she had to confirm the cession of Dalmatia to Hungary, to resign the island of Tenedos, which had been the occasion of the war, and to give up Treviso and all other possessions on the mainland of Italy. All that she had gained in the contest with the Scaligers was lost again. It is true that Treviso was ceded to Leopold of Hapsburg in order to disappoint Francesco Carrara, whose aggrandisement would be much more dangerous to Venice. But Leopold had too much to engage his attention in Germany to be keenly interested in Italian territories. Five years later he sold Treviso, with Feltre and Ceneda, to Carrara, who thus obtained that control over the approaches to the Alpine passes which had driven Venice to make war on Mastino della Scala. For the second time Venice was forced by the same danger to take an active part in the politics of northern Italy. There was one obvious method of humbling the house of Carrara, and that was to invite the intervention of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, who required the annexation of Padua to complete his supremacy in Lombardy. On the other hand, such a policy involved the equally obvious danger that the lord of Milan would prove a far more formidable neighbour than the lord of Padua. To understand the course of action adopted by Venice in this dilemma it is necessary to turn to the history of Milan.