There is no Spanish historian less swayed by party or religious prejudice, or by the feeling of nationality, which is so apt to overflow in the loyal effusions of the Castilian writers. This laudable temperance, indeed, has brought on him the rebuke of more than one of his patriotic countrymen. There is a sobriety and coolness in his estimate of historical evidence, equally removed from temerity on the one hand, and credulity on the other; in short, his whole manner is that of a man conversant with public business, and free from the closet pedantry which too often characterizes the monkish annalists. The greater part of his life was passed under the reign of Charles V., when the spirit of the nation was not yet broken by arbitrary power, nor debased by the melancholy superstition which settled on it under his successor; an age, in which the memory of ancient liberty had not wholly faded away, and when, if men did not dare express all they thought, they at least thought with a degree of independence which gave a masculine character to their expression. In this, as well as in the liberality of his religious sentiments, he may be compared favorably with his celebrated countryman Mariana, who, educated in the cloister, and at a period when the nation was schooled to maxims of despotism, exhibits few glimpses of the sound criticism and reflection, which are to be found in the writings of his Aragonese rival. The seductions of style, however, the more fastidious selection of incidents, in short, the superior graces of narration, have given a wider fame to the former, whose works have passed into most of the cultivated languages of Europe, while those of Zurita remain, as far as I am aware, still undisturbed in the vernacular.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Zurita, Historia del Rey Don Hernando el Cathólico, (Anales, tom. v. vi., Zaragoza, 1580,) lib. 1, Introd.
[2] The "Legazione," or official correspondence of Machiavelli, while stationed at the different European courts, may be regarded as the most complete manual of diplomacy as it existed at the beginning of the sixteenth century. It affords more copious and curious information respecting the interior workings of the governments with whom he resided, than is to be found in any regular history; and it shows the variety and extent of duties attached to the office of resident minister, from the first moment of its creation.
[3] "Sed diu," says Sallust, noticing the similar consequence of increased refinement among the ancients, "magnum inter mortales certamen fuit, vine corporis an virtute animi res militaris magis procederet. ***** Tum demum periculo atque negotiis compertum est, in bello plurimum ingenium posse." Bellum Catilinarium, cap. 1, 2.
[4] Machiavelli's political treatises, his "Principe" and "Discorsi sopra Tito Livio," which appeared after his death, excited no scandal at the time of their publication. They came into the world, indeed, from the pontifical press, under the privilege of the reigning pope, Clement VII. It was not until thirty years later that they were placed on the Index; and this not from any exceptions taken at the immorality of their doctrines, as Ginguené has well proved, (Histoire Littéraire d'Italie, (Paris, 1811-19,) tom. viii. pp. 32, 74,) but from the imputations they contained on the court of Rome.
[5] "Aquel Senado é Señoría de Venecianos," says Gonzalo de Oviedo, "donde me parece á mi que esta recogido todo el saber é prudencia de los hombres humanos; porque és la gente del mundo que mejor se sabe gobernar; é la republica, que mas tiempo há durado en el mundo por la buena forma de su regimiento, é donde con mejor manera hán los hombres vivido en comunidad sin tener Rey;" etc. Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 3, dial. 44.
[6] Of all the incense which poets and politicians have offered to the Queen of the Adriatic, none is more exquisite than that conveyed in these few lines, where Sannazaro notices her position as the bulwark of Christendom.
"Una Italum regina, altae pulcherrima Romae
Aemula, quae terris, quae dominaris aquis!
Tu tibi vel reges cives facis; O decus! O lux
Ausoniae, per quam libera turba sumus;
Per quam barbaries nobis non imperat, et Sol
Exoriens nostro clarius orbe micat!"
Opera Latina, lib. 3, eleg. 1, 95.