[1725-1743 A.D.]
Giovan Gastone loved conviviality, and during the first years of his reign he took part in the social functions given by the most distinguished families in the capital. Florence seemed to be suddenly transformed. The new sovereign put a stop to the prying censorship of morals with which his predecessor had tormented his subjects of all classes. After he had once made the regulations that seemed to him urgently needed, he refused to hear anything more about the affairs of administration, and he prohibited all reports on the life and doings of his subjects. The doors of his palace were closed to all the monks and clergy, and to the converts and neophytes that Cosmo had loved to gather round him. The palace, however, gained nothing by the changed company in which Giovan Gastone indulged, more especially during the last sad years of his reign. When his father’s pensions to his clerical protégés ceased, the ill-deserved gratuities bestowed upon the depraved clients of Giuliano Dami, the ruspanti (as they were called from their weekly doles of the goldpieces known as ruspo) were much worse. The depravity of morals from which the whole of Italy suffered had never been worse. And Giovan Gastone’s indifference increased with his ill-health. “The present court,” writes Johann Georg Keysler in January, 1730, “is very quiet and dreary. The sister of the grand duke has turned dévote and frequents cloisters and churches more than the court. The grand duchess, widow of the elder brother, is of a lively disposition, it is true, and particularly gracious to foreigners, but perhaps she shrinks from the thought of passing for a lover of vanities in the eyes of her sister-in-law. The grand duke himself has not left his room since last July. No traveller or foreign minister is admitted to an audience with him, and he spends most of his time in bed, partly on account of the discomforts of asthma and dropsy from which he suffers, and partly on account of the strong drinks and liquors which he takes.”
The presence of the infante Don Charles roused this gloomy court for the last time. The prince shot hares and game in the Boboli Gardens and drove through the corridor between the palace and the Uffizzi in a little carriage drawn by a stag. As soon as he had gone everything returned to its former gloom. Giovan Gastone did not leave his couch again. Only once, just before the last crisis, when he felt himself a little better, he was carried in his arm-chair to the window on the ground-floor, while the surging crowds thronged the square. He doled out money by handfuls and bought masses of things that were offered to him, such as books, pictures, stuffs and all the thousand and one strange things which were exposed for sale at this curious fair. Thus did the last of the Medici bid his last farewell to the Florentine people.[b]
Gastone had no bounds to his profusion and the dissipation of their wealth; and when he died (1737), his reign had inflicted many deep wounds on the prosperity of Tuscany. The death of his sister, a few years afterwards, completed the extinction of the sovereign house of Medici. A distant collateral branch of the same original stock, descended from one of the ancestors of the great Cosmo, was left to survive even to these times; but no claim to the inheritance of the ducal house was ever recognised in its members. Francis of Lorraine, the consort of Maria Theresa of Austria, to whom this inheritance was assigned by the Peace of Vienna, naturally resided little in Tuscany, and his elevation to the imperial crown seemed to consign the grand duchy to the long administration of foreign viceroys. But the governors chosen by Francis were men of ability and virtue, who strove to ameliorate the condition of the people; and on the death of the emperor Francis (1765), his will, in consonance with the spirit of the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, gave to Tuscany a sovereign of its own. This was his second son, Peter Leopold, to whom he bequeathed the grand duchy, while his eldest, Joseph II, succeeded to his imperial crown. Leopold was only eighteen years of age when he commenced a reign which exhibited to admiration the rare spectacle of a patriot and a philosopher on the throne.[e] We shall have occasion to make further reference to the life of this remarkable prince later on. Now we must take up the development of Italian history in general from the beginning of the century. Our first concern is with the wars that grew out of the extinction of the Habsburg dynasty in Spain.[a]
ITALY IN THE WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION
[1700-1765 A.D.]
Charles II of Spain died without sons in the year 1700, and several sovereigns, amongst whom was Victor Amadeus II, laid claim to the throne and made alliances to obtain it, or at least to divide the vast inheritance among themselves. Before dying, Charles had appointed Philip duke of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV, to be his successor, and although the country was exhausted and a terrible war could be foreseen, the king of France accepted the inheritance for his grandson with the famous saying, “The Pyrenees are no more.” Philip V was in fact recognised in Madrid, but a European war of thirteen years’ duration followed.
The duke of Savoy was undecided what side to adopt, but willing or unwilling he was compelled to side with France, and to give in marriage to Philip V his daughter Maria Louisa, who in spite of her youth showed great judgment, and during her husband’s absence on his campaign in Italy, governed the kingdom in a wise and intelligent manner. Clement XI, exalted in that year to the pontifical see, would not side with France, but intervened to prevent war; and, seeing that he was unsuccessful, endeavoured—but in vain—to form a league among the Italian princes to save Italy from again becoming the arena of European wars. To this pope, sincerely and courageously Italian, praise is due. Eugene of Savoy, conqueror of the Turks, was despatched from Hungary to Italy against the Franco-Piedmontese, and it must have grieved him to turn his arms against his kinsman.
For two years the war was continued without any definite results, though the French were worsted at Chiari, and their mediocre General Villeroi was taken prisoner at Cremona; later at Luzzara in Modena the victory was uncertain. Meanwhile Eugene, more than ever disgusted with the arrogance of the French, endeavoured to separate the duke from the league, and had no trouble in persuading him to abandon it. Louis XIV avenged himself by taking prisoner all the Piedmontese on his territory. The duke arrested the French ambassador, and appealed to his people saying, “I prefer the honour of dying arms in hand to the shame of suffering myself to be oppressed.” Having renewed his troops, he confronted the enemy’s arms almost alone (Eugene had returned to fight in Germany); his courage appeared to become stronger in danger.
Fortune does not always favour the good and brave, and Victor lost many towns and was reduced to defending his own capital. A desperate attack was made on the latter, but the citizens maintained their ancient reputation.