THE ELEVENTH AND TWELFTH CENTURIES
The regeneration is not to be effected, however, for some time to come. The 11th and the 12th centuries are at best to see only the dawning of the new day.
Culture of the creative kind is still in abeyance in Italy; there are still no writers of significance; there is little art except as practised in the illumination of manuscripts, and as foreshadowed in the beginnings of architecture. Nevertheless, there is a germative culture. Here and there a knight brings back a book from the East—for this is the age of the Crusades. Here and there a monk pores over a classic manuscript. Virgil was read and copied all through the dark age, as we know from the incontestable evidence of extant manuscripts. There is no manuscript of Horace in the uncial writing of the early centuries, yet he too must have been read in the West, along with all the other Latin classics that have come down to us, else these works would scarcely have been preserved; for the Greek authors alone found favour in the East. Still it is to be feared that the chief interest felt by many of the monks in the old-time manuscripts was directed towards the material on which they were written rather than towards the text itself. Hagiology often took the place of history and many an ancient manuscript has been partially preserved in palympsest, merely because a monk who wished to write the life of a saint was too careless to complete the erasure of the earlier writing.
Contemplating the monastic life, through which it is often asserted the germs of learning were preserved in the western world in this dark age, one receives an impression of racial stasis which does not really accord with the facts. If the monks were the preservers of the feeble torch of learning, it was the wandering and warring hosts of the outside world who were preparing their generation to receive the new light when it should again burst forth. The Scandinavian and German hosts from the north invaded Italy en masse, from time to time, as we have seen, and successive bands of crusaders made Italy their highway when journeying to and from the East. Many of these invaders found the southern clime congenial and took up their permanent abode there. Thus the Normans established a kingdom in Italy, and if the other hosts settled as individuals rather than as nations, their influence must have been none the less potent in bringing about that mixture of racial elements which makes for racial progress.
Equally important must have been the influence of the commercial spirit. The conquest of the Normans took from the Greek cities of southern Italy, Amalfi, Naples, and Gaeta, the commercial supremacy they had previously enjoyed. They were now superseded by Pisa, Genoa, and Venice. These cities kept fleets on the sea in constant contact with the East. As might have been expected, they led other Italian cities in power and influence, and were the first to show intimations of that quickening of life which presaged the new birth.
THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY
The first half of the thirteenth century furnishes additional chapters in the old story of the fight between emperor and pope. Frederick II, the present incumbent of the imperial throne, is one of the most picturesque characters of the Middle Ages. He is a man of extraordinary versatility; master of many languages, including Greek and Arabic, patron of the arts, himself a poet, and what perhaps is most remarkable of all, considering his scholarly proclivities, an advocate of the use of the vernacular out of which is developing a new Italian language. Frederick is far too broad and versatile a man to be confined within the narrow boundaries of the church; hence his life is made up of a series of wrangles with the popes. Yet he upholds the religious liberties of his subjects in Sicily; he prosecutes a successful crusade, and restores the influence of the western world in Jerusalem. He is under ban of excommunication when he undertakes this crusade, and now he is again denounced for having undertaken it. He rebels against the papal antagonism, and declares that he will wear his crown and uphold its authority despite ecclesiastical interference. We have seen like threats pronounced before, and have seen such an emperor as Henry IV fail to make good his menace. But Frederick adopts a novel plan which for a time proves expedient; he colonises Luceria with a population of Saracens, which can furnish him a band of thirty thousand infidel warriors to whom papal authority means nothing. Notwithstanding this aid, however, he is barely able to hold his own against the pope in the long run, and he dies just at the middle of the century, worn out in middle life by endless warrings.
During the ensuing half century Italy is little troubled by the emperors; papal authority is at its height, but a disunited Italy consumes its strength in internal dissensions. The developing civilisation has gradually focalised more and more towards the north and now its centre has come to be Tuscany,—the same geographical location which furnished the pre-Roman civilisation of the Etruscans. Florence is coming to be the chief city of Tuscany; it is the chief centre also of one of the most persistent and disastrous strifes that are convulsing Italy,—the warfare of the Guelf and Ghibellines. This dissension is in no sense confined to Florence, to be sure; it includes all Italy and even extends beyond the national bounds. The factions war with varying success. In 1260 the Guelfs at Florence meet with a signal reverse at the battle of Monteaperto. But eight years later at Theliacozza, the Ghibellines under Conradin, the last of the Hohenstaufens, receive a most disastrous set-back.
An important feature of the epoch is the steady development of the half dozen cities; in particular the rivalry between the three chief maritime cities, Venice, Pisa, and Genoa. Pisa has more than held her own until now, but in 1284 she receives her quietus in the duel with Genoa off the isle of Meloria; henceforth, she must yield supremacy to her conqueror and to Venice.
But, as has been said, the maritime cities no longer hold uncontested supremacy. Florence, “The Flower of Tuscany,” though lacking the advantage of geographical position, is able, nevertheless, to take a place among the commercial centres; thanks to her location on the highway between Germany and southern Italy, she perhaps profits more by that all essential mingling of the races to which reference has been made, than any of her sister cities. Just at the close of the century the warfare of the Guelfs and Ghibellines receives a new development in Florence through the strife of the factions that come to be known as the Bianchi and Neri; the dispute which began as a mere personal strife spreads its baneful influence over the entire community.