The representative administration of the cities was not attacked, but that body found it difficult to decide by which party they were to be governed, for each party, that of the king as well as that of the pope, presently had its own bishops in each city and its adherents among both nobles and freemen. The bishops were the only losers in this struggle, for in each faction they strove to outdo each other in the matter of liberality and in conceding their rights in order to win and retain more partisans. The victorious party, however, when the struggle was at an end, maintained the established representative administration, enriched by the many liberties and rights conceded by the bishops. The aldermen found their sphere of action greatly enlarged and enriched, so that henceforth they assumed a position at the head of the municipality as councillors and magistrates. This government had developed on similar lines in all the cities, although the victory had remained sometimes with the papal and sometimes with the royal party; therefore the strife had been banished from the cities only to break out finally in the country, which became divided into two factions, at the head of which were the rival cities of Pavia and Milan.
At first Pavia belonged to the papal faction and Milan to the royal; but when the former realised that she needed more temporal assistance than the pope could afford her, and the latter city found that the king’s protection brought with it interference in internal affairs, which in a city of Milan’s power and wealth was soon felt to be oppressive, both parties changed badges, and Pavia followed the royal faction, while Milan flaunted the papal colours.
j
[1125-1155 A.D.]
This change of parties occurred during the reigns of Lothair II and Conrad III, who, from the year 1125 to 1152, placed in opposition the two houses of Guelfs and Ghibellines in Germany. Milan, having during the first half of the twelfth century experienced some resistance from the towns of Lodi and Como, razed the former, dispersing the inhabitants in open villages, and obliged the latter to destroy its fortifications. Cremona and Novara adhered to the party of Pavia; Tortona, Crema, Bergamo, Brescia, Piacenza, and Parma to that of Milan. Among the towns of Piedmont, Turin took the lead, and disputed the authority of the counts of Savoy, who called themselves imperial vicars in that country. Montferrat continued to have its marquises. They were among the few great feudatories who had survived the civil wars; but the towns and provinces were not in subjection to them, and Asti was more powerful than they were.
The family of the Veronese marquises, on the contrary, who from the time of the Lombard kings had to defend the frontier against the Germans, were extinct; and the great cities of Verona, Padua, Vicenza, Treviso, and Mantua, nearly equal in power, maintained their independence. Bologna held the first rank among the towns south of the Po, and had become equally formidable on the one side to Modena and Reggio, and on the other to Ferrara, Ravenna, Imola, Faenza, Forlì, and Rimini. Tuscany, which had also had its powerful marquises, saw their family become extinct with the countess Matilda, the contemporary and friend of Gregory VII. Florence had since risen in power, destroyed Fiesole, and, without exercising dominion over the neighbouring towns of Pistoia, Arezzo, San Miniato, and Volterra, or the more distant towns of Lucca, Cortona, Perugia, and Siena, was considered the head of the Tuscan League; and the more so that Pisa at this period thought only of her maritime expeditions. The family of the dukes of Spoleto had also become extinct, and the towns of Umbria regained their freedom; but their situation in the mountains prevented them from rising into importance. In fine, Rome herself indulged the same spirit of independence. An eloquent monk, the disciple of Abelard, who had made himself known throughout Europe, preached in 1139 a twofold reform in the religious and political orders; the name borne by him was Arnold of Brescia. He spoke to men of the ancient liberty which was their right, of the abuses which disfigured the church. Driven out of Italy by Pope Innocent II and the Council of Lateran, he took refuge in Switzerland, and taught the town of Zurich to frame a free constitution; but in the year 1143 he was recalled to Rome, and that city again heard the words, “Roman Republic,” “Roman senate,” “comitia of the people.” The pope branded his opinions with the name of “heresy of the politicians”; and Arnold of Brescia, having been given up to him by the emperor, was burned alive before the gate of the castle of St. Angelo, in the year 1155. But his precepts survived and the love of liberty in Rome did not perish with him. In southern Italy, the conquests of the Normans had finally smothered the spirit of liberty; and the town of Aquileia in the Abruzzi alone preserved any republican privileges.[b]
FLORENCE
[800-1207 A.D.]
It appears that of all the Italian republics of the Middle Ages, the one which was to play the principal part in the history of civilisation was the last to appear on the world’s stage. Florence was still a mere unknown parish when Pisa, her neighbour, already covered the Mediterranean with her vessels; and while Milan and the towns of Lombardy were engaged in deadly fight against the empire, the Tuscan city stood perfectly aloof from the struggle of the two parties, which were dividing not only Italy, but the whole of Europe, and, from the Alps to the Sicilian straits, covering the peninsula with ruins and deluging it in blood.
Florence long had pursued her career in silence, growing rich by trade, increasing in size by the reduction of her neighbours, becoming powerful by the submission of the great, and she was neither more nor less powerful than all those small political centres which contributed so largely in bringing to light Italy’s exhaustless fertility in great men. In fact, it was owing to this large number of small states, to this multitude of diverse interests, that so many men were enabled to distinguish themselves, and found a scene for their activity, and that the curious medley which forms the Italian character was able to develop freely, and to bear its finest fruits. In this respect all the small towns of Italy are deeply interesting; to the historian as sources of valuable research, to the philosopher as subjects of observation of human nature. It is, however, natural that the state which exercised its influence for the longest period, in the most powerful manner, and over the widest extent of territory, should also attract the greatest attention from posterity. Great interest is always felt in the childhood of a famous man, even when it does not actually present so many curious details as the childhood of many men who have remained unknown; we like to see his first gropings, and in the features of some childish whim we imagine that we can perceive the plan of the great acts which illustrated his riper age.