But the death of Alessandro did not restore freedom to his country. The agents of his tyranny, the most able but also the most odious of whom was the historian Guicciardini, needed a prince for their protector. They made choice of Cosmo de’ Medici, a young man of nineteen, descended in the fourth generation from Lorenzo, the brother of the former Cosmo. On the 9th of January, 1537, they proclaimed him duke of Florence, hoping to guide him henceforth at their pleasure; but they were deceived. This man, false, cool-blooded, and ferocious, who had all the vices of Filippo II, and who shrank from no crime, soon got rid of his counsellors, as well as of his adversaries. Cosmo I, in 1569, obtained from the pope, Pius V, the title of grand duke of Tuscany, a title that the emperor would not then acknowledge, though he afterwards, in 1575, granted it to the son of Cosmo. Seven grand dukes of that family reigned successively at Florence. The last, Gian Gastone, died on the 9th of July, 1737.[d]
Right had disappeared, cries Quinet, leaving an immense gap—in fact a gulf which opened under the nation’s feet and into which she went head foremost, almost dragging her conquerors after her. To understand these times we must remember that there had been no real conquest because no national resistance. No one in the fifteenth century had really defended the sovereignty of Italy. When Europe presented herself she entered as into a vacant heritage, devoid of humanity. Italy did not defend herself, because practically non-existent. She had not been able to pull herself together. Never has such a thing been seen on the earth: a great people invaded, and this invasion finding no obstacle. The foreigners who entered, by the always open breach of the papacy, came with precaution. They sounded the land, thinking to find a people, and only found an illusion. Reassured, they came on restrainedly. Europe overflowed the empty places.
In her last moments Italy made profession of worshipping only strength, crying with Macchiavelli, “Woe to the conquered!” She reserved for her defeat none of those life doctrines which nourish even corpses and prevent their crumbling to powder. Her theories were only for the victorious. Now that she was conquered she was taken in her own trap, and could not well revive because she had pronounced her own death sentence.
Evil had arrived at such a pitch that two things were equally necessary: Luther’s reform to break Catholicism; the chastisement of Italy to restore that which threatened to disappear—the human conscience. Each town was smitten by the arms proper to her. Venice fell slowly but noiselessly, like a body drowned by the doges in the lagunes. There were other cities which languished as if they had been poisoned. As for Florence, who had gained so many subjects, she perished, put up and sold at auction like poisoners bought and sold for the pleasure of choking them.
In reality, the papacy had the honour of aiming the two decisive blows. Julius II, in the league of Cambray, crushed Venice. Clement VII, in league with Charles V, crushed Florence. These two vital centres once destroyed, all was lost.[i]
[1494-1530 A.D.]
The evil destiny of Italy was accomplished. Charles VIII, when he first invaded that country, opened its gates to all the transalpine nations: from that period Italy was ravaged, during thirty-six years, by Germans, French, Spaniards, Swiss, and even Turks. They inflicted on her calamities beyond example in history; calamities so much the more keenly felt, as the sufferers were more civilised, and the authors more barbarous. The French invasion ended in giving to the greatest enemies of France the dominion of that country, so rich, so industrious, and of which the possession was sought ardently by all. Never would the house of Austria have achieved the conquest of Italy, if Charles VIII, Louis XII, and Francis I had not previously destroyed the wealth and military organisation of the nation; if they had not themselves introduced the Spaniards into the kingdom of Naples, and the Germans into the states of Venice; forgetting that both must soon after be subject to Charles V. The independence of Italy would have been beneficial to France; the rapacious and improvident policy which made France seek subjects where it should only have sought allies, was the origin of a long train of disasters to the French.
A period of three centuries of weakness, humiliation, and suffering, in Italy, began in the year 1530; from that time she was always oppressed by foreigners, and enervated and corrupted by her masters. These last reproached her with the vices of which they were themselves the authors. After having reduced her to the impossibility of resisting, they accused her of cowardice when she submitted, and of rebellion when she made efforts to vindicate herself. The Italians, during this long period of slavery, were agitated with the desire of becoming once more a nation: as, however, they had lost the direction of their own affairs, they ceased to have any history which could be called theirs; their misfortunes have become but episodes in the histories of other nations.[d]
