No sooner was the internal organization of the different nations of Europe placed on a secure basis, than they found leisure to direct their views, hitherto confined within their own limits, to a bolder and more distant sphere of action. Their international communication was greatly facilitated by several useful inventions coincident with this period, or then first extensively applied. Such was the art of printing, diffusing knowledge with the speed and universality of light; the establishment of posts, which, after its adoption by Louis the Eleventh, came into frequent use in the beginning of the sixteenth century; and lastly, the compass, which, guiding the mariner unerringly through the trackless wastes of the ocean, brought the remotest regions into contact. With these increased facilities for intercommunication, the different European states might be said to be brought into as intimate relation with one another, as the different provinces of the same kingdom were before. They now for the first time regarded each other as members of one great community, in whose action they were all mutually concerned. A greater anxiety was manifested to detect the springs of every political movement of their neighbors. Missions became frequent, and accredited agents were stationed, as a sort of honorable spies, at the different courts. The science of diplomacy, on narrower grounds, indeed, than it is now practised, began to be studied. [2] Schemes of aggression and resistance, leading to political combinations the most complex and extended, were gradually formed. We are not to imagine, however, the existence of any well-defined ideas of a balance of power at this early period. The object of these combinations was some positive act of aggression or resistance, for purposes of conquest or defence, not for the maintenance of any abstract theory of political equilibrium. This was the result of much deeper reflection, and of prolonged experience.
The management of the foreign relations of the nation, at the close of the fifteenth century, was resigned wholly to the sovereign. The people took no further part or interest in the matter, than if it had concerned only the disposition of his private property. His measures were, therefore, often characterized by a degree of temerity and precipitation, that could not have been permitted under the salutary checks afforded by popular interposition. A strange insensibility, indeed, was shown to the rights and interests of the nation. War was regarded as a game, in which the sovereign parties engaged, not on behalf of their subjects, but exclusively on their own. Like desperate gamblers, they contended for the spoils or the honors of victory, with so much the more recklessness as their own station was too elevated to be materially prejudiced by the results. They contended with all the animosity of personal feeling; every device, however paltry, was resorted to; and no advantage was deemed unwarrantable, which could tend to secure the victory. The most profligate maxims of state policy were openly avowed by men of reputed honor and integrity. In short, the diplomacy of that day is very generally characterized by a low cunning, subterfuge, and petty trickery, which would leave an indelible stain on the transactions of private individuals.
Italy was, doubtless, the great school where this political morality was taught. That country was broken up into a number of small states, too nearly equal to allow the absolute supremacy of any one; while, at the same time, it demanded the most restless vigilance on the part of each to maintain its independence against its neighbors. Hence such a complexity of intrigues and combinations as the world had never before witnessed. A subtile, refined policy was conformable to the genius of the Italians. It was partly the result, moreover, of their higher cultivation, which naturally led them to trust the settlement of their disputes to superior intellectual dexterity, rather than to brute force, like the barbarians beyond the Alps. [3] From these and other causes, maxims were gradually established, so monstrous in their nature as to give the work, which first embodied them in a regular system, the air of a satire rather than a serious performance, while the name of its author has been converted into a by-word of political knavery. [4]
At the period before us, the principal states of Italy were, the republics of Venice and Florence, the duchy of Milan, the papal see, and the kingdom of Naples. The others may be regarded merely as satellites, revolving round some one or other of these superior powers, by whom their respective movements were regulated and controlled. Venice may be considered as the most formidable of the great powers, taking into consideration her wealth, her powerful navy, her territory in the north, and princely colonial domain. There was no government in that age which attracted such general admiration, both from natives and foreigners; who seem to have looked upon it as affording the very best model of political wisdom. [5] Yet there was no country where the citizen enjoyed less positive freedom; none whose foreign relations were conducted with more absolute selfishness, and with a more narrow, bargaining spirit, savoring rather of a company of traders than of a great and powerful state. But all this was compensated, in the eyes of her contemporaries, by the stability of her institutions, which still remained unshaken, amidst revolutions which had convulsed or overturned every other social fabric in Italy. [6]
The government of Milan was at this time under the direction of Lodovico Sforza, or Lodovico the Moor, as he is commonly called; an epithet suggested by his complexion, but which he willingly retained, as indicating the superior craftiness on which he valued himself. [7] He held the reins in the name of his nephew, then a minor, until a convenient season should arrive for assuming them in his own. His cool, perfidious character was stained with the worst vices of the most profligate class of Italian statesmen of that period.
The central parts of Italy were occupied by the republic of Florence, which had ever been the rallying point of the friends of freedom, too often of faction; but which had now resigned itself to the dominion of the Medici, whose cultivated tastes and munificent patronage shed a splendid illusion over their administration, which has blinded the eyes of contemporaries, and even of posterity.
The papal chair was filled by Alexander the Sixth, a pontiff whose licentiousness, avarice, and unblushing effrontery have been the theme of unmingled reproach, with Catholic as well as Protestant writers. His preferment was effected by lavish bribery, and by his consummate address, as well as energy of character. Although a native Spaniard, his election was extremely unpalatable to Ferdinand and Isabella, who deprecated the scandal it must bring upon the church, and who had little to hope for themselves, in a political view, from the elevation of one of their own subjects even, whose mercenary spirit placed him at the control of the highest bidder. [8]
The Neapolitan sceptre was swayed by Ferdinand the First, whose father, Alfonso the Fifth, the uncle of Ferdinand of Aragon, had obtained the crown by the adoption of Joanna of Naples, or rather by his own good sword. Alfonso settled his conquest on his illegitimate son Ferdinand, to the prejudice of the rights of Aragon, by whose blood and treasure he had achieved it. Ferdinand's character, the very opposite of his noble father's, was dark, wily, and ferocious. His life was spent in conflict with his great feudal nobility, many of whom supported the pretensions of the Angevin family. But his superior craft enabled him to foil every attempt of his enemies. In effecting this, indeed, he shrunk from no deed of treachery or violence, however atrocious, and in the end had the satisfaction of establishing his authority, undisputed, on the fears of his subjects. He was about seventy years of age at the period of which we are treating, 1493. The heir apparent, Alfonso, was equally sanguinary in his temper, though possessing less talent for dissimulation than his father.
Such was the character of the principal Italian courts at the close of the fifteenth century. The politics of the country were necessarily regulated by the temper and views of the leading powers. They were essentially selfish and personal. The ancient republican forms had been gradually effaced during this century, and more arbitrary ones introduced. The name of freedom, indeed, was still inscribed on their banners, but the spirit had disappeared. In almost every state, great or small, some military adventurer, or crafty statesman, had succeeded in raising his own authority on the liberties of his country; and his sole aim seemed to be to enlarge it still further, and to secure it against the conspiracies and revolutions, which the reminiscence of ancient independence naturally called forth. Such was the case with Tuscany, Milan, Naples, and the numerous subordinate states. In Rome, the pontiff proposed no higher object than the concentration of wealth and public honors in the hands of his own family. In short, the administration of every state seemed to be managed with exclusive reference to the personal interests of its chief. Venice was the only power of sufficient strength and stability to engage in more extended schemes of policy, and even these were conducted, as has been already noticed, in the narrow and calculating spirit of a trading corporation.
But, while no spark of generous patriotism seemed to warm the bosoms of the Italians; while no sense of public good, or even menace of foreign invasion, could bring them to act in concert with one another, [9] the internal condition of the country was eminently prosperous. Italy had far outstripped the rest of Europe in the various arts of civilized life; and she everywhere afforded the evidence of faculties developed by unceasing intellectual action. The face of the country itself was like a garden; "cultivated through all its plains to the very tops of the mountains; teeming with population, with riches, and an unlimited commerce; illustrated by many munificent princes, by the splendor of many noble and beautiful cities, and by the majesty of religion; and adorned with all those rare and precious gifts, which render a name glorious among the nations." [10] Such are the glowing strains in which the Tuscan historian celebrates the prosperity of his country, ere yet the storm of war had descended on her beautiful valleys.