A Decade of Italian Women, vol. 1 (of 2)

by Thomas Adolphus Trollope

LAW OF PROGRESS.

And has not, then, Despotism done well, even on the showing of the preceding statements? asks its apologists.

The true and enlightened believer in a god-governance, and no devil-governance, of the world, will of course answer unhesitatingly, No! But to answer from the conscience, No!—with faith still as firm as when the nineteenth century was young and proud with chimerical hopes—to answer with convictions still undefeated by the defeats of '48, for ever No!—requires, it must be admitted, a strong and clear belief in the immutability of the causes that result in human good and evil; a lively perception of the truth that no faults of a nation's life can best be remedied by national death; and such a whole-hearted persuasion of the universality of God's law of progress as can cast out all doubt of the fact, that every nation on earth's surface must either advance to improved civilisation, or else prepare to quit the scene, as some little improvable peoples have done and are doing, and leave the valuable space they occupy to more highly-gifted races.

The Italian writers of every age, from the sixteenth century to the present day, are naturally inclined to attribute all the misfortunes of their country to foreign wrong-doing and aggression. And they date the sunset of Italian prosperity, as Guicciardini does in the passage previously referred to, from the French invasion in the last years of the fifteenth century. But not even the dangers to be anticipated from the pretensions of the French monarch, nor the actual presence of foreign troops on the soil of Italy, could avail to check, even for a time, the deadly hatred of city against city.

This had blazed out fatally between Florence and Pisa in 1496, and was still raging in the early months of 1499. Pisa was assisted by the Venetians; and the strength of the two maritime republics seems to have tried the resources of the Florentines severely. Like the other second-rate princes of Italy, our "Madama di Forlì" drove a considerable and important trade in hireling troops. This species of business was in every respect profitable to the rulers of these petty states. They thus, besides pocketing considerable sums, maintained bodies of troops owing allegiance to them and fighting under their flag, which their own resources would have been wholly insufficient to support. And the power of hiring out these to either of two contending powers caused their alliance to be bid for by their more powerful neighbours, and gave them an importance in the political calculations of the time disproportioned to the size of their little territories.

Madama had had considerable dealings of this sort with the Florentines. Ottaviano had taken service with the wealthy republicans, and drew a handsome stipend from them as General. Early in 1499 the Republic had sent proposals for a fresh body of troops, and Madama desired nothing better than to execute the order. But times were hard in Forlì, and were daily threatening to become harder. Pestilence had been raging throughout the city and territory, and had inopportunely raised the value of the raw material of armies.

ROME'S DUES.

Worse still, in March of this year Pope Alexander, in full conclave, had declared Catherine and sundry other little potentates of Romagna deposed from their sovereignties, for not having punctually paid up their dues to the Apostolic Chamber. Catherine, indeed, forthwith sent up envoys to Rome—doctors learned in law and others—to point out to Pope Alexander that there was an outstanding account due to her late husband, the noble Count Riario, which had not been settled at the time of Sixtus IV.'s death; and that she would readily pay anything that at a fair settling might be found due. One would have thought that a Riario's wife might have known the Apostolic court better than to have taken such useless trouble. Did she think Uncle Sixtus of holy memory was the only Pope who had a family to found? Of course her envoys were sent about their business without having been allowed to speak a syllable of their errand.

These dues, a feudal tribute always reserved to the Holy See in its bulls of investiture, seem rarely to have been heard anything of as long as a friendly pope occupied the chair of St. Peter; but as soon as ever an excuse was wanted at Rome for getting rid of an obnoxious princeling, the Holy Father looked up his ledger and pronounced sentence of dechéance against the debtor.

Now, Pope Alexander had sons, whom he did not even take the trouble of calling nephews; and he was, to say the least, quite as royal-minded as the Franciscan Sixtus. His eldest hope, Cesare Borgia, was exceeding royal-minded too. And so the Borgias had to be founded as well as the Riarii; and, unhappily for the other princes of Romagna, as well as for Catherine and her son, upon a much wider foundation.