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MAKERS OF IT ALY.

Ema n en t.(Tumour.

Gari bald i .

NEW ITALY

HER PEOPLE AND THEIRSTORY

A POPULAR HISTORY

THE DEVELOPMENT AND PROGRESSOF ITALY FROM THE TIME OF

THEODORICH, THE GREAT

TO THAT OF VICTOR

EMANUEL III.

BY

AUGUSTA HALE GIFFORDAUT HOR or

“Guam : HEB PEOPLE AND THE IR STORY "

ILLUS TRATED FROMPORTRAI T S AND FAMOUS PAINT INGS

BO STON

LOTHROP, LEE SHEPARD co.,

Published, March, 1909

I 9OQ"BY Lo'

rmzop, LEE SHEPARD COMPANY.

All Rig id : Reserved

NEW IT ALY

NormanBunwxcx 5mmCo .

Norwood, Mass ., U . S. A

I DED ICATE T HIS BOOK T O MY HUSBAND

GEORGE G IFFORDFROM WHOSE GENIUS I RECEIVED MY EARLIEST

LITERARY ASP IRAT IONSAND T O WHOSE ENCOURAGEMEN'

I'

I OW E WHATEVERSUCCESS I HAVE HAD IN LETTERS

INTRODUC T ION

FROM the dawn o f Italy’

s history the Ital ian’s impres

sionable nature has responded in l i fe and literature to

the ardor of the scholar, the illus ion of the painter,and the touch of the musician’s hand ; and thu s

research in every avenue connected with this most

fascinating people is attractive in the extreme .

Italy is one of the most discussed subj ects of

the day, both on account of the great number ofAmeri cans who vis it the country ea ch year and also

because it has recently come into notice as a kingdom

in process of large development,which is l ikely to

result in its finally assuming a place as one of the lead

ing nations .

More and more is written each year concerningItaly’s aims, aspirations , probabil ities, and chances.Hence the necessity of a work tell ing the deeds of the

people from earl iest times has become most urgent.

W ith re ference also to modern I tal ian history for the

past few decades , l ittle concerning it has been put intoconcise readable form , and a great demand has all atonce sprung up for a bright, brie f, entertaining,authentic account of events in Italy s ince her consol idation as a united kingdom in 1870.

Introduction

No country has produced more intensely interest inghistorical characters than are found in both ancient andmodern Italy ; and the deepest regret is enterta ined thatin the comparatively small space it i s poss ible to givethis vast subj ect, the greater part of what is mostabsorbing in the l ives of eminent I talians must be left

out. Accordingly, with few exceptions , we have onlytried in the regular routine of the work to present dis

tinguished Ital ian statesmen and scholars by their most

distinguished deeds and, as they appea r in the fore

ground of what they really accomplished , leaving thereader to elaborate their l ives from biographies and his

tories which take up topics in detail . In some casesalso, where matters relating to both Germany andItaly were treated thoroughly in our Ge rmany : Her

People and T heir Story,” we have here only referred

to such subj ect s superficially.

Much of the material for this volume was collectedduring long absences abroad , with frequent sojourns

in Italy, where access was gained to many books andhistorical papers in the original Ital ian as well as in

othe r foreign languages . T hese furnished us information not obtainable in works hitherto published in

English , while items concerning events transpiring inItaly during the past few years have been gleaned frommagazines and general current l iterature in Ital ian , as

they have appeared from month to month . T hus the

civic and po l itical condit ions o f Italy as a newdom have been determ ined from the popular homesentiment.Among writers consulted in the course of the work,bes ides books referred to at odd times, the names o fwhich have often not been kept in mind are : Plutarch ,Livy, Gibbon, Niebuhr, Mommsen , Symonds, Sismondi ,

CONTENTS

CHAPTERCourse of History fromTheodorich to Charlemagne.—Ita ly’s Early Kings.—T he Ottos. 489

1002 M ).

CHAPTER II.

Beginning of the Ital ian Repub lics.—T he FranconianKings as Emperors—T he Norman Conquest.Guelphs and Ghibel l ines.—Hildebrand .

—T heHohenstaufen. Frederick Barbarossa. T he

Lombard League. 1002-1190 A.D.

CHAPTER III.

Henry VI .—Frederick II—Innocent III -Branca ‘

1eone. -Manfred.—Charles of Anjou.—1190

1280 A.D.

CHAPTER IV.

Venice, Pisa, Genoa, Colonna and Ors1n1—S1c111anVespers.—T he Neri and B1anch1—Dante 1280

1310 AD .

CHAPTER V.

T he Age of the Despots—. The Condottier1 andthe Free Companies. -Petrarch.

—Boccaccio.Giotto.—Cimabue. - R ienz i. 13 10-1354 A.D.

CHAPTER VI.T he Visconti.—T he Chiompi Insurrection in Florence—T he Babylonian Captivity of the Popes.

T he Great Schism. 1349-1435

V

vi Contents

CHAPTERVII. .

Rise of the Medi ci—T he Sforz a Fami ly—N icholasV.—Savonarola. 1435

-1495 A D.

CHAPTER VIII.

Age of Invas ion—Coming of Charles VI II.

Spanish Possession of Naples—T he E x pulsionof Ludovico Sforz a —Savonarola’s DeathPeace of Cambrey.

—Art and Li terature. 1494

1553 A4).

CHAPTER IX.

Age of Spanish Ru l e—Clement VI I—Fall of the

Medi ci —T he Jesuits—De cl ine of Veni ce. 15 131574 A 1).

T he R ise of the House of Savoy.

—Her Dukes .

Charles Emanue l I . the Great—Exci tement Attending Struggle of Spanish Succession.

Masaniel lo.— Italy

'

s Kingdoms, Duchi es, and

Repub lics at Napo leon’

s Invas ion. 1574- 1792 A ll.

CHAPTER XI.

T he Absorption of Ita ly by Napoleon—Formationof H is Republics—Enthusiasmof Ita ly for

Napo leon’

s In stitu tions—Ita ly Restored in

Napoleon’

s Absence in Egypt—Battle of

Marengo.—Excavations of Roman Ruins in

Napoleon’

s T ime. 1792-1812 A.D.

CHAPTERT he Fall of Napo leon

’

s Italian Monarchy.—AustriaAga in in Ascendency.

—Advanced Ideas of the

People—O ld Conservative Governments Re

stored—T he Carbonari .—Al l Italy Amused.Revolutions of 182 1-1830 and 1848 .

—Maz z in i,Cavour, and Gariba ldi . 18 12- 1848 A.D.

Contents

CHAPTER XIII.T he Defeat of Charles Albert—Resigns in Favor ofHis SOIL—H is Melancholy Death.

—VictorEmanuel II.

’

s Libera l Reign—Career of Cavour.—Louis Napoleon Restores the Pope—Massimod’

Az eglio. 1848-1859 A.D.

CHAPTER XIVVictories of Magenta and Solferino.—Disgraceful

Truce with Austria by Napoleon.—Central Italy

Ceded to Piedmont—T he Treaty of Vil lafranca .

—N ice and Savoy Given to France.Garibaldi Delivers Kingdomof Naples—T heUnification of Ita ly.—Cavour’s Death—September Convention. 1859-1861 A.D.

CHAPTER XV.

T he United Kingdomof Ita ly.—Capita l Removed

fromTurin to Florence—All iance with Prussia.—Prussian Army Victorious at Koniggratz .

—Austria Gives up Venice— Ital ian Army Defeated at Custoz a, eta—End of September Convent ion.

—Pope Yields to Superior Force and

Gives up Temporal Power.—T he Papal StatesAma lgamated. 1861-1870 A.D.

CHAPTER XVI.Victor Emanuel Enters Rome as King of United

Italy.—He Administers Afiairs of the Government Faithfully.—Death of Many of Ita ly’s Emi

nent Men—Victor Emanuel D ies—Death ofPope Pius IX.

—Pope Leo XIII.—Reign of King

Humbert—Death of Garibaldi—SucceedingEvents and Changes. 1870-1899 M ).

CHAPTER XVII.Princes of the House of Savoy—Officers of the

State and Its Various Institutions -Improvement in Condition of People in Various Sectionsand Departments.

—Vast Emigration.

vii

PAGE

Contents

CHAPTERAbyss1n1an War.

—Crisp1.—Authors. 1885-1899

CHAPTER XIX.

Assassination of King Humbert -Victor EmanuelIII .

—Death of Crispi.—B irth of PrincessIolande.—B irth of Humbert, Prince of Piedmont. 1900-1905 A.O.

ILLUSTRATIONS

Makers of Italy Frontispiece

Victor EmanuelCavour

GaribaldiDante and Beatrice

SavonarolaArtists

Raphael

PAGE

MichaelangeloFra AngelicoLeonardo da Vinci

Map, Italy in the time of Napoleon

Authors

T asso

Petrarch

Dante

Boccaccio

d’

Annunz io

Map , Italy after the downfall of Napol eon

Cas tl e of St. AngeloPope Leo XIII .Map , Italy at the present timeMus icians

Donizett i

Bellini

Ross ini

VerdiMascagni

Naples of T o-dayVictor Emanuel I II .

Queen Helene

NEW I T ALY

CHAPTER I

COURSE OF H ISTORY FROM T HEODORICH To CHARLEMAGNE.

— 1TALY'

S EARLY K INGS.— THE OTT os.

489—1002 A.D.

IT is thought that the seven vultures which Remusfirst espied signified the seven centfiries previous tothe founding of the Empire, while the twelve birdsin the heavens which appeared to Romu lus indicatedthe twelve centuries during which Rome existed inher glory and might. Perhaps also there was a sign ifi

cance in the last ruler of the Empire being called

Romulus Augustulus, the comb ined names of thefounder of Rome and of the first Emperor. It mighthave been a cynicism on the small beginning, wonderful growth and phenomenal decay of a great nation,since Rome had passed from the immaturity of childhood to the ripening of a noble manhood, and hadthen sunk into the decadence of a State which hadpassed its prime and outlived its usefulness .As we have had reason to notice, in her early stri fe

for glory Rome recognized no forces outs ide herself.By her the other nations were regarded as so manypuppets, an element of strength or weakness , according as they administe red to her growth . Even herheroes were only used to advance her interests

,and

every great statesman whose mighty deeds hadredounded to Rome ’s glory was thrust as ide as soonas he ceased to be a stepping-stone on which she couldmount to further greatness . Her demigods caught

2 I taly : Her People and T heir S tory

the spirit, and trod beneath their feet all who stoodin the way of their ambition . Mighty and all-powerful ” were synonyms which crushed opposing influences, whether the words represented Marius or Sylla,Pompey or Caesar, or the madmen who ruled asEmperors so many years after the downfall of thegreat State had commenced . T he wars of Hannibal ,instead of crushing the Roman people , brought outthe arrogance and vainglory of a nation that couldnot be humbled even when abj ect at the great con

queror’

s feet ; and nothing was able to destroy heruntil the po ison of efi

'

eminacy, engendered by hersuccesses , ate like a canker into her body politic, producing a race of pigmies in place o f a nation of giants .Gibbon says that the decline of Rome was the naturaland inevitable result of immoderate greatness .T he Roman Empire before its fall in 476 A.D. hadbecome a prey to the numerous barbarian factors shehad appropr iated, each seizing for himself the partwhich pleased him best ; and thus many kingdoms hadrisen out of her ashes . T he Angles subjugated Bri ta inand named it England ; the Franks conquered Gauland called it France ; and the Burgundians absorbedthe portion which afterwards became Burgundy. T he

Vandals and Goths possessed Spain and extended theirdominion over all the Roman provinces in Africa ,

holding them until Justinian’s time ; Panon ia becameHungary, and Italy alone kept her glor ious name .”

T hus Rome, which had excelled all nations in l iterature and the fine arts, and had become the model

for great and warlike deeds,she , the world-conquer

ing portion o f the globe, who by the force of hergen ius had dispelled mental darkness from the world,was at last the most subjugated. T he very spoils

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4 I taly : H er People and T heir Story

He was a pr ince of barbarian origin, but while still achild was educated in Constantinople as a hostage ;and there he had acqui red all the arts of civil ized l i fe .From the first he showed great executive ability inuniting Gothic and Ita l ian elements so that they woulddo the best service for all . .With this in view

,he

apportioned one-third of the soil of Italy to his Gothicsoldiers

,leaving the large r portion to the Ital ians ;

and in this way he succeeded in Romanizing his sub

jects instead of attempting, as other conquerors beforehim had done, to denational ize the subjugated.

T heodorich also built up the State by other adroitand diplomatic measures

,and among his discreet alli

au ces with other surrounding nations was one withthe great Frank, Clovis ; and although he himsel fcould never learn to write, he established communication through secretaries with all the Gothic rule rsthroughout Europe . In order to better protect hiskingdom , he kept up an army so well drilled that hecould call into the field two hundred thousand warriors at an hour’s notice . T heodorich endeavored inevery way to bring about the enlightenment of Italy ;and these efforts

,together with his great energy and

sagacity, rendered his reign an era of unparalleled

peace and prosper ity.

But in spite o f his ability as a ruler, his vigor,tolerance and humanity, his love for l iterature, scienceand the fine arts

,T heodorich exhibited many defects

due to his barbarian descent. T his was seen in thecase of his favorites

,the philosophers Boethius and

Symmachus , whom he caused to be cruelly put to deathwithout a trial , because he suspected them of plotting with Justinian to overth row his Arian religion.

When, however, he became sat isfied of their innocence,

New I taly 5

remorse for the deed preyed upon his mind and shortened his l i fe, though for s ix years longer he draggedout a me lancholy existence, dying in gloom in 526 AD .

at the age of seventy-four . H is ashes were scatteredto the wind by the Catholics

,who regarded him as a

heretic on account of his Arian doctrine .During the last few years of T heodorich

’

s reignJustinian was Emperor at Constantinople . Althoughof uncivilized stock he was the most famous of al lthe Eastern Emperors

,his reign being filled with great

events at home and abroad, in peace and in war. Asa legislator and codifier of Roman law his name i s

most distinguished ; many of the codes he systematizedbeing the same which Julius Caesar had commencedto classi fyJustinian sent his great general Belisarius to take

Sicily, and the latter, with Narses , afterwards suc

ceeded in extinguishing the race of Ostrogoths, aftera desperate res istance on thei r part , thus reconquering for Justinian a great part of the Western Empire .Belisarius also subdued Gelimar, the last King of

the Vandals in Afr ica . He guaranteed him his freedom as the pr ice of surrender. Nevertheless he ledthe old Vandal warrior with a silver chain to Byz antium , where he forced him to wa lk in a triumphalprocession, insulted and ridiculed by the people . T he

dignity and strength of the aged Vandal chief, howeve r, so impressed Emperor Justinian tha t he releasedhim , giving himlarge estates outside the Byzantinecapital

,besides grant ing homes to his retinue and

educating the maidens of his suite . But five thousand of Gelimar’s squadrons were sent with Justinian ’ssoldiers to fight the Parthians ; and the nation which atone time had numbered s ix hundred thousand fol


lowers was annihilated. T hus the Vanda l race disappeared from history. But scient ists cla im that they

di scover a remnant among the swarthy Moors ofA frica

,with a fai r complexion and flaxen hair, whom

they trace as descendants of the Vandals .

Justinian was the last effi cient Byzant ine Emperor .

He died in 565 A.D.,and Italy soon after, during the

s ixth,seventh and eighth centur ies , came under the rule

Of the Exarchs , Narses being the first to govern as such .

T here were seventeen Exarchs in all , who made thel ives o f the people most miserable . As a civic officer,the Exarch was a kind of a prefect or viceroy, and asan ecclesiast ic his duties were var ied .

Narses ruled Italy for fifteen years as Exarch atRavenna , and was a very important historical charactero f the s ixth century. But he excited the j ealousyo f Justin II .,

successor of Justinian , who removedhim . Sophia, the wife of Justin II . , i s sa id to havesent Narses insult ing messages together with a goldendistaff , bidding him spin wool in the apa rtment o f thewomen, s ince he had none of the great qualities of

manhood . Narses retorted that he would spin hera thread the length of which should be the limit of herl i fe . He then summoned the Lombards to take possession of the land , hoping that his services would be

needed to repel these foreign invaders .T he Lombards whom Narses enlisted were a fiercenation o f heathen who dwelt in Hungary, and fornearly two hundred years , from 570 to 744 ,

kept thewhole Ita l ian nation in a ferment . T he ferociousLombard warrior, Alboin , soon arrived in northernIta ly with his vast hordes

,and in the course of time

a large portion of the Ital ian peninsula was wrestedby them from the Eastern Empire . T he Lombard

New I taly 7

duchies , that portion which was afterwards calledthe Southern Regno, were soon developed . T heseformed the T heme of Lombardy, finally includingin its bounda ries Gaeta , Naples , the i slands of Sicilyand Sardinia , and the extremities of Calabria , the mostsouthern portion of Ita ly, which was a l ittle later heldby the Byzant ine Greeks .Alboin a ssumed the title of King of the Lombardsand made his captains counts and dukes over provinceswhich became his fiefs but he cont inued to be a barbarian , amusing himsel f in his ca rousa l s l ike any savage, until fina lly he was murdered in 573 by his wifeRosamund , daughter of Kunimund, Queen of theGepidae , because in a drunken revel he forced her todr ink from her father ’s skull .T here were thirty-two Lombard kings in all .

Autharis, the most celebrated of these,was distin

gu ished for valor and great deeds . He was successful in warding off three eruptions of the Franks, whowere trying to force their way into the plains o fnorthern Italy. Rotharis and Grimoald were lawmakers

,the latter a reformer of his predecessors’

codes . Lu itprand conquered Ravenna and Aistolphustried to get possession of the power at Rome, but was

outwitted by Pepin the Short. Desideriu s was thelast King of the Lombards and was subdued byCharlemagne . T he rest of the Lombard rulers werescarcely mo re than figureheads.

Pavia was the capita l of the Lombard kingdom,

and dur ing the reign of Autharis Gregory the Greatwas Universal Bishop and the only real ruler of Romeduring the troublous times between 590 and 604.

Gregory was of aristocratic family, and , after being

Senator and governor, he had, when the Lombards

8 I taly : H er People and T heir S tory

arr ived,been promoted to the ofii ce of praetor. Be

s ides fulfill ing his dut ies with dignity and pomp, heappropriated a large income to the needs of the Sta te .After coming into the possession of great wealththrough the death of his father, he became a monk of

St .Benedict and dedicated the whole of his property

to the establishment of charitable institutions. T husthe power of the Church commenced, not at firstbecause the officers of Chr ist sought lands and wealthfor their own uses

,but because they really were seek

ing to be ministers of mercy to the suff ering andneedy. Men of means entered the monasteries, and

s ince all that they had before owned was now given tothe Church

,that body became very r ich

,and

,wealth

being power,more powerful than the State itsel f. Six

monasteries in Sicily were of Gregory ’s founding,and

he himsel f l ived in one of his own asylums,which had

once been his estate on the Caelian H i ll . Here hegave up his t ime to the care of the s ick and to thestudy of the Scriptures , subsisting all the while on the

meanest diet. It was at thi s t ime that his mother,who lived in an adjacent convent, used to bring himpulse in a massive s i lver dish

,the last relic of their

former great prosperity. One day, however, touchedby the pitiable condition of a shipwrecked sailor

,he

presented the poor wayfarer with this heirloom .

It was Gregory the Great who commenced the conversion of the Britons to Christianity. Some Englishslave children in the market in Rome attracted hisattention ; and , on account of their fa ir skins and lovelyfaces , he called them angels or engels , and some thinkthe word Angles or English came from this incident ;and there are others who say he punned on the lettersof the word Angles, and said that they would be little

New I taly 9

Engels i f they could be converted to Christianity.

T he thought of the ir conversion so occupied his mindthat he obtained a dispensation to preach the Gospelto the Anglo-Saxons in England ; but when the peoplesaw him starting out for that field they raised such aclamour at the thought of losing him , that he had toturn back ; and it was soon after this, in 590, that he

was chosen Pope, then ca l led Universal B ishop . It

was Grego ry’s wish that “ he might be unknown inthis l i fe and glorious only in the next. Accordingly,to escape this hono r conferred upon him, he hid in abasket and was transported from the city as mer

chandise, his retreat being revea led, i t i s said, by acelestial l ight. Unde r him, forty missionaries were

sent out to England, and in less than ten years tenthousand of the Anglo-Saxons were baptized .

Just before this a pestilence fell on Rome, and

Gregory the Great made the people form seven great

processions, consisting of all ages and of every con

dition in li fe, not excluding women and children . Allmarched in this singular cortege, singing l itanies andentreating that the dire disease might be stayed ; andwhen the plague ceased Gregory thought that he beheld an angel standing on Hadrian ’s tomb. Accordingly out of grat itude he had a chapel built on itssummit and dedicated it to the Lord

,calling it St. An

gelo . From that time the whole magnificent roundstructure has been called the Castle o f St. Angelo .

After the death of the Lombard Autharis,T heodo

l inda, his beauti ful queen , whom he had won romantically by going in quest of her himsel f

,exerted so

powerful an influence for Pope Gregory, that this,together with Gregory the Great’s j ust ice and wisdom

,

ga ined for the Papa l offi ce such prest ige that for the


first time, as has been already noticed, it was exaltedover temporal sovereignty.

In the course of the next sixty years Ita ly wasgoverned by rulers so insignificant in character thatthe most of their names have not been handed down.

Ravenna, Naples and Genoa , l ike Rome and Venice ,were sti ll under the protection o f the great Byzant ineEmpire ; but, s ince all the fight ing men had to beemployed against the ravages of the Saracens, therewas not sufficient force to keep down the Lombardsin the North

,until at last Pope Gregory III . called

to his aid the great Frankish general , Charles Martel ,who had d riven back the Saracens on the 3d ofOctober, 732, at the Battle of T ours , and had beenrewarded for his valor by receiving Aquitania as agift. Although Charles Martel did little for theChurch , Aquitania was divided between his two sons ;and the elder, Pepin , was a fterwards made Patr iarchof Rome by Pope Stephen as a reward for endowing

the Church with lands taken from the Lombard rulerAistolphus . Pepin soon became King of the Franksand was the first of the Carlovingian line. He i sknown in history as Pepin the Short.Charlemagne , son of Pepin , broke up the Lombardkingdom , which had lasted two hundred years , whenat Pavia

,in 773, he overcame Desider ius , the last

Lombard ruler ; and ever a fterwards he was recogniz ed as King of the Franks and Lombards .A dramatic scene in the old Church of St . Peter’s atRome in real ity opens the page of history for NewItaly. Pope Leo I I I . had been imprisoned in a monastery by the Duke of Spoleto , and Charlemagne , towhom he had fled for a id, sent himback to Romebe fore the Chri stma s of 800 A.D. Having assumed

12 I taly : Her People and Their Story

Lothair and on his death the throne was disputed byhis uncles and cous ins . Gibbon says : T he dregs ofthe Carlovingian race no longer exhibited any symptoms of virtue or power, and the ri diculous epithetso f the ‘ bard,

’ the ‘ fat,’ the ‘

Stammerer,’ and the

s imple,

’ dist inguished the tame and uniform featuresof a crowd of kings , alike de serving of oblivion .

”

Charles the Fat was the las t Emperor of his family,he having been deposed in a Diet on account ofincapacity.

T he old Lombard dukedoms were now reduced toT uscany, Ivrea, Friul i , Susa , and Spole to . T uscanywas the most prosperous ; but the quarrels o f thesedukes after the fall of the Carlovingian line were

fierce and never-ending . After this , those who couldappear at the gates of Rome with the largest armieswere crowned Emperors in the Vatican , but usuallythey were only Kings o f Italy. T here were Lambertand Berengarius and the able Arnulf, descended fromCharlemagne in an illegitimate line , and Louis o fProvence, be sides other pretenders . While Berengarius was fighting the Saxons and Hungar ians , he wasobliged to leave affairs at home to the nobles andmonks whom he authorized to forti fy their residencesin order to better se cure themselves from assault . In

this way I taly first became covered with castles andfortresses, which was the beginning of the peninsulabeing cut up into isolated states having their ownmilitia, office rs and magistrates . T hus divided be

tween feudal nobles and hereditary ecclesiastics, allnational feel ing in Italy was stifled.

Anarchy and misery are the most prominent featuresof that long space of time between the death of Charlemagne and the descent o f Otto the Great into Italy

New I taly 13

in 951 ; and during the tenth century the civi l andrel igious functions were united and became heredi

tary in the family of the Counts of T usculum .

A fter the death of Formosus , who crowned Arnul f,the Popes followed each other in quick succession,until e leven had passed away, some not reigning tenmonths

,and others not even as many days . During

the last hal f of the tenth century two very depraved

women decided the pol it ics of the times to a greatdegree

,setting up Popes and putting them down at

will . T hese women were T heodora, called the Senatrix

,and her daughter Marozia, the mother of Alberich,

who was the son of her first husband Alberich o f

Spoleto.Alberich was one of the best rulers Rome ever knew,

and for twenty years succeeded in br inging order andrespectability into the society of Italy. H is government was republican , and he was known as

“Princeps

atque omniumRomanorumSenator ” ; the foundationo f his power being the right of the Roman people tochoose their own ruler in spite of any who might callthemselves Emperor . He had gained the power byshutting up his infamous mother Marozia in prison ;but at the same time, Hugh of Provence , his stepfather, continued King of Italy outside of Rome ;until dr iven to desperat ion by the many conspiraciesagainst him he gave up the power

,appointing his son

king at Milan , as Lothair II . T he latter, after his

father ’s death , b ecame a victim o f Berengarius II.,

who himsel f was declared King of Italy.

T hus matters stood when in the year 951 Otto ofSaxony, known as Otto the Great, invaded Italy andconquered the kingdom . He compelled BerengariusII. to surrender, and, after impri soning him in the


Castle of Bamberga in Germany, he liberated and marr ied Adelaide , the charming wife of Lothair

,whom

Berengarius had imprisoned in an old castle be causeshe refused to espouse his son . T he coronation of

Otto in 962 was considered a revival of the old Empire ;for up to this t ime , ever s ince Charlemagne , the Ital ian

rulers had only been kings of a part of Italy with ameaningless title .Otto the Great’s li fe henceforth was spent in traveling back and forth from Germany to Italy settl ingdisputes

,since Berengarius II . and Alberich’

s son

Octavian, who was Pope John XII . , forgot all theirpledges and kept ris ing ove r and over again in rebell ion . During the last six years of Otto ’s occupancyof Ita ly he deposed Pope John X II . , who lacked all

the good qualities o f his father, Alberich. He wascri tici sed as an inefficient temporal ruler and accused

as Pope of being a perj urer, murderer and plundererof the Church . Otto had shown his lack of confidencein Roman sincerity as far back as the time when hewas crowned by Pope John XII . , and had told hissword-bearer to watch, saying : While I am prayingin St. Peter

’s keep your sword close to my head, sincewhen we reach Monte Mario you will have time topray as much as you l ike .Otto the Great at last died in Rome in 983 , leavinga record for great deeds and a reputation for valor andwisdom which posterity has honored . In view of aplan to unite the Eastern and Western Empires , hehad brought about the marr iage of his son, Otto II . ,

with T heophania, the daughter of the Greek ByzantineEmperor at Constantinople .Otto II . spent but l ittle o f his short reign in Ita ly,and during the minority o f hi s son

,Otto II I ., the

New I taly 15

Romans set up a municipal government under a mannamed Crescentius, a cit izen of great wealth and noblefamily, descended from T heodora and Pope John X .

but Crescentius fa iled because he had none of the well

defined principles of Alberich .

Otto III . , after having passed a sentence of banishment against Crescentius, was crowned by Gregory V.,

his own appointed Pope, in 996 A D. but when Ottowent back to Germany Crescentius rose again, andOtto, returning, recaptured the rebel in the Castle of

St . Angelo, afterwards sometimes called the T owerof Crescentius. Notwithstanding that the latter hadsurrendered on condit ion of his li fe be ing spared ,Otto had him beheaded with twelve of his companions .

Since the days of Nichola s I . , under Louis the Pious,there had never been such a vigorous assert ion of

Papal rights as at this epoch . It is even thought that

Gerbert, Otto III .

’

s old tutor, whom he had made

Sylvester II . , was the first to agitate the subj ect of pilgrimages to the holy places of the East, the outcomeof which was the Crusades . Under Sylvester II .

’

s in

fluence Otto I I I . spent his time in fasting and praye rand pilgrimages

,devot ing most of his means to

churches and monaster ies and neglecting the affairs ofthe world to such an extent that he was finally compelled by the Crescentian party to leave the city. Upto this time he had intended to make Italy his home ,having bu ilt in Rome a splendid palace , where he l ived

in the Byzantine s tyle .When Otto was about to return from a banishment

of some years , he was attacked with a deadly Ital ianfever and died in the winter of 1002 A.D.

, at the early

age of twenty- two . It i s cla imed by some that he waspoisoned by Stephanie , the wife of Crescentius .


T hus Otto the Great’

s plan of a Holy Roman German Byzantine Empire fel l to pieces at the death ofhis grandson . T he government of Rome, though subjcet to the Pope for a time , resembled that set up by

Crescentius ; but this decl ined under the corrupt rulers

of the great House of T usculum.

The Republics 17

CHAPTER II

BEGINN ING OF THE IT ALIAN REPUBLICS.—THE FRANCO

N IAN K INGS AS EMPERORS.— T HE NORMAN CON

QUEST .-GUELPH S AND GH IBELLINES. -H ILDEBRAND.

—T HE HOHENST AUFEN .—FREDERI CK BARBAROSSA

THE LOMBARD LEAGUE.

1002—1190 A.D.

FTER the fal l of the Carlovingian l ine, the quar

rels among the petty dukes who aspired to be

Kings of Italy, and the inroads of Hungarians andother barbarian nations

,had caused the people to

gather in the cities for mutual defence . T he feudalnobles soon reti red to fortified heights

,and the cities,

part ially rid o f their tyranny,increased in importance

and at a redoubled rate . Naples, Amalfi, Pisa andVenice had thus gained a considerable degree of inde

pendence outside of the Lombard rule ; and now, ifall the cities had united, they could have formed a

great and vigorous nation . As it was, in Otto theGreat’s reign the powerful Italian kingdom founded

by the early Lombards ceased to exist ; and with itssubversion the only hope of a united Italy vanished .

A little later,however

,the most bri l l iant period o f

Lombard ’s independent history came about with thefall of the dukedoms and rise of the Commune .T he government in these Lombard cities, which , in

the eleventh century became emb ryo republics, was

carr ied on by two consuls chosen by the people , e ach of

the rising commonwea lths having two councils . T he

more general of the se ca rried out the measures of the


city government,and the other, which was called the

Great Council or Senate , discussed all the new decrees .

T he highest power , however, was centered in the peoplethemselves . When special measures were to be con

sidered the big bell tolled , calling all the citizens to ageneral Counci l or Parl iament in the city square .

After Otto III .

’

s death the Lombard nobles , ass isted by Pavia , tried to resuscitate the defunct Stateby electing Ardu in Magnus of Ivrea , while Milanchose Henry of Bavar ia ,

afterwards Henry II . T husthe long-continued contest began which put an endto kings in Italy up to the time of Victor Emanuel II . ,

the Pavian party susta ining Ardu in until he with

drew and Henry II . was chosen . T he latter died in

1024, and Conrad II. , who succeeded him , confinedhis attention to the conquest of Burgundy, leaving the

government of I taly to the nobles and b ishops .

It was at this t ime that Milan started out on thatbr il l iant caree r for which she has ever since been dis

tingu ished. Her ascendancy over the burghs of Lombardy comme nced when Heribert, the archbishop,organized the population into an independent community. It was he who or iginated the Carroccio, ahuge car drawn by oxen, bearing the standard of theburgh and carrying an altar on which the Crucifixion

was portrayed and the Host upl ifted . T his formed arallying point in battle and played an important rOle in

the warfare between the Italian cities in the MiddleAges, the loss of the Carroccio being an indication ofmost crushing defeat.Conrad II .

, having heard that Heribert was assum

ing too much authori ty , came to the rescue of thelesse r nobles ; and although as archb i shop he had invited the king to Italy and crowned himwith the Iron


dom by the Hauteville family,the descendants of

Robert Guiscard ; but at this date Apul ia and Calabria,included in the Kingdom of Naples

,were united with

Sicily into what was ca l led the “T wo Sicilies, and

Count Roger II . obtaining the crown of the UnitedKingdom by Papal Investiture

,Naples became the

capital . T his kingdom assumed and developed amore feudal character than the governments of therest of Italy, and for six hundred years , with few intermissions , this Regn o continued as a fief of the HolySee . T he Norman conquest of the T wo Sicilies formsa most romant ic episode inmedimval Italian history.

T he Greek marit ime cities , Naples , Gaeta and Amalfi,which had flourished earlier

,increasing their trade in

the East by monopolizing the Mediterranean,were

crippled by the Normans,and in time gave place to

Genoa, Pisa and Venice . T hese prosperous cit ies

also carried on domesti c manufactures and all wereliberty- loving and independent. T he crusades , whichcommenced in 1099 under Urban II .

,greatly enr iched

these mar it ime towns , and it was then that Pisa , at thecl imax of her glory and splendor

,built her famous

Cathedral,Baptistery

,and Leaning T ower.

An assembly of one hundred and thi rty bishops wascalled together by Pope Nicholas II . in 1060 to decideupon the election of the Pope by the cardinals , andafter this time the Pope was recognized as the head ofall the Latin churches in the West. Henceforth the

Papacy was every pr iest’s goal,and persons of every

rank and of every degree of morality were placed in

the Pontifical Chair.For some years before Henry IlI.

’

s death theChurch of Rome had been under the guidance of

Archbishop H i ldebrand . T he ability of this future

The Republics 2 1

great prelate, while he was stil l an unknown monk inT uscany, was directed to the aggrandizement of theChurch . He conceived in the sol itude of his clo istera plan for subj ugating the world to Papal power. A

married priest was a criminal 1n his eyes ; and he alsodetermined to stop the practice of s imony. T hese werethe two great causes of weakness in the Church ; formarriage placed the priest on the same footing as othermen , and the barter of office divested the clergy of thesacredness of their character. Up to this time thePope had really been only a Universal B ishop, butnow he received the name of Pope as a specific title,and was declared to be God’s vice-gerent on earth ,and a being too holy to s in . T he Pope ’s influencesoon became so arbitrary that no king could keep histhrone without the consent of the Pontiff and finally“ inauguration by the hand of H is Holiness becameessential to a title to the crown . T his was called theRight of Investiture.”

In the year 1073 , after having refused the office anumber of times, H ildebrand was appointed Pope asGregory VI I . H is talents were o f the highest orderand his mind was deep and far-reaching. He and

Henry IV. soon came into collision on the subj ect o fthe Right of Investiture .” Henry IV. denouncedthe Pope, and the latter retal iated by excommunicatingthe king, a Council being called by the princes toelect another ruler. It was then that Henry IV.

crossed the Alps, covered deep in ice and snow, to

beg the angry Papal potentate to grant him pardon.

H-emry ’s deep humil iation at Canossa, the castle of

the great Countess Mathilda of T uscany, burned itselfinto the heart of the world for all time.Mathilda was the daughter of that Countess Beatrice


whom Henry III . , j ea lous of the united power established by her marr iage with Godfrey of Lorraine, hadkept in pri son unt i l his own death . Mathilda her

sel f became the wife of Godfrey’s son , her stepbrother .Both she and her mother from the first had been enthu

siastic followers of the “ Cluny régime,which was

H ildebrand ’s po l icy. T his had found express ion in thecloisters at Cluny in what was called the T regu aDei ” (T he T ruce of God), according to which allfeuds in batt le were forbidden from Wednesday evening until Monday morning . T his had first been put inpract ice in the t ime of Henry II I . During the longconfl ict which followed , the Popes we re never withoutshelter from violence so long as they could reach theprotection of the T uscan front ier ; for the fiefs of thegreat Countess Mathilda stretched from Mantua acrossLombardy, passed the Apennines , included the T uscan

plains and embraced a po rt ion of the Duchy of Spoleto.

After Henry IV. had wa ited three days and threenights in the frost and snow outs ide in the court ofCountess Mathilda ’s great castle

,Grego ry VII . ab

solved him , but in terms so degrading that the kingreturned to Germany to wa it for a chance to reopenhostil it ies . At last, having fought the Pope intermit

tently for three years , this much injured sovereignrouted Gregory ’s forces

,suppl ied by the Countess

Mathilda , and was crowned Emperor by Guibert,Archbishop of Ravenna, whom he had himsel f

appointed Pope as Clement I II .Henry, however, was obl iged to withdraw fromRome when Robert Gu isca rd

’

s army returned from theEast and entered the city to deva state

,destroy and

pillage . Gregory died in 1085 during a voluntary

banishment among the Normans , utter ing anathemas

T he Republics 23

against Henry with his last breath , and saying : I

have loved j ustice and hated iniquity, therefore I diein exile .” After twenty years of fierce fight ing withGregory VII .

’

s successors , Henry IV. was driven out

of Italy and dethroned by his son, Henry V., dying in

1 106 in poverty and exile.In 1 122 , after a furthe r struggle of fifteen years ,there was a compromise called T he Concordat of

Worms,

” made between H enry V. and the Papalpowers . T he Pope ostensibly res igned the temporaland the Emperor really, the spiritual privileges of

Investiture ; but the advantage was left with the Papal

party ; for the Pope became independent o f theEmperor

,while the Emperor’s crown for several cen

turies came from the hand of the Pope . CountessMathilda

, when she died in 1 1 15 , le ft the Church al lher vast possessions ; and from this t ime on, owing

to her action, the Popes were elected by a RomanCouncil . Consequently the Holy See remained in the

hands of the I talians, and became the great glory of

the nat ion .

During the three-quarters o f a century that thestruggle over Papal Invest iture had been going on,Italy had not been standing still . T he most conspicu

ous cities of northern and central Italy, Milan,Venice, Genoa , Bologna , Siena , and Perugia , had become flourishing republ ics

,and the old feudal nobil ity

was gradually passing away. T his i s said to havebeen the age of real autonomy. Popes and Emperorswho needed the assistance of a city had to seek it fromthe consuls

,and thus the office came to resemble the

presidency o f a commonwealth . A great council of

privileged burghers,which for a time formed the

ari stocracy of the town, stood between the Parl iament


and the consuls , while the Commune included theentire body politic— b ishops, consuls, oligarchy, handcraftsmen and the poor.

No soone r had the compromise of Investiture been

concluded than the commonwealths tu rned their armsagainst each other, concordant action for a nationalend being impossible for many centuries . Pi sa soughtto destroy Amalfi Genoa and Florence attacked Pisa ,and Venice fought Genoa, while Verona absorbed

Padua, T reviso, etc . ; but Milan al l the while was the

great center of the republican cities of northern Ita ly,and it was she who soon engul fed the lesser towns o fLombardy.

As the new republics increased in importance they

needed more territory. T his they wrested from thenobles , who in the course of a century were fo rced toleave their castles and l ive in towns . T hey provedbad neighbors

,and engendered such stri fe among the

peaceable burghers that the war aga inst the castleswas changed to a war against the palaces . In turn thefortified residences defied the consuls ; and thi s was

the way the Age of the De spots commenced and theend of the republics came about.T hese turbulent forces produced a sympathet icrevolution in Rome led by Arnold da Brescia

,the

“Patriarch of Pont ifical Heretics

,as he has been

called,and the forerunner of al l reformers . After hav

ing been exiled in 1 139 on account of his bo ld censureof the clergy, he returned for the purpose of urgingreforms in the government of Rome . T his resultedin the proclaiming Rome a republ ic, with a civil sys

tem much like that of the republ ican cities of Lombardy. T he Popes as they succeded each other wroteto Conrad III . to come down and quell the disturb

The Republics 25

anecs ; but the king was too much occupied to interfere or to seek the sovereignty of Rome, and accordingly was never crowned as Emperor .

It was in the time of the Saxon , Lothair I . , Conrad ’s predecessor , that the war between the Guelphsand Ghibellines commenced, the former be ing the

Church party and the latter the Emperor’s faction .

T he Guelphs were named from Welf of Bavaria, descended from the old Welf, whose daughter was thewife of Louis the Pious ; and the Ghibellines from

Waibling, a castle of the original Hohenstaufen nearMount Staufen . T he diff erent fact ions were dist in

guishable by different devices , the Ghibellines wear ingthe feather on their hats on one side , the Guelphs onthe other

,the Ghibellines cutting their meat crosswise,

the Guelphs straight, etc . In this way crimes were

o ften detected, one man being prosecuted on account

of the way he sliced his garlic .

In Conrad’s time the excitement increased in vio

lence, and"the war-cries Guelph and Ghibelline

were first used.

Frederick Barbarossa, the successor of Conrad III.,

was first called down into Italy in the interest of thetown of Lodi, which was being oppressed by Milan .

T he Guelph party was now led by Milan and theEmperor’s faction by Pavia ; and, after a Diet heldat .Roncaglia near Piacenza , Barbarossa proceeded todestroy Asti , Chieri , T unis and T o rtona , becausePavia and the Marquis of Montferrat brought accusations against them. Barbarossa was thereupon pre

sented with the Iron Crown of Lombardy at Paviaand

,though Milan had re fused shelter and subs istence

to his army, he was obliged, on account of the weakness of his forces , to temporarily ignore the sl ight.

26 I taly : Her People and T heir Story

He now went on to Rome and, scorning the overtureso f the new republic, he entered the Leonine City onthe south side of the T iber ; and , calling back theexiled Pope Hadrian IV. , he was crowned by him . In

order,however

,to effect this he was ob l iged to hand

over to Pope Hadrian, Arnold da Brescia , who wasburned alive in 1 155 in the Piazza del Popolo . T he

Roman republic never recovered from that martyr’

sdeath

,and it soon fel l to pieces .

Barbarossa ’s and Hadr ian ’s quarrels then began ,first about the provinces which Mathilda of T uscanyhad given to the Church, and afterwards because

Hadrian had confirmed Will iam the Norman in hisclaim to the territory which Leo IX . had made overto the Normans as fiefs to the Emperor. Barbarossaeven attempted to appropriate these southern provinces, but was driven back to Ge rmany by the burningheat.In 1 158 Barbarossa returned to Italy and spent threeyears in trying to force Milan to yield . Year afteryear he ravaged her lands

,taxed her people unmerci

fully and appointed judges called Pode sta, who har

assed the inhabitants by thei r arbitrary proceedings .At last he besieged the city for nearly a year ; and in1 16 1 , having ordered all the inhabitants , even thosesick unto death , to leave the town , he gave up the cityto unlimited plunder, and after he r total destructionhe declared that the name of Milan should be blottedout.

As soon as Barbarossa returned to Germany aleagu e was formed against him by the cit izens of

northeastern Italy, Verona , Vincenza Padua, T reviso,and Venice , and in 1 163 , when he , with a bril l iant staffof German kn ights, again crossed the Alps , these


gling against the independence of Lombardy,and with

seven diff erent armies had devastated her plains, ex er

cis ing eve ry degree of cruelty upon her inhabitants ;but the fatal Battle of Legnano left himpowerless ;”and in 1 183 , at the end of a truce of s ix years, the inde

pendence o f Lombardy was guaranteed . At this t imethe united cities of the League were so powerful thatthey might have made themselves a great and prosperons nation had they been in accord with one another.

Guelphs and Ghibellines 29

CHAPTER III

HENRY VI .— FREDERICK I I .— INNOCENT I I I . —BRANCA

LEONE.— MANFRED.

—CHARLES OF ANJOU.

1190—1280A.D.

HEN the news reached Europe that the Infidels

had taken Jerusalem , Frederick Barbarossa immediately set out on the third crusade ; but he wasseized with a stroke of apoplexy while cross ing thel itt le river Calycadmus in Syria and drowned .

Pope Innocent III unwilling to have the southernpart of Italy absorbed by Germany, Opposed the nuptials of Hen ry VI . ,

Barbarossa’s son, with Constance ,heir to the T wo Sicilies ; but in spite of this, a fter thedeath of Barbarossa and the decease of Wi lliam II . ,

the grandson of Roger II . and father of Constance,Henry VI . in 1 190 inherited the vast power of both .

Henry VI . proved to be a merciless monarch , andhis reign was soon cut short

,it is thought, by poison .

H is wife Constance also died,leaving a l itt le son four

years of age,who

,after the temporary sovereignty of

his uncle, Philip, was crowned as Frederick II . ,

soleheir of Swabia and Sicily. T he child , before his

mother’s death, had been made a ward of Pope Innocent I II .Meanwhile the Guelph and Ghibelline wars grew

more and more bitter both in Ita ly and in Germany,the nobles defending themselves in their fortresses onthe heights . In the recesses of these strongholds there

was a donj on , or keep, where , in the last extremity,the lord of the castle ret ired wi th his family, friends


and followers,and day and night armed men kept

guard on the wa lls or in a watch-tower outside . Wegather fromthe vine-covered ru ins of these fastnesses ,overlooking the fertile pla ins of Italy, that, thoughpicturesque as rel ics , as homes they were dismal asprisons ; and except for the romances of every-dayexistence these lords and ladies must have been de

prived of all the attract ions which at present make thedwellings of Italy charming.

In the cities polit ical quarrels were often mixed upwith family disputes . T his was the case in Florence ,where from 1 1 15 , the year that Countess Mathildadied, up to 12 15 , there had been peace . At this timea feud broke out between the Buondelmonti and theUberti famil ies . T he representat ive of the Buondelmonti , a young man of fashion and gent il ity, was engaged to a daughte r of the Ubert i ; but he deserted herfor another fairer damsel , and one gala day herfr iends , indignant at the insult, murdered the youthin the pub lic square of the city. All Florence interested itsel f in this fatal quarrel , the Guelph party rallying round the Buondelmonti , and the Ghibellines supporting the Uberti ; and thus the feud continued forthi rty years , the Guelph and Ghibelline power alternat ing in T uscany.

It was at this same cri tiEal era that the Wel f Otto,son of Henry the Lion , came to Italy and as Otto IV.

received from Pope Innocent II I . the crown of theEmpire which really belonged to Frederick II . When,however, he tried also to establish his rights to theever-disputed territory of Countess Mathilda, and to

the Kingdom of Sicily for a long t ime united in fealtyto the Holy See, Pope Innocent, who had hitherto

thought little of the wel fare of his ward, deserted Otto

Guelphs and Ghibellines 3 1

and supported the claims of Frederick to the Impe rialcrown . In this way H is Holiness united with theGhibell ines, really the Emperor ’s fact ion ; and at thesame t ime Otto, the leader of the Guelph party, foughtthe Pope. T he cit ies a lso supported their own candidates respect ively, some Papa l towns adher ing to Ottoand some Ghibell ine cities j oining Freder ick, who wasthe Pope’s candidate aga inst the Guelph Emperor ; and

thus the web and woof of Italian polit ics was twisted.

Frederick II ., upheld by the forces of the Pope , slew

Otto in the Battle of Bovines ; and, though InnocentI I I . died soon after

,Frederick II . was crowned as

Emperor in 1220 by Honor ius I II . on condit ion that heshould visit Palestine , divide the power by giving upApulia and Sicily to his son Henry, and acknowledgehis dependence on the Pope .

As an ambitious and diplomatic Papal ruler Innocent I II . ranks with Gregory VI I . and Boniface VII I .It was he who first conceived the idea of the PapalStates by seizing upon a territory in the center of Italyand making the control of it one of the special officesof the Pope . He executed his plans with the abil ityof a great statesman

,gaining such power over the con

temporary sovereigns oi Europe that they all fearedhim . For the purpose of st ifl ing the spirit of inquiryamong the people , he encouraged the Franciscan andDominican friars , whose orders were just establ ished ;and, by raising the vexed question of the expediencyof giving the communion cup to laymen, he createdmany schisms in the Church which lasted up to Lnther

’

s time.Frederick II. was now the Emperor of the world andheld the crown of Italy , Sic ily, Sardinia , Apul ia , Ger

many, Burgundy and Jerusalem . T he versati l ity o f


hi s character and comprehensiveness of his vi ews madehis reign one of the most remarkable of the age . He

insisted on the obedience o f law as the highest standard

of j ustice ; and accordingly the Kingdom of Sicilyunder his rule enjoyed exceptional prosperi ty. He

surrounded himsel f with men of learning, adorned thecity of Naples , established a Univers ity, and laid thefoundation of the new Ital ian language, which ha scome down to us , he himsel f writ ing Italian poetry.

He has been called the most cult ivated monarch ofthose early times . Frederick’s early training had madehim skeptical and indiff erent to the all-absorbing topic

of the day, and, surrounded by everything calculatedto fascinate the senses, he soon forgot his vow, made toHonorius , to set ou t on a crusade for the purpose o fcapturing the Holy Sepulchre from the hands of the

Infidels. But, smarting under the maledictions of the

Pope, he at last leisurely prepared for the campaign .

Meanwhile Honor ius I I I . died and Gregory IX ., hi ssuccessor

,tired of Freder ick

’s vacillating course, excommunicated him . Finally, weary of the unrest athome , Frederick set sa i l for Pales tine in 1228, andlanded at Jean d’Acre, where , through his marriagewith Iolanda, daughter o f John of Brienne, the exiledKing of Jerusalem, he claimed the temporal crown o fthe kingdom ; and thi s he placed upon his own brow .

T he Pope was so angry at the blasphemy of amonarch ’s undertaking a crusade in the face of e x communication, that he hurled another bull against himand sent an army to lay waste his territory.

On his return from the crusade Emperor and Popewere reconciled ; but there were so many insurrectionsin the North that he was obliged to employ the

infamous Ezzelino da Romano, together with hi s


Saracen troops,in putting them down . He also

defeated the Milanese and their a l l ies at Corte Nuovain 1237, sending their Carroccio to Rome as a trophy .

Gregory IX . now became so uneasy at the almost complete ruin of the Guelph party that he called Venice andGenoa to his aid , and, having for a thi rd time ex communicated Freder ick II . ,

he incited his son Henry torebel aga inst his father. T his so angered Freder ick

that wherever he could find the partisans of the Churchhe put them to death.

T he greatest drawback in the way of Frederick II .

’

s

success was his contradictory character. He surrounded himsel f at the same time with skept icsand churchmen , Mohammedans and Christ ians , andendowed convents and monaste ri es

,while he was per

secuting the defenders of the Church ; and as soon ashe was excommunicated, he started out on hiscrusade.Gregory IX . , not knowing what to do with this turbulent monarch, called together the famous Council atMeloria ; but the Emperor was equal to the emergency,and with his squadron intercepted the French Bishops

,

appropriated their treasure, and sent the captive prelates bound in silver chains to Pisa . T his was toomuch for the disappointed Pope

,and he soon died from

grief and chagrin , leaving the Papacy to Innocent IV. ,

a former friend o f Freder ick II. Summoning a greatcouncil of one hundred and forty bishops from all overEurope, Pope . Innocent hurled the greatest Bull ofExcommunicat ion upon Frederick which had been castupon anyone since the t ime of Grego ry VI I . In it hedeclared that the Emperor had sacrificed his rights asa sovereign and that his subj ects no longer owed himallegiance . T hus, though wearing five crowns

,Fred


e ri ck II . henceforth led a doomed existence ; for nowhe was surrounded on all s ide s by conspi racies , besidesbeing ma ligned on account of the dark doings of hisexecrable vicar , Ezzelino da Romano ; but fortunately,the latter

,after having laid waste numberless prov

inces and committed murders by the thousand, wasovercome by a united force of Guelphs and Ghibellinesand slain .

At last as a final blow his favorite son Enzio wasimprisoned at Bologna , where he never again saw thel ight of day, dying twenty years later. T here was aslight alleviation to the melancholy of this pe rsecutedmonarch at the time when the news that Florence hadfallen into the hands o f the Ghibellines reached his ears.He struggled on five years longe r

,dying in his Apulian

castle o f Fiorent ino in 1250, a broken-hearted old man ,although in fact but fifty- six years old. T he powero f the Ghibellines decl ined at his death , after havinglasted a hundred years

,and his reign closed the epoch

of German Imperial rule in Italy.

Innocent IV. rej oiced at the death of this aecom

plished monarch , his friend of earl ier years ; and on hisreturn to Rome he made the Ghibell ine faction quake

,

by taking the ground that the Kingdom o f Naples nowrightfully belonged to the Papacy. In accordance withthis view he made a war on Frederick’s heirs whichlasted e ighteen years . Conrad IV. , Frederick

’s successor, died in 1254, during the contest, leaving anin fan t son.

Innocent IV.

’

s influence, although it increasedgreatly, found in Brancaleone of Andalo, Count ofCasale cchio, a Ghibelline Opponent of much energy.

T his remarkab le statesman, who won the respect ofall posteri ty, be fore accepting the office of Senator in


would have been sa crificed . As it was, in 1257 theGuilds arose, and recalled him for another three years.Brancaleone made an alliance with the son of Fred

erick II . ,Manfred, who was then in command of the Imperial forces in Sicily and acting as king for his brotherConrad IV. Soon after the death of Conrad, Manfredj oined the Ghibelline party under Farinata degl i Ubert i .Florence had gained great power in T uscany underthe government of the Guelphs, who, after having beendriven out by young Frederick, the natural son ofFrederick II . , had now come back. T he Guelphs of

Genoa and Modena, and even o f Lombardy, united withthat party in T uscany, and in 1260 they all met on thebattle-field of Monte Aperto . T he contest was undecided for a long t ime , unti l the Guelph cavalry wasbetrayed by Bocca degl i Abati , who went over to theGhibellines , and the day was lost. A large number ofthe cit izens were slain , and Florence hersel f, fal linginto the hands of the Ghibellines , the Caroccio wastaken and a council was called to destroy the city.

Although Far inata had in the beginning enlisted Manfred to help against Florence , he held the city in her

dange r dearer than hi s party. He said that he wouldnot suffer his country to be destroyed while he couldwield a sword

,and begged so hard for her that

Florence was finally saved. Dante, in his Infe rno,”

i s supposed to have met Farinata in the In fernal

Regions,where

,among other things,

He said and shook hismournful head,‘

In these things was not I a lone, nor couldWithout grave reason be by others led,But I stood sole, when all consenting wouldHave swept off Florence fromthe earth ;Alone and openly in her defence I stood.


For a time the power of the Gue lphs in T uscany andthroughout all Italy was at an end , and Manfred heldgreat power at the head of the Ghibell ines . B rancaleone now ruled more sternly than ever in Rome, andbecame odious to Pope Alexander, who ex commun icated him ; that same year, in 1258, while engagedon the Siege of Corneto

,Brancaleone was attacked by

a violent fever, and , being carried to Rome , died on

the Capitoline H i l l.Alexande r IV. died in 1261 and was succeeded by aFrench Pope unde r the title of Urban IV. T he choicefor Emperor now lay between Alphonso X . of Cast ileand Richard

,Earl of Cornwa ll

,brother of Henry II I .

o f England. Pope Urban IV. ignored both candidatesand off ered the crown to Louis IX . of France . T he

latter had too much dignity to meddle with things outside his own province, but, in 1265 , he assisted hisunscrupulous brother, Charles of Anj ou , with men andmoney to undertake the conquest of Naples .T he Count of Anj ou was crue l and ambitious , aswell as unprincipled , and very wealthy through hiswife , Beatrice , daughter of the Count of Provence, inwhose right he held that country. Hers was a familyof queens , and it was thought that he r ambit ion spurredher husband on . Urban IV. and the Guelph partyhad agree d to the election of Charles as Senator ofRome, on condition that as king he should hold Sicilyand Naples only as a fief from the Pope ; and Urban,remembering how Henry VI . and Frederick II . had

circumscribed the Church on the north and south,to ld Charles that when he obtained Naples he mustre l inquish the Senatorship of Rome , and must in themeantime acknowledge the supremacy of the Popeover the Senate . Although appearing to agree to


everything, Charles of An j ou intended to keep theSenatorship for l i fe ; and in addition to this , he succeeded in obtaining the Vicarship of T uscany.

Before matters were settled Urban IV. died ; and hissucce ssor, Clement IV. , crowned Charles of AnjouKing of the T wo Sicilies in the Church of St . John inLateran . At the Battle of Grandella , on the 26th of

February, 1266 , Manfred was deserted by many of the

Ita l ian Ghibell ines, and finally when his army fled, hewas s la in

,the success of Charles of Anjou ’s followers ,

the Guelph Angevines , being assured. T he Guelphs

who had been dr iven out at the Battle of MonteAperto now returned, and Charles was elected Signorof Florence for two years . Pisa, envious of Florence,threw her influence on the s ide of the Ghibell ines tobring forward young Conradin, the only heir to theHouse of Sici ly and the last of the Hohenstaufen .

Notwithstanding the counsels of his mother, Conradin sold the most of his possessions in Ge rmany, andthough a mere lad, collected all the troops he couldgather in that country. Reinforced by a large number of exiled Ghibellines and disaff ected Sic il ians , hecrossed the Alps into Italy with ten thousand soldiers .At first the fa ir-haired boy defeated the army of

Charle s of Anjou ; but at T agliacozzo , in 1268, the victory was lost because , confident of success, Conradin

’

s

troops stopped to plunder the enemy.

Charles of Anjou had been for a t ime obliged to giveup the Senatorship at Rome, a democrat ic government being formed , consist ing of twenty-six “ bonihomines,

” with Angelo Capocci, a Ghibell ine , as captain , while Don Henry, son of Henry III . of Castile

,

was elected Senator. T he latter kept the clergy down

and subdued the rough element of the Campagna, and,


throwing the Guelph nobles into disorder, he made analliance with the T uscan Ghibell ines . Don Henrydrove back the troops of Charles , and when Conradin

came he gave him a hearty welcome. But afterthe Battle of T agliacozzo Cha rles was again elected

Senator for ten years , and, Conradin having beenbetrayed into his hands , he had himput to death in amost barbarous manner . Anjou has been called T he

Exterminator of the Hohenstaufen .

”

Charles o f Anj ou would now have been master ofthe whole of Italy, and might have been crowned asEmperor

,had not Gregory X . enlisted Rudolph of

Hapsburg,the founder of the Hapsburg House in Ger

many, to assist him . T he agreement was that Rudolph,

as Empe ror,should abstain from any interference in

Italy, and that he should confirm the territorial pretensions of the Pope by a charter . In accordancewith this arrangement

,in 1276 Emilia , Romagna, the

March of Ancona , the Patrimony of St . Peter and theCampagna of Rome belonged to the Holy See , and

not to the Empire . T hese were the States of theChurch which swore allegiance to the Pope, andstamped his image on their coins ; and ever after thisthe Popes were land-cd proprietors .Nicholas I I I .

,who succeeded Gregory X .

,took away

from Charles o f Anjou the Vicarship of T uscany andthe Senatorship of Rome , and, ra ising the Ghibellinepower

, persuaded Rudolph of Hapsburg to surrenderall titles to the lands of Counte ss Mathilda .

Italy was now divided into three port ions , the Kingdom of Naples in the south under Charles of Anjou ;the Papal States , which contained seventeen thousandsquare mile s and a populat ion of several mill ions inthe center o f Italy ; while Rudolph of Hapsburg con


sidered the northen portion pecul iarly his own, s incehe never meddled with the rest.At the time of the ascendancy of the Guelphs in 1276,

the const itution of Florence assumed the form whichit was destined to hold for many yea rs. T he citizenswere divided into Guilds or Arts , as the trade organiz ations of Florence were called at that time . EachArt had its own council of s ix priors and its leader orGonfa loni ere, who all held office two months and ateat the same table and lived in the Palazzo Pubblico .

T here were twelve of these Arts in which the powerwas placed, and which were made the foundation ofthe constitution . T he criminal court was under thesupervision of both the Podesta and the Captain ofthe People.Florence had now no rival among Ital ian cities, andher location was unsurpassed in loveliness . She hadbecome vastly populous and had gained great wealthand renown through her commerce , the Florentinefabrics being in the greatest demand in the European

markets for three hundred years.

Contentions of the Republics 4 1

CHAPTER IV

VENICE, PISA, GENOA.— COLONNA AND ORSTN1.

—src1L1ANVESPERs.

—THE NERI AND B IANCH I.—DANT E.

1280—1310A.D.

ENICE,in the beginning a collection of scattered

islands,had gradually assumed considerable im

portance ; but she never came into polit ical not iceouts ide her own l imits unti l 1237, when the cruelexecution of Frederick T iepolo

,the Podesta of Milan

and son of their Doge , aroused the Venetians and incited them to j oin the Lombard League.From this time the Venetian republic made rapidstrides in wealth and power, and attained great renown . Her government has been handed down asone of the most remarkable bodies in history. It wasmuch like the administration in Florence , only thatthe Doges

,nominated in the general assembly of the

citizens,kept their posit ion for l i fe, assisted by six

priors , it being stipulated that no Doge should associatehis son in the government. At first there was onlythe Great Council , which consisted of the highernobles and the lesser nobles ; but the people , beingdenied all voice in municipal proceedings

,became dis

satisfied. Accordingly a legi slature was organized,composed of four hundred and eighty delegates, anda constitution was formed.

In 1301 the famous Council of T en was instituted, which kept the people enslaved by the nobles .T his Council united with the Doge and his priors ,and held despotic power for a great number of years .


Its obj ect was the ferreting out and punishing of

crime .At the height of her glory Venice held dominionover three-e ighths of the old Roman Empire ; and forha l f a century Genoa , aided by Greece , and Venice, by

Pi sa , were engaged in incessant stri fe, fighting overthe spo ils brought in from the Eastern world . It wasthe crusades which buil t up the commerce of Venicein the East

,and brought into Europe much of the

luxury of Oriental splendor ; s ince her ships , aftertranspo rt ing troops to Palestine, came back ladenwith products from the Orient .About 1200 A.D. ,

at the time of the fourth crusadeunder Innocent III .

,in which Venice took so great a

pa rt,the Venetian fleet conquered Constant inople and

kept it for forty- seven years ; and besides this , manyislands were at this t ime ceded to he r. T he same oldpalaces then inhab ited by the wealthy famil ies whoengaged in the commerce of that era are sti ll seen onthe Grand Canal .

Genoa and Pi sa , which had been contending formany years for supremacy, in 1284 engaged in a finalstruggle . When a large part of the Pisan fleet wasdestroyed by a tempest, Genoa rej oiced ; and when theGenoese navy captured more Pi san galleys

, on theirway to Sardinia, the great bells in the lofty towerof Maria in Carignano sounded forth their chimesmore gaily than ever. Finally the large Genoesefleet outnumbered the three hundred Pisan galleys atthe mouth of the Arno

,and tr iumphed over the Pisans

at the Battle of Meloria, the same place where fortyyears be fore Frederick II . had made his famousseizure of the whole Council of Bishops . Eleventhousand inhabitants were captured in thi s battle and


ties of the French rulers ; and, as the cry of agonyarose

,the crowd of thousands formed itsel f into a

mob which took possession of the city. A generalslaughter of the French followed ; and in the morningnot one out of the thousands of res ident French hadescaped . T he work did not cease here ; but all theFrench in Sicily were utterly e x terrn inated in thisgreat flame of insurrection, the horrible massacrebeing handed down as the Sicil ian Vespers.

”

Charles of Anj ou was compelled to retire fromMessina by Peter of Aragon , who was anchored inthe harbor. Anjou ’s whole fleet, which was readyfor the Greek War, was destroyed ; so that, althoughassisted by Philip the Bold and Pope Martin IV., hewas never able to recover his lost dominion be fore hisdeath in 1286 . Du ring the next twenty years the

Spanish Ghibell ines in Sicily and Apulia were ruledby Peter o f Aragon and his sons, while the FrenchAngevin House reigned in Naples, supported by theGuelphs .

Since the expiration of Charle s of Anjou’s Sena

torship of ten years in Rome , the Colonna, Savell i ,Orsini , Anabaldi and other Roman noble s had heldthe power, much to the detriment of the republic ;and when the fame of the Sicil ian Vespers reachedthe city the Orsini rose in arms , massacred the Frenchgarrison and re-established a popular government.In 1294 the Cardinal Colonna re fused to acknowl

edge Pope Boni face VII I . , because the latte r, in orderto raise his own faction to power, opposed the Colonnafamily, then in power, and excommunicated them . Fora time Pope Boni face succeeded in keeping down theirinfluence, unt i l at last, at the instigation of Wi ll iam

Nogari and Sciarra Colonna, the Pontiff was impris

Contentions of the Republics 45

oned at Anagni and treated with such violence that,in 1303 , he died of grie f at the humil iation .

On account of the violence of the extreme faction,

the Guelphs in Florence had separated in 1300, theB ianchi or Whites , the moderate port ion , developinginto Ghibellines . T he quarrels of these parties had

risen so high , that Boniface VI I I . felt obliged to

summon Charles of Valois, brother of Philip the Fair

of France . In I 301 Charles of Valois was j oined byCorso Donati

,and with the French cavalry laid waste

everything within reach ; and afterwards the formeradvanced to Sicily to support the Guelphs against

Frederick of Aragon .

In the course of these dissens ions Dante , who wasof the moderate Guelph party

,the B ianchi , was driven

into exile and,through the tragedy of his sufferings ,

produced his immortal poem,the Divina Commedia .

”

T his religious epic treats of Paradise , Pu-rgatory andan Inferno, and describes Dante as visit ing these placesand talking with such of his countrymen as were noted

for good and evil deeds . It i s pronounced one of

the greatest productions of human genius ; and in it

the principal characters in the awful scenes enactedat this era in Italy are painted in ineff aceable colors.Dante ’s mind was greatly influenced by a certainrel igious revival in the Church ; s ince at this timeBoni face VII I . had set apart the year 1300 as the firstsecular Jubilee , at the same time granting to all Christians , who should make pilgrimages to the holy placesof Rome, divine peace and mercy. In this way the

custom originated of making the last year of eachcentury the occasion of special religi ous solemnities .T he overwhelming excitement at this time brought outso great a number of the faithful that the old bridge


of St. Angelo had to be divided by a barrier to separatethe crowds going in diff erent directions to St . Peter ’sand St Paul ’s , many thousands besides the DivinePoet being st irred to noble thoughts and actions .Dante’s is the first great name in l iterature after thenight of the Dark Ages .” He was born under thesign of the Gemini , which astrologers considered favorable to l iterature and science . In the Inferno ”

we learn that his instructor,Brunetto Latini , told him

that i f the guidance of th is constellat ion were followedit would lead him to everlast ing fame . While yet a

boy Dante had prepared himsel f for his great work

by the study of Virgi l, Horace, Ovid and also bytheological research .

T he great poet had first met Beatrice Portinari atthe house of her father , in 1274, when they were bothnine years of age . Although he never spoke with herpersonally but once or twice, and she knew little ofhi s devot ion to her, until the end of his li fe her beautywas his glory

,her memory his solace

,and her image

his guiding star ; and after her death he writes in hisVita Nuova” : It was gi ven to me to see a beautifuland wonderful vision

,which determined me to say

nothing unt il I could write more worthily concerninghe r what hath not been written of any woman .

”

Florence had enjoyed uninterrupted peace after theBattle o f Monte Aperto

,in 1228, until January 1 1 ,

1289, when, at the Battle of Campaldino, the Ghibell ines were defeated . Dante proved his manhood infighting both there and at Caprona . T hen he retu rnedto his studies and to the meditations of his love ; butin 1290 Beatrice died . Dante was a ski lled draughts

man , and on the anniversary of that day he drew an

angel on her tombstone .

DAN'

I‘

E AND BEATRICE .

Contentions of the Republics 47

Beatrice had become the wife of Simeone di Bardi,and

,in 1292 , after her death Dante , won by sympathy

and kindness,married the daughter of Corso Donati .

In spite of rumors to the contrary there is l ittle doubtthat Gemma, the mother of his seven children, was anaff ectionate wife ; but for some reason or other shewas never with him in his exile, and he left her out

altogether in his “ Divina Commedia . Her father,Corso Donati , became Dante

’s bitter political enemy

in the strife then pending.

Dante was inscr ibed in the Art of the Medici and

Spezial i ,” which made him eligible as one of s ix

priors to whom the government was entrusted in 1282 .

Documents stil l exist in Florence showing that he tookpart in the Council of the city in 1295 ; and from Junetil l Augu st of 1300 he held the office of pr ior.On January 27, 1302 , Dante, with three otherscharged with embezzlement, was compelled to pay afine o f five thousand liras ; and on March I O, for

political reasons , he and fourteen other condemnedpersons were exiled from T uscany for two years , andsentenced to be burned alive i f found within the limitsof the republic . All the exiles met at a castle called

Garganz a, between Siena and Arezzo, and Dante wentfrom there to Verona and placed himsel f in the careof Bartholomeo Scala, whose son Can Grande was thena boy. An ill-advised attempt on the part of his companions to storm Florence disclosed to Dante theirincapacity and ba seness . T hen , in his contempt forthem , he became independent of the Bianchi in whoseranks he had been born and bred . Standing thusalone

,he for the first time realized the bitterness of

banishment .T hough at first people thought of Dante only as an


exiled pol itician, he had , be fore he ever entered pol itics ,written his “ Vita Nuova,

” the song of his love forBeatrice

,and other poems , so that often when he was

going along the streets of Florence, as Boccaccio tellsi t

,he heard the blacksmith at his anvil and the men

driving their mules singing his verses . When theydid not quote his l ines correctly, he would stop them on

the street, chide them and tel l them they were spo ilinghis work.

After the first years of Dante ’s exile, spent in tryingto return to Florence, it dawned on him that the sunstill rose and set outside his beloved city and hewandered from ca stle to castle and frommonastery tomonastery, until l i ttle by l ittle he began to think o fother things . H is hopes fa iled at the untimely death

of Henry VI I . , whom he had looked forward to as thedel iverer of Italy ; and when Corso Donati , his father

in-law, with whom he had become reconciled, wasattacked and killed in 1308, after j oining the Ghibell ines , his courage entirely gave way.

Many cities and castles in Italy have claimed thehonor of giving Dante refuge and being for a time the

home of his Muse . Dante himsel f says : “T hrough

almost every land where the I tal ian language is spokena wanderer I have gone , showing against my will thewounds of fortune .” T he Ghibelline leader Uguccione at one t ime off ered him shelte r way up in themountains of Urbino ; and, after vi siting the Univer

sity of Bologna, Dante retired to the Castle of Moroello Malaspina , where the

“marble mountains of the

Apennines descend precipitously to the Gul f ofSpezia.

Dante , when he received the news of his exile, wasabsent on a diplomatic expedition to Rome, and in the


his last retreat at Ravenna , by means of a dream di s

covered their hiding-place behi nd a secret panel ,cove red with dust, cobwebs and mold . Dante wouldnot send these to his off ended patron , and could notbear to publ ish them without first submitting them tothe arb iter of all the rest.After Dante separated from Can Grande , he visited

Paris and went to Holland , crossing over to England .

Stil l he longed for Florence, and“ l ingered upon the

Umbrian H i lls , where the horizon closed over hishome .” Once he had an Oppo rtunity to return ; forat the Fest iva l of St. John certain cr iminals and pol

itical off enders were granted pardon, on condit ion ofpaying a fin e and off ering themse lves to the care of that

Saint. Dante’s friends made a strenuous effort toinduce himto accept this way of e nding his exi le ; buthe scorned the humil iat ing favor, saying : If by this

means only I can return to Florence, she shall neveragain be entered by me.”

Boccaccio tells us that after Dante had wri tten hisInferno he appeared one day to Fra Ilario, prior ofthe Monastery of Santa Croce del Corvo, asking forpeace . Fra I lario recognized the stranger as no otherthan Dante, who on leaving drew from hi s bosom al ittle book and gave it to the pr ior as a memorial . It

was the Inferno .

” Fra Ilar io was much surprised tosee so arduous a task accomplished in Ital ian , and askedDante why he had written it in the vulgar tongue .T he reply was that, having seen the songs of the mostillustrious poets neglected

,he had thought it best to

adapt this great work to the understanding of themodems .” In this way he confirmed the classic Ital ianwhich Frederi ck II . had first established in Sicily andmade the cou rt language.

Contentions of the Republics 5 1

Boccaccio describes Dante somewhat as followsDante was of middle height and stooped when hewalked

,and his aspect was grave and quiet . H is face

was long, he had an aquil ine nose and his eyes werelarge . H is complexion was dark, his hair and beardthick, black and curly, and his countenance was alwaysmelancholy. So i t happened one day in Verona afterhis works were already known and his face famil iarto many

,that he passed before a house where several

women were seated ; and one sa id softly : Did younotice him who goes to hell and returns again whenhe likes

,and brings back news of the people down

below .

’ Another woman replied : You speak thetruth

,for see how scorched his beard is and how dark

he is from the heat and smoke .’ When Dante heardthis and saw that the women be lieved it he was pleasedand amused and went on his way with a smile.It is pleasant to think that the last days of this great,

but sad poet were passed in peace at the home of hisfri end Gu ido di Polenta , among the high houses of thesame shady street in Ravenna Opposite which one

to-day sees his tomb . He re all the world was tenderto the poet .” Here, withdrawn from all possibil ityof a sight of Florence , he gave up his deferred hopeand was able to sink back into the melancholy old citywith its mou rnfu l mosaics , almost as much older thanGiotto as that pa inter is older than the art ists of thepresent day. Here he was comforted by his two sons ,Pietro and Jacopo, and spent much time in correspondence with his far-off friends .Gu ido of Polenta treated Dante with great consideration , giving him the place of honor at his table andsending him on important missions .

Once he received an invitation to go to Bologna to


accept the Crown of Poetry. He replied : If ever Iam crowned at all it shall be within the solemn wallsof the Bel San Giovanni,

’ the church which Dantehad never ceased to love . He wrote , Sweet would itbe to decorate my head with the crown of laurel inBologna

,but sweeter stil l in my own country, i f ever

I return there, hiding my white hair beneath the

leaves .”

On retu rning from a mission to Venice, Dantecaught a fever among the marshes

,and in the month

of September in the year 132 1 , when he was fifty-s ixyears of age

,he died at Ravenna .

Florence at first made no sign of penitence ; but toher shame one day she awoke to her glory in hisunrivaled greatness . She waited long for the peopleof Ravenna to give him up ; and she bu ilt h im a beaut iful monument in the Church of Santa Croce , a sarcophagus bearing the words : Dante Alighieri , ilDivino Poeta ,

” etc . ; but it is still empty. In the squareouts ide his statue rises in almost divine benignity ;and as one looks upon the penciled features it i s nothard to understand how such wonderful creat ionscould spring from a soul so harassed and persecuted.

Age of the Despots 53

CHAPTER V

THE AGE OF THE DESPOT S .— T HE CONDOT T IERI AND THEFREE COMPAN IES. -PETRARCH , BOCCACCIO, GIOTT O,CIMABUE.

—RIENZ I .

1310—1354 A.D.

T was in the time of Clement V. , in the year 1309,that the Holy See was moved to Avignon . T his wasthe home of the Popes for the seventy-five yearsknown as the Babylonian Captivity.

”T he Papal

Palace built in Clement V.

’

s time was for many yearsused as a soldiers ’ barracks , and re sounded to therevelry of the troops of France . Recently, however,the rel ic has been restored and trans formed into amuseum .

Since the death of Frederick II. no German hadclaimed the crown of Italy ; but in 1310 Henry VI I .

crossed the Alps for the purpose of putting down theGuelphs . It was the sound of his coming that had sothrilled Dante ’s heart. At first all the nobles andleaders rushed to his standard

,the Ghibellines receiv

ing him as though belonging to them,and many of the

Guelphs , because the Pope favored him . When, however, it was apparent that he intended to put down therebell ious independence of the Italian cities, the strongGuelph influence predominated against him and nothingwas accomplished except the recall of a few exiles

,

Dante being emphatically mentioned among the ex ceptions . Rome also was Opposed to Henry VII . andcalled to her assistance Robert of Naples, the grandson

54 I taly : H er People and Their Story

of Charles of Anjou , so that Henry had to be crownedin St. John in Lateran instead of in the Vat ican .

Henry VII . made an alliance with Frederick of

Aragon against Florence and the King of Naples, andwhile he was besieging Florence, during three months,a third wall was built around the city for protection .

Henry VI I . had already established the power of theVisconti in Milan and subj ected B rescia and Cremona ;and he seemed about to gain the ascendancy in Italywhen

,as he was marching up the country from Pisa

with a powerful army in the August of 13 13 , he sud

denly died, poisoned in the communion cup in whichhis coronation had at last been consecrated . He wasburied in Pisa, which had always been faithful to him .

T his was the last attempt of the German rulers toreceive the Imper ial crown , although they stil l keptup the title . Dante in his Monarchia strongly expressed the disrespect oi the Italian people for theGerman rulers and for the empty epithet of Emperor.In the beginning the Ghibellines were on the side

of the Empire, and the Guelphs in favor of the Church ;but later the Florentines were equally indiff erent toChurch and Emperor, unless they worked for her interests ; and all parties confiscated right and left, whetherthey called themselves Guelphs or Ghibellines , Ner ior Bianchi, or later Albiz z i and Medici , Arrabbiati orPiagnoni .” T his struggle, however, between Guelphsand Ghibellines had a powerful influence on all subsequent Italian history, since it proved to be a contentionbetween old fossi lized institut ions and progress .In the first half of the fourteenth century the nobleswere men of arms by profession . Afte r the downfallof Ezzel ino of Romano the lords of Pisa , Florence ,Genoa and Bologna got the upper hand and were


foremost as leaders in T he Age of the Despots .

T he Scal iger i rose in Verona , the Carraresi in Padua ,the Castrucci in Lucca , the Estensi in Ferrara , and inRavenna the Polenta family ruled . At Rimini theMalatesta

,and at Parma the Rossi , at Piacenza the

Scott i, at Faenza the Manfredi , in Genoa the Doriaand Spinola were the despots, while al l the time theVisconti ruled the Milanese . T hese, together w ithRobert of Naples and Pope John XXII ., were contending for supremacy.

A story of the Polenta family immortal ized byDante in his Inferno is one of the most tragic in history. Francesca da Rimini , the beauti ful daughter ofGiovanni da Polenta of Ravenna , had been given inmarri age to his efficient general , Giovanni Ma latesta ofRimini

,who was brave, but deformed and ugly. T he

heart of Francesca was won by the brother, Paolo theHandsome, and Dante tells the rest :

One day for our delight we read of Lancelot,How himlove enthra l ledT he book and writer both were love’s purveyors,In its leaves that day we read nomore.”

Giovanni,j ealous of his brother, murdered them both.

T his happened in Pesaro in 1284.

T he government of all the Guelph cit ies was muchlike that of Florence . A Council of the party was intime added to the Genera l Council and the Parliament ;and the office of consul gradually yielded to the priorschosen from the Arts and Guilds ; but the Gonfaloniereof Just ice alone held a check upon the despotic nobles .T he office of Podesta was taken by a j udge, an autocratwho decided all c ivic quest ions and declared war.In Rome the nobles removed Henry VII.

’

s ofli cers


and put Sciarra Colonna and Francesco Orsini in

power as Senators . But the people rose and, drivingthese out, electe d Jacob Arlotti Captain, with twentys ix “ boni homines .” He cast the nobles into prisonand demolished their strongholds , so that a civil warensued

,during which one noble family united with the

Ghibelline party and another with the Guelphs ; andthe Orsini

,the Colonna

,the Velletri , the Savell i and

the Gaetani fought in their turn . T here are manyinterest ing stories connected with these noble families ,and many romances result ing from the opposite housesj oining their fortunes in forb idden marriages .T he Orsini and Colonna were the most noted amongthese cl iques , their families be ing foes for two hundredand fifty years . Jealousy with regard to position wasthe ground of their quarrel , since glory redounded toeach alike ; and besides this , they belonged to Oppositeparties , the Guelphs and Ghibell ines respectively.

T he Ursini migrated from Spoleto in the twel fth

century. T hey were the sons of Ursus,who was at

one time Senator in Rome, and styled the father oftheir race Soon the number and bravery of theirkinsmen, the strength o f their fortifications

,their

honor as statesmen, and the elevation of two of them,

Celestin I I I . and Nicholas II I . , increased their emoluments, Nicholas I I I . giving the estates belonging tothe Church to the Orsini family . Earl ier their powerhad been increased by the marriage of Ursus

’ son toa daughter of the House of the Gaetani . T he castleof B racciano, on the lake of the same name, was thechief res idence of the family, who owned many strongholds in the vicinity of Rome .T he names and arms of the Colonna are still sub

jects of doubt. T heir family was first heard of in


Rome at first welcomed Louis of Bavaria with j oy ;but

,he having betrayed the Ghibelline party

,who had

upheld him and rel ied on his support, so many factions arose , that in 1329 both Louis and the anti-PopeNicholas , whom he had set up , were obliged to takethemselves out of the way. After the elect ion of

Benedict XII . the Romans attacked the capital and es

tablished a democrat ic government, sending to Florence for a model but their reforms did not apply toRome

,and publ ic discord reached such a height that

Benedict XII . was obl iged to ret ire to Avignon, and

was succeeded by Clement VI . in 1342 .

T his was a b itter t ime for Florence also, for she toowas oppressed by Castruccio Castrucani, the tyrant ofLucca , unt il he died in 1328 . Florence had fallen intothe hands of what was ca lled the “

Popolani Grossia Plebeian aristocracy, and in her trouble she had calledupon Robert of Naples for aid . He was now old, and

accordingly sent his son , the Duke of Calabria , aecom

panied by Walter of B rienne, Duke of Athens , theduke ’s l ieutenant . Walter of B rienne was “ crafty,clever and unscrupulous ,

” and in 1342 , by flatteringthe Florentines

,gained control of the city for l i fe . T he

nobles , however, a fter a year, see ing that they weredenied any part in the gove rnment

,drove Walter of

Brienne out of the city . T he people soon regre ttedthis , for Florence was speedily overrun by mercenaries now employed everywhere in Italy ; and tocomplete their misery

,famine

,and at last the plague,

stared them in the face.Robert of Naples died in 1343 at the age of eighty.

He off ered the crown to Andrew ,son of his nephew ,

King of Hungary, on condit ion that he shouldmarrvJoanna , his orphan granddaughter . She was a charm


ing Ital ian princess , brought up in one of themostfashionable courts of Europe ; and she soon despisedthis boor ish prince who had become her husband .

Accordingly Robert himsel f, seeing that Andrew could

not fi ll the pos it ion, excluded him altogether from thesuccession

,and left the throne to Joanna under a

regency unt i l she became of age.Joanna was a girl of only s ixteen , gay, high-strung,and inexperienced ; and she soon became demoralized .

T ired of being harassed by the importunities of Andrewto be allowed to share the crown

,she had him spirited

away into the country, and, a fter a revel one night, hewas thrown from the window of an old fortress .Joanna married Louis of T aranto soon after, and therewas so much scandal connected with Andrew ’s deaththat the latter’s b rother, Louis of Hungary , withoutdifficulty, took possession of the throne in I 347. He

soon retired to Hungary, however, leaving only a

fort ified garrison for defence ; and Joanna, ga iningthe influence of Clement VI . , with the a id of herfriends regained her kingdom a fter three years o fatrocious barbarit ies on both sides .Final ly Urban VI . excommunicated Joanna ofNaples , who had a fterwards married successivelyJames of Aragon and Otto of B runswick, and instal ledCharles Durazza of the House of Anjou ; and whenJoanna, having no children, declared Louis , Duke of

Anjou , uncle of Charles VI . of France,her heir

,

Durazza instigated her assassinat ion . Soon afterDurazza , or Charles III . , as he was called, was himsel fslain . He left a son , Ladislaus , ten years old, and adaughter, Joanna II . while Louis of Anjou , Joanna

’sheir, at his death left a boy, styled Louis III .

Ladislau s at the age of sixteen gained influence by


marrying a wealthy heiress , and , triumphantly entering Naples, drove out his rival , Louis II I . , thus becoming the head of the Ghibellines , or anti-French party.

Ladislaus ’ s ister, Joanna II . , succeeded him and,

having no heirs , adopted Louis II I . of Anj ou, grandson of that Louis I . , the successor of Joanna I . At thedeath of Louis I II ., Joanna II. then chose his brotherRené, but as soon as she died Alphonso V. of Aragon,entitled the Magnanimous, drove René out and becameKing of Aragon , Naples and Sicily. T his Alphonsohas the reputation of being the wisest and most popularsovereign that ever ruled over the Kingdom of Naples

,

his reign o f twenty-three years being the most pros

perous period of the Sicil ian kingdom . Some thinkthat his government formed a basis on which Ital ianindependence might have been secured .

As will be remembered, the complicated history ofNaples and Sicily dates back as far as 1053, when the

leaders of the Hauteville family did homage to PopeLeo IX . for all conquests they had made , or mightmake. In 1 130 the Island of Sicily under Count Rogerwas united with Naples in one social body, called by theItal ians a regno ,

” which diff ered in its socia l institutions and foreign relations from the rest of Italy.

Charles of Anj ou , after his victory at Grandella, in theyear 1265 , had gained the United Kingdom, calling itthe “

T wo Sicilies,” and Naples was the capital ; but

in consequence of the Sicil ian Vespers he was obligedto rel inquish Sicily in 1282 ,

although he continued tobe King of Naples . After this the two kingdomswere separated unt il the year 1442 , when , as has beenseen , this same Alphonso V. expelled Réné of Anjoufrom the Kingdom of Naples and reunited the T woSicilies under his rule . T hey continued thus until his

Age of the Despots 6 1

death in 1458, when they were again separated until

1504 . With short interrupt ions after this they bothcontinued under Spanish rule until 1861 , when throughthe cession by Garibaldi of his conquests to the scepterof the House of Savoy, they were absorbed into thepresent Italian kingdom .

During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries warswere carried on largely by mercenaries , mostly adven

turers who were called Free Companies .” T his kind

of fighting force was first collected from disbandedGerman

,B ritish

,and French soldiers , whom the Vis

conti,Castruccio Castrucani, etc . , took into their pay.

Among them were Fra Monreale, Count Lando andDuke Werner

,the last the captain of the first Great

Company and styled T he Enemy of God, of Pityand of Mercy these were some of the names of thiskind of br igand which have come down to us . FraMonreale was afterwards the captain of the GreatCompany of Knights of St . John ,

”and was as noted in

his day as any of the princes . He has been handeddown in the romances which have for their basis theunsettled state of the society of that era . H is bandwas employed by the League of Montferrat, La Scala,Caresi and Este to check the Viscont i .T he Free Companies became a great curse to Italy,s ince the Italians themselves soon discovered that thiskind of service off ered a profitable career to men ofdaring. Alber ico da Barbiano, a noble of Romagna,Italianized the profession of

“ mercenary arms ” andformed the Company of St . George . T hese mercenaries as a class were called condottieri

,and with

them dawned a new military era . T hus “ heavilyarmed cavaliers , officered by professional captains

,

fought the battles of Italy, while despots and republ ics


schemed in their castles or debated in the Councilchambers .” T he remunerat ion of these men-at-arrns

was greater than that of the best-paid art isans ; andthe per i ls of war at that era being inconsiderable, inthe course of time the ranks of the condott ier i wererecruited largely from the “ needy nobil ity of Italy,

”

who were fascinated by the li fe of daring and thewealth to be ga ined . Courtesy was the rule betweenthese l icensed bandits . T hey had a code of honorwhich did not permit impri sonment and spared thel ives of the enemy of the same class .T he Great Company was the first example of astroll ing band of soldiers kept up for the sake of plun

der . As early as 1339 this“ Great Company ” was

broken up through the cont inued efforts of the Florent ines , though the customof carrying on war by meansof mercena ries still went on . Battle s soon became lessbloody, and

“ gayly caparisoned caval ry was introduced in place of the old—t ime mil it ia ; and war soondegenerated into a selfish contract between nationsand their own armies , which resulted in intrigue andtreachery. A company of English soldiers came overto the peninsula , led by Sir John Hawkwood , really acondott ieri leader of what was ca l led the “WhiteCompany ” and he at first fought bravely for the

Pisans against the Florentines and the rest ofT uscany.

T he r ise of mercenaries marks the epoch when Italian despot ism became the most insupportable . At firstthe tyrants got into public favor by being appointed

captains of the people and vicars of the city. In orderto make their government seem protect ive

,they freed

the people from military service by employing thesemercenaries ; and at the same t ime they rendered the


old aristocracy powerless . As they grewstronger theyadvanced hereditary claims

,and

,assuming titles, soon

took on the style of petty sovereigns . Although theyused bribery instead of coercion , there was no l imitto their cruelty. Galeazzo Viscont i and Lorenzo de

’

Medici were examples of this mode of despotism , whichreigned by terror ism behind a smi le .”Notwithstanding all these dissensions

,the arts and

sciences flourished . Giotto and Cimabue invested theart of painting with new li fe . Petrarch , as a follower

of Dante , helped to create the most melodious andflexible o f languages out of old barbarous idioms . He

enj oyed,while l iving, the praises of his contemporaries,

as kneel ing before the throne in Rome he received thelaurel crown

,while the people shouted Long live the

Capitol and the Poe t .” It was a degree of Doctor ofArts in poetry, and was invented by the GermanEmperors ; and from this time the custom of having apoet laureate has been kept up in England. Petrarchwas born in 1304, and lived half of h is l i fe in the valleyof Vaucluse near Avign on ; and in his verses he celebrated his love for Laura , the beaut i ful and virtuous ,whose image in all his wanderings he could never tearfrom his heart . Even the laurel crown was dearer tohim because its name was l ike that of his adored Laura .

T heir recl ining statues , s ide by side , are seen to—day inthe old museum at Avignon in southern France .Petrarch died in I 374 .

Giovanni Boccaccio was born in 13 13 and died in1375 . He accomplished for Ita l ian prose whatPetrarch did for its poetry . He wrote in the T uscanlanguage, and in his collection of novels he makes aburlesque of the wickedness of the t imes .T he two Malespina were the earl iest Italian his


torians and Giovanni Villani, who died of the plague,also graphically chronicled events of the times , as didMatteo and Philippo ,

his brother and nephew . Duringthe century and a hal f between 1309, when Clement V.

settled at Avignon,and 1447, when Nicholas V. re

established the Papacy at Rome on a more sol id basis,the Italians are said to have come nearer sel f-government than at any other epoch . At a period a l ittlelater the peninsula was divided up into five principalpowers , the Kingdom of Naples , the Duchy of Milan,the republic of Florence , the republic of Venice , andthe Papal States , and their united influence for fortyfive years secured a bri lliant season of peace and pros

perity.

T he history of Rome from this era was to a largedegree swallowed up in that of the Papal States .In the middle of the fourteenth century floods

,fam

ines and, in 1348 , a fearful plague, which had earlierdevastated the East, visited Italy. Naples lost s ixtythousand of her inhabitants,Pisa more than hal f of hers ,while Siena never regained her pristine prosperity.

Boccaccio in his fascinat ing, though often corrupt,writ ing, gave a wonder fu l account of the sufferingsof his native city at the time of this pestilence of 1348,which was called the Plague of Florence.” Underthe terrible affliction

,men, terror ized by overshadow

ing death, became lawless and strangers to naturalaffection .

Meanwhile Rome was the scene of great disorder.T hrough all the stri fe in the rest of Italy the Romanshad kept up the desire of governing themselves, and in1347 they were stil l further aroused by one Cola diRienzi , called the Last of the T ribunes .” T houghonly a notary and the son of a Roman innkeeper

,this


ular Senate, the T hirteen , which had been e s tab

lished as a Council in a previous revolut ion . Rienzialso had a higher amb ition than simply a local upr is ing .

He at once despatched envoys all ove r Italy, exhorting the people to shake off the yoke of the tyrant . Atthe annual Latin Fest ival held in St . Peter’s , the canonsmet him on the steps chant ing Veni Creator

Spiritus the provincial cities throughout the penin

sula did homage to him,and even Petrarch lauded

Rome ’s tribune as the greatest ruler of ancient or

modern t imes .Rienz i

’

s head was completely turned by so muchadulat ion ; and, issuing a proclamat ion that Romewould resume her jurisdiction over the world, hegranted citizenship to all the towns of Italy.

T his zeal of the people was mainly fictitious ; for,though the theories were plausible , scarcely any one

was ready to respond with deeds . It was the keenness of Rien z i ’s prophet ic insight which immortalizedhis name ; for in his high pitch of enthusiasm he lookedbeyond the ages, as did Dante and Petrarch , and saw

in a vast panorama before him a vision of the nationas consolidated to-day. He had not, however, the tactnor practica l skill to gain over the nobles

,since he

would not sacr ifice personal animosities to the generalgood ; and thus he was not able to suppress the nowunited Guelph and Ghibelline factions of the Orsiniand Colonna . T hese, upheld by the Pope , now wearyof tolerat ion , moved on Rome on the 3oth of Novemberfrom Palestrina and encamped be fore the city.Rienzi called out his milit ia

,and a hard fight ensued,

in which eighty of the nobles , mostly the Colonna,were left dead upon the field . T his so weakened thearistocracy that they never again atta ined supremacy


in the government of the republic ; but the strengthof Rienz i

’

s ru le was also broken . He was accused ofheresy, and the people were tired of bearing the burdenof his immense publ ic and private expenses. At lastafter seven months he lost heart

,and

,finding that his

forces were desert ing, he ret ired to the Castle of St .

Angelo on the 15th of December, 1347, and afterwardsfled to Naples .For two years Rienzi led a li fe of mystic con

templation in the Abruzzi , seeing visions and dreaming dreams and still believing that he was divinelyappointed to set up a mighty and glor ious kingdomwhich would redound to the honor of God and his owngreatness . For seven years he wandered in disguisethrough the cit ies of Italy and among the he rmits o fthe Apennines , until at last he threw himself on thegenerosity of Charles IV. , and woke up to find himself a prisoner at Prague . T he semi-centennial ‘Jubilee of the Church being about to take place, every eff ortwas made to keep peace , and in 1350 Charles IV. ofGermany, before he could be crowned, was obliged todel iver up Rienzi to Pope Innocent VI . in Avignon .

T he Pope , thinking that it would be a popular movement, and also influenced by Petra rch

’s eulogies of

Rienzi in verse,released him

,allowing him to return

as a Senator to Rome, with Cardinal Albornoz , whowas sent there to arrange Church matters for theJubilee .

0

Rienzi,in August, 1354, again entered the city, with

five hundred soldiers , and passing through the CastelloGate took possession of the government for the secondtime . Having received funds for the campaign fromthe two brothers Fra Monreale , he sent them as captains to surround the remnant of the Colonna at

68 I taly : Her People and Their S tory

Palestrina . Unfortunately, soon after this , Fra Monreale himsel f was murdered ; and it is suspected thatRienzi

,be ing again short of money, inst igated the deed

in order to gain further supplies , though it is generallyunderstood that Fra Monreale was plotting to kill him.

T he death o f the latter caused so great excitementamong the people that Rienzi lost his influence , andwhen a new taxat ion was agitated they rose in openrevolt, and on the 8th of October stormed the Capitol,shouting Death to the tra itor.”

T he spell of Rienz i ’s magnetic presence was at lastbroken . When he presented himsel f at the window

,

never doubting that his eloquence would charm thepeople as of old , missiles were hurled at him and thepalace fired . Finally

,giving up all for lost

,he shaved

his head and in the disguise of a shepherd contemptibly tried to pass himsel f off as one of his own enemies,j oining in cries against himsel f. He was recognized,however, by the golden bracelets he had forgotten toremove from his arms, and was finally struck downand repeatedly stabbed . Such was the ignominiousfate of the man who had seemed destined to fill theworld with his name and glory as the regenerator o f

Rise and Fall of the Visconti 69

CHAPTER VI

THE VISCONT I.— T HE CH IOMPI INSURRECT ION IN FLORENCE.

-T HE BABYLON IAN CAPT IVITY OF THE POPES.

THE GREAT SCH ISM .

1849—1435 A.D.

HE VISCONTI , who first appeared about 1037,in the time of Conrad II . , came upon the scene,

one after another , l ike spectra l figures , and, a fterexerting a bale ful influence on the peOpl-e of Lombardy for more than four centuries, vanished. Withfew vicissitudes, they had been growing more andmore powerful ever since Otto, the archbi shop , in1277, seized the power from the hands of the DellaT orre family, by shutting up Napoleone and five ofhis kinsmen in the three iron cages now seen in Como .

Pagano della T orre had placed the Milanese undereverlasting obligat ions by saving the remnant of theirarmy after the Battle of Corte Nuova ; and that familywas in power ever after until , on account of democratic measures

,they made themselves unpopular with

the nobil ity, especially the Viscont i .In 13 12 Matteo, a nephew of Otto

,was appointed

Imperial Vicar, and that same year succeeded in exterminating the last of the T orrian i . T wo years laterCharles IV. was sent for, to check the influence of theVisconti in Lombardy. He did not prove powerfulenough, however, to curb their tyranny, and from thatera the decline of Imperial power in Italy was rapid .

Azzo succeeded Matteo and the latter ’s uncle Lucchino

70 I taly : H er People and Their S tory

followed in I 339. He was murdered ten years laterby his wi fe

,and in the person of his brother, the Arch

bishop Giovanni,there appears one of the most notable

characters of the fourteenth century. T he reign ofthis masterfu l Prelate marks a new era in the des

potismof the Visconti , who had now become sel fmade sovereigns with a well-established power and

wide extent of territory .

T he Pope , resent ing the encroachments of Archbishop Giovanni , sent for him to come to Avignon .

T he primate replied that he would march thither withtwelve thousand cavalry and six thousand infantry .

He is handed down in portraits with a drawn swordin the right hand and a crosier in his left. Soon afterthis mandate o f the Pope he thus appeared in thecathedral at Milan , where , unsheathing the flashingsword and taking the cross

,he said : T his is my

spiritual scepter, and I will wield it in defense of myEmpire . Immediately after, he sent to Avignon toengage lodgings for his train and soldiers for sixmonths . Although the Pope had summoned him,

after this he was fa in to decline so terr ible a guest.”

Giovanni died in 1353 , having established the ruleo f the Visconti ove r more than twenty cities of northern Italy ; and there is no doubt that he aimed at thecrown of the Empire . T he succession fell to threesons of one Stephano : Matteo, Bernabo and Galeazzo,who shared Milan and Genoa in j oint rule and dividedthe rest of the dominion between them . T he brotherssoon disposed of the dissolute Matteo and ruled together in harmony. Galeazzo

,the youngest son

,

was distingu ished as being the handsornestman of hisage. He was tal l and graceful

,wearing his ha ir long

and in a net, and sometimes in braids down his shoul


ders . He spent much of his vast wealth in shows ,festivals and in magnificent buildings . H is prodiga ltastes led him to seek royal marriages for his children ,his daughter Violante marrying the Duke of Clarence,son of Edward II I . He gave her as a dowry twohundred thousand florins and five cit ies on the frontierof Piedmont . T he Duke of Clarence, when he wentto espouse Violante

,le ft the city of London, with un

paved streets and thatched-roofed houses,to enter the

luxurious marble palaces of Lombardy rising abovehighways smoothly paved with stone Gian Galeazzo,the brother of Violante, with his young friends broughtas gifts three score o f horses with trappings of si lverand gold ; and there were among the presents finecuirasse s and crested helmets and coats-oi—arms inlaidwith precious stones and cr imson cloths for raiment.

T he remains after the wedding feast were sufficientfor ten thousand men . Galeazzo delighted in parading such wealth in the presence of the feudal nobles

of the North , and in introducing as his honored guesthis fr iend Petrarch , then the greate st l iterary man of

Europe . H is son Gian Galeazzo soon after married

Isabel , daughter of the King of France , the ceremonytaking place with equal splendor. Galeaz z o

’

s courtwas at Pavia , while his brother Bernabo reigned atMilan , and both were noted for their heartlessness andgreat cruelty.

Next to Archbishop Giovanni,Gian Galeazzo, who

succeeded at the death of his father, Galeazzo , in 1378,

was the most remarkable Viscont i of them all,and his

reign, which lasted unt il 1402, forms a dist inct chapterin Ital ian history . Shutt ing himself up in Pavia, he

set systematically to work to supplant his uncle Ber

nabo by feigning the constitutional phys ical timidity of


the race,at the same time pretending to be a rel igious

enthusiast . T his led his uncle and cousins to regardhim almost as an imbecile , and accordingly easily disposed of. T hus , when in 1385 Gian Galeazzo declaredhis intent ion of making a pilgr image to Varese

,and

started out from Pavia with a bodyguard of Germans ,his uncles with his sons unsuspect ingly came forth tomeet him near Milan . Pretending to welcome them,

his German troopers , at a signal , took them all prisoners , and Gian Galeazzo, after poisoning them,

procla imed himself Lord of the Visconti .Gian Galeazzo was devoted al ike to business and

pleasure , never, however , neglecting the former for thelatter and under him the Visconti reached the summit

of their greatness . He associated with men o f letters,and to a great degree led an intellectual l i fe . It washe who built the magn ificently beaut i ful Certosa diPavia, earl ier noted as a Ca rthusian monastery, now amuseum sustained by the State ; and in order further to grati fy his taste for splendor, Gian Galeazzofounded the Cathedral at Milan . He also finishedthe palace at Pavia which his father had begun, and

revived the University there . Among other largeengineering proj ects he devised a plan for turn ing theMincio and B renta from their channels in order to

dry the lagoons of Venice , thus hoping to bring the

Lion of St . Mark’s to his feet.aW ith all h is great conceptions , no minor details were

too sma l l for Gian Galeaz z o’

s attention . He inaugu

rated a system of paid clerks and secretaries of departments

,having his ledgers kept with as great exactness,

and his correspondence as carefully filed and copied,as business men of the present day. H is wealth

enabled him to keep in his service the chie f coudot


trained a band of commanders to carry out his plans.Nevertheless

,at his death , his children being minors,

his kingdom quickly fell to pieces. H is son GiovanniMaria succeeded him in 1412 , but soon fell a victimto hi s own cruelty, be ing assassinated by his nobles.

Filippo Maria , the latter’s brother, reigned thirty—five

years,which e ra covered many wars and much brutal

bloodshed . He was the last in the male line of the Visconti . He married the widow of Facino Cane, whopossessed great wealth , and , having used her money, hehad her beheaded on a false charge. He , l ike Charles

V. , is said to have been outwitted by his own cunning,often de feating his aims at the point of achievementby his own duplicity.

At this era the Scotti , the Correggi , and the Malatesta held sway at Piacenza , Cremona and Brescia,respectively. T he l ittl e State of Romagna was overrunby the Count o f Barbiano , who, wi th his famous Free

Company, ente red the service of Boniface IX. T he

Count of Savoy, the Marquis o f Montferrat, and theLords of Padua , Ferrara and Mantua profited by the

la te reverses of the Visconti , and soon after the beginning of the fifteenth century we re the only inde pendent

sovereign s o f northern Ita ly, since finally Francescodi Carrara was forced to yie ld to the Venetians andwas strangled by the order of the Council of T en .

While Milan had been usurping the Lombard prin

c ipalities under the Visconti , Genoa and Venice hadestabl ished large factories along the Black Sea , inwhich they prepared spices and merchandise broughtfrom India ; and for the next half century these twocit ies fought many battles

,first the Venetians gaining

the victory, and then the Genoese. Gunpowder hadnow begun to be used on the field of battle, and did


much more eff ective work than the old weapons. Oneof the worst fights between the two cities took placein January, 1352 , when the Venetian galleys met theGenoese in the Bosphorus near Constant inople , greatlyoutnumber ing them

,and caus ing fearful slaughter in

their ranks . T he Venetian fleet was almost annihi

lated and four or five thousand were slain on bothsides. All the Dukes of Lombardy, worn out by thedespotism of the Visconti , now united with Venice ashis common enemy against Genoa, then a fief of theDuke ; but finally all partie s were obliged to appeal toCharle s IV. , who for a time catered to everybody inorder to secure the Iron Crown of Lombardy. ButGenoa a fter three years came unde r the power o f the

Visconti.T he res idence of the Popes at Avignon, called theBabylonian Captivity, beginning in 1309, lasted until

1375 . Seven Popes in success ion resided there in

Opulence and voluptuous splendor, until the north ofFrance was overrun by King Edward IlI.

’

s troops,and the Free Companies in their restless wanderingsin search of booty had penetrated as far as the Valleyof Vaucluse . T hen Urban V. , alarmed, and influencedby Charles IV. of Germany, decided to return with thePapal Court to Rome, where he remained three years ,greatly magnifying Papal grandeur. But there wasno repose in Rome , since Charles IV. , by his actived iplomacy, was

‘

keeping I taly as well as Ge rmany in aferment, and al l the various fact ions were at neverending war with each other. Accordingly Urban V.

returned to Avignon, and his successor, Gregory XI . ,

died as he was about to restore the Papal residence

again to Rome ; and the Cardinal s now met to choosehis successor.


T he famous schism, which desolated Europe forforty years

, had already begun ; and , s ince the Frenchand Spanish Cardinals were in the maj ority, the peoplefeared that a foreign pontiff might be elected . Ac

cordingly thirty magistrates were chosen , delegated torepresent the wishes of the people in the Sacred College. T he Cardinals , however, s ilenced the magi strates by telling them that they must not meddle, sincethe matte r was a subj ect prope rly under the guidanceof the Holy Spir it ; but the people were not sat isfiedwith this

,and assumed the responsibil ity themselves,

surrounding the Vatican and harangu ing the Council ,tell ing them that they should hold that body as suretythat an Ital ian Pope would be elected . T he Archbishop of Bar i was soon chosen as Urban VI . , and thepopulace was satisfied ; but when he , as Pope , decidedthat no one outside of I taly could take part in Churchgovernment, the Holy See revoked their decree andelected Clement VI I . as anti-Pope , the rea l ClementVI I . coming two centuries later.Spain and Sicily adhered to the anti-Pope , while

England, Germany, Hungary and Portugal , togetherwith Italy, supported Urban VI ., both Popes provingequally obnoxious . T he latter established himsel f atRome with nineteen Italian Cardinals

,while Clement

VI I. retired to Avignon with most of the old Cardinals .Urban VI . , who had caused the schism in theChurch , died in 1389. After two othe r Popes hadpassed away, Gregory XII . was chosen as the Romancandidate ; and upon the death of the ant i-Pope,Clement VI I . , the Cardinals of Avignon chose Benedict XIII . in his place as anti-Pope . T he Cardinalsrefused to recognize either, and, though everybody connected with the Church was chagr ined at the quarrel ,


they summoned both Popes to appear at a GeneralCouncil at Pisa . When the two Popes resisted the decree s of these Cardinals, together with the prelatesand ambassadors from all parts of the Christianworld

,the Council deposed both Gregory XII . and

Benedict XIII ., electing Alexander V. BenedictXIII . then called a Council at Perpignan , a gloomyfo rtress on the frontier of Spain, while Gregory XII .

rallied his forces at Ravenna and Alexander V. estab

lished himself in Rome, all sending out Bulls of Excommunication among the rulers of Europe according

to their diff erent prejudices .While these eccles iast ical dissensions were going on ,

Braccio da Montone,the great leade r, and the peasant

warrior, Sforza Attendolo, fought respectively for

Florence and for Naples , where Ladislaus , the son of

Charles Durazza was then at the he ight of his power .

Florence, in order to defeat Ladislaus , desired a universally acknowledged Pope . Accordingly, Braccio daMontone

,acting in her behal f, entered Rome and

forced the people to acknowledge Alexander V. In

a short time, however, the latter died , and Pope JohnXXIII . , who succeeded him , called upon EmperorSigismond to assist in the confl ict ; and when Ladislaus , an impo rtant factor in the controversy, wasstruck down at the Battle of Roccasecca

, Sigismunddetermined to put an end to the scandal of the schism .

He forced John XXII I . to call together all the clergymen in Chr istendom at Constance in 1415 ; but thelatter, finding that all the Popes were about to bedeposed , fled in the disguise of a groom ; and GregoryXII . also was glad to give up the keys of St. Peter’sand compromise for the office of Cardinal

,while Bene

dict XIII . , afte r being sustained by Spain for awhile,


was obliged to retire . T he three rival Popes havingthus been put aside

,Otto Colonna assumed the t itle of

Pope Martin V. , and with him the schism was nominally ended . T his was the Council in which John Hussand Jerome of Pragu e were condemned to death andburned. Eugene IV. followed Martin V. , and thencame the strong Nicholas V. ,

who took his placeamong the first of the temporal powers of Italy.

When the sun rose upon the fifteenth century thehorizon of Italy was obscured in clouds . Lombardywas almost entirely absorbed by the Visconti, Napleswas worn out with civil war

,and, as has been seen , the

Papal powe r was at a minimum. T hese were daysof treachery and crime .During the t ime these Church quarrels were goingon Venice held sway fromSt. Mark ’s to the Adige,and her flag floated from her strongholds in T revisoto Feltro, and over Belluno, Verona, Vincenza toPadua. In 1378 Venice and Genoa had their lastserious encounter at Chioggia

,where they fought

fiercely about the possession of Cyprus . Genoa blockaded this channel twenty-five miles south of Veniceat the end of the Southern Lagoon . T he Venetianfleet was destroyed in the encounter

,and the republic

was in great danger . T his was when the Genoeseleader, Luciano Doria, boasted that he would bridlethe bronze horses of St. Mark’s . T he consternationbecame so overwhelming that Vittorio Pisani

,who had

been imprisoned on account of the loss of the fleet ,begged the chance to save his ungrate ful country, andwas released . Carlo Z eno, in the Levant, heard of thedisaster, and coming to the aid of Pisani, blockadedthe Genoese in the port they had seized, and at the

end of s ix months forced them to surrender. T he


war was not finished until the treaty of T urin in 1381 .

Venice was obliged to give up Dalmatia and T revisofor the t ime ; but she soon became as powerful asever. Genoa, on the contrary, never regained the commercial prestige then lost, and in 1396 came under the

power of Charle s VI . of France .As far back as 1309 Bernabo Visconti had madewar on Florence

,which was supported for awhile by

Urban V. and then by Gregory XI . It was at thistime that Sir John Hawkwood, the condottieri leaderof the so-called White Company, came over, at firstfor the purpose of helping the Pisans . Afte rwards ,however, the Florentines made an all iance with Pisaand other Ghibelline powers , the management of thewar being given to eight commissioners called theEight of War

,

” who won such popularity by their

able conduct that they were derisively called the“ Eight Saints of War. Sir John Hawkwood , byhis efforts in behal f of the whole combinat ion, enabledthem to successfully carry on the struggle against the

Guelphs. Long afterwards, in 1378, Hawkwood ass isted Florence when Gian Galeazzo Visconti tried togain the ascendancy over her ; and the strife did notend until the death of Gian Galeazzo in 1402 . Hawkwood is buried in the Cathedral at Florence.Si lvestro de ’ Medici , who aimed to upset the ex

treme Guelph faction led by the Albiz z i and Soderini , was chosen Gbnfalon iere in 1378 , while themoderate Guelph party consisted of the Eight of War,

”

the Ricci and a large vacillating element who werenot satisfied with the party in power. Salvestro

hunted up some old archives which were hostile to therule of the nobles, and though unsuccess ful in theCounci l of the Arts, in the General Council of the peo


ple he was popular ; and accordingly he was able todrive the governing faction with their il l-gotten power

to the wall . What i s called the Insurrection of the

Chiompi ensued . T he latter was a class of workmen who belonged neither to the fourteen Greater Artsor Guilds nor to the seven Le sser Arts, but who withthe other unorganized citizens were only called together in Parl iament at the tolling of the great bell .T hese artisans plotted to place the two Arts on anequal footing, and originated , in addit ion,

rA’

rts o ftheir own . When the conspiracy was discovered thepeople broke out into a riot and placed the standardof the Gonfaloniere in the hands of one Michele diLando

,who

,bare footed, mounted the stairs of the

Palace of the Signoria, declaring that he would placethe building and the whole city in the hands of themob . He appointed his own priors, two from theGreater, two from the Lesser and two from the NewArts he had given the people ; and in spite of theEight of War, who wanted Lando to work throughthem, he kept the artisans quiet until he went out o foffice. H is successors , however, lacked his strength ;and accordingly, in 1382 , the Guelph ari stocracy calledfor a Balia,

” which was afterwards a very frequentdemand, and cons isted of a committee chosen by thepeople with full power to change the Const itution .

T his commi ttee repealed all the measures j ust passed .

In spite o f this the Lesser Guilds had gained someground and Silvestro de ’ Medici , the real l eader, hadobtained the great popularity for which he was

aiming.


banished,while Cosimo was raised again to supreme

power ; and this cont inued for more than a centu ry inthe family o f the Medici .

T he Albiz z i enl isted Filippo Maria Visconti ; andthe Florent ines were several t imes defeated by him

,

until the Venetians came to their aid, assisted by Francesco Comagnola.

Comagnola was a Pi edmontese, and one of the ablestmil itary officers of the day, as well as one of the

most humane of the condott ier i commanders . He hadwon back for Fil ippo Maria Viscont i al l the small sovereignites which had been lost at the death of hisfather, Gian Galeazzo . Afterwards , however, havingbeen accused o f treachery by Filippo Mar ia

,he

went over to the Venet ians , for whom he gained impo rtant victories . But, being defeated near Cremonain the great battle at Soncino by Francesco Sforza ,whom at one t ime he had given his l ibe rty, he becamedisheartened and remained so inact ive that his loyaltywas questioned . In 1432 he was called to Venice andsuddenly thrown into pri son

,whe re he was tortured

for several weeks before being taken out and beheadedbetween two columns in front of the Doge Palace .T hough instigated by the Council of T en ,

it was animpol itic movement, s ince Duke Filippo no longercared to make peace with the Venetians after hispowerfu l enemy Comagnola was dead . It was on theruins of the latter ’s career that Francesco Sforzaclimbed up to greatness .Pope Eugeniu s was forced by Filippo Maria Visconti to flee from Rome and take refuge with Cosirnodi Medici and his party in Florence . T hese were fastcru shing out Duke Fil ippo Maria, when the latter enticed Francesco Sforza, who was then in the Pope

’s

T he Medici 83

employ,to his s ide

,by giving him his daughter B ianca

in marriage .T he father of Francesco was the gr eat general

Atondolo Sforza . He was originally a peasant o fCotignola

,who received the name of Sforza from his

phys ical strength . When invited to enlist, he threwhis ax into an oak and cr ied : If it stay there, it willbe a s ign that my fortune is made .” T he ax stuckin the tree

,and Sforza went forth to found a line of

dukes . While his friend B raccio di Montone intro

duced the sol id phalanx , Sforza sti ll held to the old

method of detached bodies of cavalry. In 1409 these

two great captains separated, and as distinct companies ,were known as the Sforz esi and the Bracconesi . T heycarried on all the wars of Italy for the next twentyyears . Finding that to defeat each other was disastrous to the respective causes , they adopted the plan ofcheckma ting. At their deaths in 1424 Braccio wassucceeded by Nicholas Piccinini , and Sforza, as hasbeen se en, by his son Francesco, these two in theirturn be ing the chief captains of Italy and the ablestgenerals of their day.

Although Francesco Sforza married the Duke ofMilan ’s daughter, his father-in- law did not favor himgreatly, since he was too ambitious and interferedwith the latter’s power. Accordingly when FilippoMaria died in 1447, leaving no legitimate heirs in themale line , he bequeathed his dominions to Alphonsoof Naples . T hough one party upheld Sforza in theright of his wife, the greater number desired no duke ;and Milan was organized into a republic, her examplebeing followed by Pavia , Como, Alessandria and allthe cit ie s which had been subj ect to the Visconti . T hislasted three years, unti l Milan was finally inve igled


into appointing Sforza as commander-in-chief againstthe Venet ians , who were pushing their power westward . In one brilliant campaign Sforza drove theVenetians back, burned their fleet, and defeated theirarmy. T hen , although some of the cit izens said theywould rather become subj ects even of Venice , than tofall into Sforza ’s hands

,after treacherously making

peace with that nation, Sforza reduced the surrounding

cit ie s and forced Milan in 1450 to receive him as theirduke . H is cruel son

,Galeazzo Sforza , succeeded him

in 1466 ; and under the latter Milan and Genoa suffered greatly for many years .At this time the four great powe rs of Italy werethe King of Naples, the Duke of Milan and the re

publics of Venice and Florence . Soon after, anothermighty influence ga ined great advantage in Italy. It

was the temporal power of the Pope . Had Florenceand Venice at this time upheld the faction in Milanand Genoa who desired a republican governmentthere would have been four dominat ing commonwealths to resist foreign interference

,so that they

might have maintained the freedom of one consolidated republic . But Cosimo di Medici, who was thenj ust commencing his despotism in Florence , preferredto see a duke in Milan ; and the Foscari in Venicethought only of territorial extens ion .

T he capt ivity of Avignon , which had nominallyended at the Council of Constance

,had well-nigh ex

tingu ished the influence of the Popes . .7Eneas Sylvius ,

however, the secretary of Empe ro r Frederick I I I .,and a very learned , diplomatic, and versati le character,gained the ascendancy at the Council of Basle , andarranged things so that Pope Eugenius was enabledto triumph in that body. He also later secured the


thwarted, and this was the last attempt of Rome toestablish a free government.In 1454 Nicholas V. was the means of bringingabout the Peace of Lodi , in which Venice, Milan,Florence and Alphonso of Naples united for the purpose of withstanding the T urks . A year after, in1455 , Nicholas V. died, and ZEneas Sylvius was chosenPope with the title of Pius II . In 1464 he also diedwhile preaching a denunciatory sermon against theT urks. In 1477 a large T urkish army, after desolatingthe coast of Italy as far as the Piav,

defeated theVenet ians, their proceedings being watched from theCampanile of St. Mark’s . T he T urks also took possession of the Black Sea, depr iving Genoa of all herpossess ions and influence there . T he depredations ofthe T urks at this time were only stopped by the deathof Mohammed II .

T he rise of the House of Medici in Florence isone of the most absorbing events in Ital ian history.

Cosimo di Medici , after his return in September,1434, from banishment in Venice , executed his powerwith remarkable wisdom and tact . He adorned Florence with the finest architecture and founded the Pitt iand Ufli z i galleries, which stil l attract mill ions of people from all lands . Under his supervision the dome ofthe Cathedral was built by Brunelleschi , and Masacciopainted and embellished churches and chapels , afterward s models for Miche lange lo and other great artists . Cosimo encouraged l iterature in every possiblemanner, keeping many scholars busy collecting manuscript to adorn the Medici l ibrary. From this era , forthree centuries

,the history of Florence is connected

with the House of Medici .Ne ri Capponi was another great statesman . It was

T he Medici 87

said of the two men , i f Cosimo was the wealthiest,Neri was the wisest. T hese autocrats , when afraid ofany opposit ion , called a Parl iament and had a Baliaappointed for five years ; and thus they were able tosecure the election of their own party, as in the casement ioned against the Albiz z i .T he splendor and refinement of Cosimo Medic1 staste enriched the State ; and, though his rule abridgedthe l iberties of Florence , the material prosperity of thecity was sustained . H is death in 1464 left only one

son, Pietro , who did nothing except burden the Ital ianpeople with his debts . He quarreled with Luca Pitti ,a most formidable enemy, and soon died from hisd issipat ions in 1469, leaving two sons, Lorenzo andGiul iano.T he Medici were not, at this period, absolute despots l ike the Visconti ; but they were no longer s implya great family, as they had been in the time of Silvestro. Although they used their power for the good ofthe city, they did it by drawing from the public treasury in the interest of their own house . T he Popes ofthis epoch were striving for dominion, not in order toenlarge the Holy See, but for the purpose of makingtheir sons and nephews Italian princes . Sixtus IV.

there fore entertained a violent hatred for the Medici ,s ince Lorenzo was opposing his attempt to establishhis nephew in Romagna ; and, in sympathy with the oldGreek and Rorrian ethics , he felt that nothing was a

crime which would rid the State of tyrants .Accordingly Sixtus IV. concocted a scheme of assas

sination which was so gigantic and far-reaching thatit involved at least one hundred persons , among them

Sixtus’ nephew and grandnephew, the Riario, Francesco Salviati and the Archbishop of Pisa, while even

88 I taly : Her People and T he ir Story

the odious King Ferdinand of Naples is said to haveabetted the scheme . T he conspiracy was called afterthe Paz z i family, who were the foremost in the plot .T hey inst igated it because , though among the richestand noblest of Florence , they had been kept out of

office by Lorenzo de’ Medici and excluded from the

right of succession to the Borrommeo prope rty. T h i swas according to Lorenzo ’s policy, which was to putdown the wealthy and rais : up people of no conse

quence , ove r whom his influence would be paramount .During a Church celebration in Florence the two

brothers Giuliano and Lorenzo de’ Medici were invitedto a feast to be gi ven by Jacopo de

’

Pazzi on Sunday,April 26, 1478 . But the consp irators found out thatfor some reason or othe r Giul iano would not be at thebanquet

,and not daring to postpone the assassination ,

the date of which was known to so many, they decidedto commit the deed at once at service in the Cathedral .Francesco de’ Pazzi and Bernardo Bandini were theecclesiast ics chosen to ki ll Giul iano, and it was ar

ranged that Giovanni Battista was to murder Lorenzo ;but he hesitated to commit the sacrilege of slaying hisfriend in church . Accordingly two priests

,Antonio

and Stephano , who comprehended sacred things better ,undertook the task. After reaching the church

,and

finding that Giul iano was not there , Pazzi and Bandiniwent to his house, and in a playful manner aecom

panied him to the service, at the same time ascer

taining that he was unarmed . An immense crowdenabled the assassins to get behind thei r intendedvict im without attracting att ent ion ; and as the l ittlebell sounded when the Host was l i fted up

,and all

were knee l ing in the presence of God, Bernardostabbed Giuliano to the heart, and Francesco di


which in tu rn appealed to the rest of Italy for supportin a general council of the T uscan clergy .

Ludovico Sforza, son of Francesco Sforza, and the

cru el Galeaz z o’

s brother, had been banished fromMilan by the latter

’s widow, Bona of Savoy, s ister-in

law o f Louis XI . , because he had tried to wrest thepower from her. Now , however, he returned to Milanand usurped the duchy in place of his nephew, a boyof twelve years , the son of Bona of Savoy. He thenunited with Louis XI . in an all iance with Lorenzo.

Sixtu s IV. also was obliged to come to terms with allparties in 1480, when he saw that the T urks werethreatening Rome . But he made one more attemptagainst the general peace by trying to get Ferrara forhis nephew, Cardinal Riario. T he Pope’s captain inthese great wars was Fedrigo

,Duke of Urbino, a man

dist inguished not only for his skil l in warfare, but forhis culture , j ustice and uprightness of l i fe .

Sixtus IV., chagrined at the failure of all hi s plans ,died in the year 1484. It was he who built the wonderful Sistine Chapel and named it after himself. T heconstructing o f the Vatican was begun in the earlypart of the Ch r istian era , and had continued up to the

time of Charlemagne, who i s said at one time to haveresided in one of the courts of the Church of St .

Peter ’s . T he Popes from the time of Eugenius IV. hadagain taken up this work of culture and splendidarchitectu re, which they continued for several centuries.

Innocent VII I . , the successor of Sixtus IV. , waselected by the influence of Ferdinand of Naples , andthough they soon quarreled, Lorenzo di Medici finallybrought about a reconciliation between them afterhe himsel f had pacified the Pope by marrying his

SAVONAROLA .


o f society and the sins of the people, and foretold the

terrible punishment which awaited such a course of

li fe . T he Florentines were held spellbound by the

simple eloquence of a preacher who scorned all tra

dition of oratory, and literary style and swept everything before him by his earnestness and wa rmth of

feeling. In looking upon his glowing countenance ,the imagi nation of al l was kindled . Some believedthat they saw an angel on either side of him as hepreached ; and others thought the Madonna hersel f

stood above him in glory, blessing him with uplifted

hands while he pronounced a benediction on the mul

t itude .

T he Magn ifico feared Savonarola’s influence,yet

was attracted by him , and sought him out at the monas

tery of St . Mark’s ; but he could not gain hi s confi

dence, for Savona rola felt that any degree of sympathy with this luxurious though affable tyrant wouldfetter him in his mission of helping the people.

Savonarola was of a fervid temperament , believedin special revelations,and dreamed dreams . He gainedan especial power ove r the people by his ability to

foretell the leading events of the t imes— the advent of

the French King, the fa l l of the Medici, the reign

of Clement VI I . and like great disaste rs .Lorenzo de ’ Medic i died in 1492. He was one of

the most i llustrious men handed down in histo ry ; and ,in spite of a few rash acts of cruelty

,the moral

beauty of his character and his ennobl ing taste would

seem lofty even in the most advanced epochs of a pureand unsullied state of society . It was through the

patronage extended by himto all scholars and art i ststhat the way was prepared for that most br ill iantepoch in Ital ian history which came about in the suc

The Medici 93

cess ion of his son, and was called the Golden Ageo f Leo X .

Just be fore Lorenzo died his fascination for Savon

arola revived,and he summoned him from St. Mark

’

s

to hear his last confession , because he knew that thegreat divine would not fear to tell him the truth . T he

i l lustr ious preache r refused to come , saying : We

could not agree ” ; but Lorenzo sent back the messen

ger with a promise to accede to everything.

T he prior was led to the luxurious chamber whereLorenzo lay dying in the prime of his days , surroundedby all that he loved

,yet hopeless and helpless , and tor

mented by the memory of the wrongs which he had

committed . He confided to his confe ssor that therewere three things which troubled his soul— the atro

c ious Sack of the Volterra,the Murder of the Orphans

and the Massacre of the Pazzi . Savonarola told the

penitent that, first, he must have a l iving faith thatGod would pardon him ; and Lorenzo told him that he

could have that fa ith . Secondly : he must restore

everything wrongfully acquired so far as lay in his

powe r, only leaving to his children as much as would

ma intain them as private citizens . Lorenzo was maddened at this thought , but finally he said he wouldalso do this . In addit ion to all the rest , the fa ithfulfr iar told him that he must restore freedom and a

popular republican government to Florence . T henthe great Magnificent turned his face to the wall and

said not anothe r word ; upon which the prior wentaway without grant ing himabsolut ion .

Savonarola afterwards sa id that he grieved greatlybecause he had not allowed himsel f to become ac

quainted with Lorenzo sooner ; for he believed thatthrough the grace of God the distinguished ruler then


might have found salvation , s ince he had never before known a man so well endowed with all the natural

graces . Lorenzo died at forty-four in the splendor ofhis prosperi ty ; and Florence, where to-day one cannotlook in any direction without gazing upon the work

of some man ’s genius , i s fi lled with the spir it of the

Medici in its churches,galleries

,streets and squares

,

as well as in the beaut i ful Medici Chapel erected as a

monument to the family name . Lorenzo left three

sons, Pietro who succeeded him ,Giovanni (Leo X .)

and Giuliano .

Innocent VII I . died nearly at the same time as

Lorenzo , j ust as the anarchy of the Feudal Ages was

gi ving place to the renown of the Renaissance.” Butfor Ita ly the Age of Invasion followed, and England,France, Spain and Austria for many years menacedthis disunited State by the consolidat ion o f theirgigantic powe r.T he year a fter Innocent VIII . died , Rodrigo Borgia

had gained by br ibery his elect ion as Pope underthe name of Alexander VI . He used his poweralmost ent irely to forward ambit ious schemes in behalfof his children, Caesar and Lucretia . T hese two ex

ceeded their father in the insolence of their vices, theirfalseness and cruelty

,so that the name of Borgia has

been handed down as a synonym of vice.


heavenly despotism, short, but far-reaching in itsinfluence . Although he preached eight years , fromthe year 1489, without interruption , his real rule overFlorence commenced in 1491 , and he reached theclimax of his greatness in 1495 .

It was in 1492 , after Alexander VI. was Pope,that

,

during the delivery of one of his forcible sermons,he

heard supernatural voices portending the wrath of

God, and he saw the celebrated vis ion recorded oncontemporary medals and engravings symbolizing hisdoctrine . In i t a hand appeared bearing a flamingsword and voices were heard proclaiming mercy tothe faith ful , and vengeance to the guilty . T hen thesword bent towards the earth, and the sky darkened,thunde r pealed and l ightning flashed and the worldwas visited by famine , bloodshed and pestilence . It

was the disturbance his sermons caused which influ

enced Pietro di Medici to have him removed fromFlorence ; and it was while he was preaching inBologna that the rebuke to the wife o f Bentivogl io, theruler there, for interrupt ing divine service by hernoisy entrance, came near costing him his l i fe. Assass ins were sent to kil l him in his cel l ; but, awed by

Savonarola ’s wo rds, they fled in terror from the con

vent. At the close of his last sermon in Bologna hefearle ssly announced the day and hour o f his departure ;and then he started out barefoot on his lonely j ourney

over the Apennines .After a time

,when the Florentines no longer feared

Charles VI II . and were free from the shadow of the

Pisan War, the people began to long for their oldgayeties

,and heeded less and less the great prior

’

s

teachings . In 1495 a Papal brief summoned Savonarola to Rome

,and in September another, and then a

Age of Invasion 97

third. Just a fter he preached one of his most excit ing

sermons, Alexander VI . united St . Mark’s to anotherdivision of the Dominican order

,and thus abridged

Savonarola’

s influence , which had been supreme overthe monasteries . As early as 1497 the Arrabbiati andthe Medici party united , and on Ascension Day Savonarola was insulted and a Bull of Excommunication washurled against him . T hat same year he was forbiddento preach in his own convent, and again summoned toRome , his touching farewel l sermon being del iveredin 1498 .

Although Alexander was determined that Savonarola should meet his death in Rome

,the Signoria

insisted that he should die in the presence of theFlorentines . A trap was laid for him and a challengegiven by Francesco di Pagano to prove the truth of

his doctrine by the ce lebrated Ordeal of Fire .”

Everything was ready for the exper iment,and Savon

arola is said to have been almost assured o f histriumph in the i ssue ; but there was delay and the au

thorities finally put a stop to the proceedings . H is

enemies after this pushed their advantage , and , havingimprisoned him

,tortured him for three successive

days . As a result of his ascetic l ife he was too weakphysically to endure the torment

,and in his del irium

he would promise to recant,saying and doing things

based on which the records were falsified, and statements and sign atures forged ; but when unbound hewou ld reassert his views

,crying out :

“ My God, I

denied thee for fear of pain .

”T his vacillating course

gave the Florentine Signoria a chance to claim thathe who had swayed Florence for years was not only afalse prophet , but had used his unusual abilities forhis own advancement and vainglory .


On May 22 ,1498 , final sentence was passed . T ha t

night, as Savonarola lay asleep in his ce ll , his headrest ing on the shoulder of his confessor, the guardnot iced a smile playing over his wan features

,and

asked what it was that he saw . Waking a little, Savonarola replied : I hear the sound of falling chains .”

T his was no doubt a vis ion , which came to him in hisdreams

,of the disenthrallment of future ages from the

shackles of ecclesiast ica l error and bigotry, of whichhis martyrdom was the beginning.

T he next morning, the 23d of May, the executiontook place

,in which Savonarola and his companions

we re first hanged and then burned . When the bishopread the fo rmula

,

“I separate you from the Church

Militant and the Church T riumphant,”Savonarola

cried : Not from the Church T riumphant, that i s beyond thy powe r" T hen he was suspended on thecenter beam of the cross , erected on the spot wherethe great fountain near the Pa lazzo Vecchio now

gushes forth, and the pile was fired . At dusk the remains of Savonarola and his two fellow-victims werethrown into the Arno .

During the year and a hal f after the death of Lorenzo di Medici his eldest son Pietro held a totteringsway in Florence . Meanwhile Ludovico Sforza, Dukeof Milan, became anxious lest Alphonso , son of Ferdinand I . of Naples , should take up the cause o f hisnephew

,Gian Ga l eazzo Sforza , Alphonso

’s son- in-law,

whose powe r Ludovi co, as has been seen , had wrestedfrom himwhen he returned from exile . Ludovico ,therefore

,having made an alliance with the Pope

and Venetians for mutual support,sought in vain to

form , in addit ion , an Ita l ian confederation composedof Florence , Rome and the Duke of Ferrara . Accord


through the gates never to return . Pisa,that for

almost a century had been in sub j ection to Florence,

now entreated the French to gain back l iberty for her ;and Charle s took their part. Notwithstanding this

,

however , the Florentines , then completely under thesway o f Savonarola, who tolerated Charles VIII.

’

s

coming as a part of God ’s beneficent providence tor id Florence of the Medici, still maintained the ir loy

alty to the French king.

Charles VII I . for a while kept the Florentines down

by threatening to bring back the Medici ; but one dayhe la id so gri evous a l i st o f proposit ions before the

commissioners that Piero Capponi , enraged , snatchedthe pape r from the scr ibes

’

and tore it in fragmentsbefore the king’s face , saying : Sound your trumpet and we will ring our bells . T his , together with

Savonarola’s prophecies against him , frightened the

king,since he knew that at the sound of the common

bell so large a numbe r of soldiers would pre sent themselves that his men-at-arms would be powerless .Accordingly he accepted their terms, promising tore store Pisa and the other places which Pietro di

Medici had given up . But the last he never did.

Charles VIII .

’

S father, Lou is XI.,had kept aloof

from Ital ian aff airs and had given up his right to

Genoa to Francesco Sforza ; but Charles VI I I . himsel f,as the representative of the Angevin Hou se in thedescent of King Réné of Anj ou, claimed Naples ; andthough his cousin

,the young wi fe of the down

trodden Galeazzo Sforza , had entreated him in behal fof her father

,King Alfonso of Naples, Charles in

tended to appropriate the kingdom , and afterwards tocross over and drive the T urks before him. He wouldthen retake Jerusalem from the Infidels and win back

Age of Invasion 101

the Holy Sepulchre . He had induced Venice , as wellas Ludovico Sforza , the usurping Duke o f Milan , to

help him,and as he approached Rome with a gorgeous

pageantry of s ixty thousand gayly equipped cavalryAlexander VI . threw open the gates of the EternalCity. H is stay there, however , was for the most part

perfunctory,notwithstanding that he forced Alexander

VI . to agree to all his terms .

T he Italians looked with horror at the method ofthe invaders

,since the French , from the time of the

discovery of gunpowder, had guns made of brass ,called cannon

,which threw po inted iron balls , and

could be fired at long range . On the other hand, theythemselves stil l used great guns

,with stone balls

,which

had to be drawn by oxen and were so heavy that theycould be used with profit only in sieges .

King Al fonso le ft the kingdom and fled to Sicilywhen he heard that the French were really coming ;and his son Ferdinand II . , being betrayed by his

general- in-chief, was forced to seek refuge in theI sland of Ischia.Although Charles VI I I . was welcomed by the peopleof Sic ily, he had made many enemies . In the firstplace he had fa iled to con cil iate the Duke of Milan ;and he had offended the Florentines because he favoredthe Pisans . T he Venetians would not uphold a powerwhich seemed likely to gain the ascendency over them ;and the Pope was dissat isfied because French ruleinterfered with his plans for increasing the influenceo f his house . Charles also angere d the Orsini by

favoring the Colonna ; while Maximil ian , King of the

Romans , was j ealous because French rule was working in such a way as might finally snatch from him

his Emperor’

s crown . T hus it seems that everybody


was in a hurry to get Charles out of Italy, and Ludovico Sforza more than anyone else , though he had beenthe most influential in aiding him in the invas ion of

the peninsula . Ludovico now proceeded to make analliance against the French with the Pope, Maximilian,Ferdinand II. and the Venetians .

Seeing that this combinat ion was going to be toostrong for them, the French army, which had alreadysettled down to a l ife of voluptuous enjoyment

,took

a speedy fl ight,marching out of Naple s in May, 1495 .

Charle s’ greatly reduced numbe rs , after passing the

defiles of the Apennines , met a large army composed

of troops from Venice and Milan under Francesco diGonzaga in the plains of Lombardy. Charles VI I I .was victorious, but he felt that it would not be prudentto remain in Italy, and accordingly pressed forward to

T urin and returned to France. Ferdinand II ., assistedby the Spanish , the Pope, the Venetians and the Dukeof Milan

, re-e ntered Naples and regained nearly all

he had los t ; but in less than a year he died and was

succeeded by his uncle, Frederick.

T he Pisans , having been abandoned by Charles, wereobliged to put themselves under the protection of theVenetians, who helped them to carry on war with

Florence. In order to del iver that city from the influence of the French , Ludovi co Sforza tried to getPietro di Medici back to Florence ; but the government hindered Pietro from entering the city. T he

followers of Savonarola, who were ca lled Piagnoni ,”

or “Weepers,

” because his preaching had broughtthem to repentance , clung to the old popular govemment, and stil l favored the French Alliance. T he

Arabb iati ,” or the “ Angry, were the members of

the oligarchy who had turned out the Medici ; and


damp walls o f which, to keep himsel f from madness,Ludovico carved his name and other curious inscript ions , l eaving the re the outl ines of his own face, allof which are disce rnible to-day. Ludovico Sforza

was recogn ized as the most “ i l lustrious Maecenas of

his age . He did much to beauti fy the Certosa of

Pavia, bes ides many other works demanding greatcu lture . T he legitimate duke, Gian Galeazzo Sforza ,Ludovico ’s nephew, having died in the Castle of Paviasome years before, Louis XII . came into possessionof Milan in 1500 ; and during the next twelve yearsall of Lombardy fel l under his sway. He then turnedhis attention to Naples . Frederi ck, the new king, with

his di sbanded army and empty treasury,could off er but

l ittle resistance,although the troops Charles VI I I .

had left were scattered and without a head . Ferdinandthe Cathol ic

, of Spain, soon made an alliance withLouis XII . but at the same t ime arranged one withFrederick, who placed his fortresses in the possession

of the Spanish troops . T hi s was the Ferdinand con

nected with Columbus and the discove ry of Amer ica,the consort of I sabella . When the French battalionscrossed the frontier

, Gonsalvo da Cordova , the Spanish general

,disclosed the treachery of the King of

Spain in his alliance with the French , and his disloyalty to Frederick of Naples ; and Frede rick was

forced to surrender and flee to Ischia, where he diedthree years after.In 1502 the French and Spaniards quarreled over

the part it ion of the territory and fought a battle nearCerignola in Apulia , where the French were total lydefeated by this Gonsalvo, called the Great Captain .

Although his character was perfidious, he possessedgreat milita ry genius and heroic courage . After one

d of Invasion 105

or two more disastrous battles,the French

,fearing that

they should lose Milan,abandoned the contest ; and

in this way the Spanish got possession of the Kingdomof Naples and held it, with some interruption in theeighteenth century, unti l 186 1 , except ing during thetime of Napoleon ’s dominion .

Alexander VI . granted Louis XII . a divorce fromhis first wi fe, and in return received the lordship of

Imola , Faenza, Forl i and Pesaro ; and Ce sare Borgia,in order to insure the inheritance , murdered al l thehe irs of these ruling famil ies . Louis XII . re fused tolet Cesare annoy the Florentines, s ince he wanted themand the Bolognese on his side ; but Cesare in 1502

got hold of Urbino. He was physically strong, tall ,handsome and mentally powerful ; but he was c rueland treacherous and soon gained the hatred and con

tempt of all Italy. A conspiracy called the Diet ofMagione was made aga inst him by Bentivoglio of

Bologna, Baglione of Perugia, Antonio di Venassioof Siena and the Orsini .Under the cover of great friendship for the Orsini

,

Cesare in 1502 assembled Paol i and Francesco Ors iniwith others , apart from their troops in the Castle of

Senigallia , where he strangled them and annihilatedthe family. T he old Orsini Palace is seen on the ru inso f the T heater of Marcellus in Rome , where the later

residence of the Neapolitan branch is in the GravinaPalace in Naples .Pope Alexander, whose corrupt reign had been

fil led with intrigue and the grossest crimes , died fromdrinking poison

,which he had mixed for one of his

cardinals . Cesare was only saved from the same

fate by his temperate habits . T he new Pope , PiusI II ., l ived only a few months , and his successor, Jul ius


II .,seized and imprisoned Cesare because he had not

been of service to him against the Venetians and hadfailed to advance the growth of the Holy See. In

1504 Cesare sought refuge with the Spanish general ,Consalvo , who , ignoring his feigned friendship , senthim off to Spain and had him shut up in the Castle

of Medina del Campo . Finally Cesare escaped tohis brother-in-law John, King o f Navarre , and servedin his army until he was shot under the walls of

Viana .

A legend revived in modern literature relates thatCesare neglected his beauti ful bride , Charlotte d

’

Al

bret,and finally wished to get rid of her altogether.

T aking advantage of her aff ection for him , he senther a warm velvet canopy for her bed

,adorned at the

head by a protecting Madonna with a snowy whitemantle . T his he begged he r to use , in order that hemight think of her warm and protected in the cold

north . But she sent back the message that it shouldnot be put to any service unt i l his return . T he lovelyprincess , however, soon died and was wrapped in thecurtains she had cher ished for his sake, enfolded in theMadonna ’s white mantle . Scores of years after, when

exhumed,her face was still fair and white , preserved

by the arsenical compound with which Cesare had

intended to poison her.Cesare ’s s ister, Lucrezia Borgi a, i s conspicuous in

history for her cruelty and for her knowledge of poi

sons, which shemay have been fa lsely accused o f usingin dispos ing of persons who stood in her way. Gio

vanni Sforza of Pesaro was her first husband ; afterhim Alphonso di Biseglia ; and finally she marriedAlphonso d ’

Este , son of the Duke of Fe rrara . She

survived her whole family and lived surrounded by


Venice as a barrier against the T urks , went over to theside of the Venet ians , and in 15 10 broke up the League

of Cambray .

Jul ius II . now turned all his attention to expell ing

the foreign powers from Italy ; but , being thwarted

in this by the French , he formed a Holy League , inwhich Hen ry VI I I . of England j oined , and afterwardsFe rdinand of Spain . T he French were successful inseveral contests

,conquering at Ravenna the Pope ’s

forces led by Fabriccio Colonna , and the Spaniards

by General Raymond di Cordona ; but they lost their

distingu ished though b rutal leader , Gaston de Fois ,Duke of Nemours

,cal led the “

T hunderer of Italy .

”

A few months later Maximil ian , then Empe ror of Ge r

many, j oined the Holy All iance and , with two thousand

Swiss me rcenar ies belonging to the all ies , overran

the Duchy of Milan and drove the French out ofItalv. T he confederates of the old Ducal party now

proclaimed Maximilian Sforza , son of Ludovico , duke .After the French were expelled from the kingdom

the all ie s met at Mantua and decided that Florence,notwithstanding she had remained strictly neutral during the contest

,must receive back the Medici . T he

Great Council agreed to admit the latter as privatepe rsons , but, the Florent ines themselves refusing, the

city was taken by storm August 29, 15 12 , after a

s iege of twenty-one days , by the Spanish Viceroy Raymond di Cordona

,a brutal massacre following. Don

Raymond forced the Florentines to j oin the League

against the French,besides paying him a large sum .

Among the changes in the government during the longstruggle in Florence

,the office of Gonfaloniere had

become a l i fe tenure ; but this offi cer was now forced to

leave the city , and after Giovanni di Medici with his

Age of Invasion 109

nephew Lorenzo,son of the banished Pietro, had taken

possession,the common bell assembled the people, who

were obliged to agree by means o f a Bal ia to re-estab

l ish the Medici in the ir former places of greatness .

During these many dissensions , Pope Julius II ., who

had striven for temporal power in order to enlarge theHoly See rather than to enrich his house , died in 15 13 .

He was succeeded by Giovanni de’

Medici (Leo X .)and the Holy League was broken up .

Italy was the leader of the Renaissance, and theearly part o f the sixteenth century, ca l led by the

Ital ians the Cinquecento,” being a time of great

intellectual growth,the arts and sciences flourished .

T he stiffness in art which had prevailed among the

painters before Giotto and Fra Angelico , and which

had arisen from thei r stereotyped religious views,relaxed as artists began to study the Grecian masterpieces oi antiquity. Many of these great wo rks of artthe sculptors found in Lorenzo de’ Medici ’s large collee

tion in Florence ; and the enthusiasm was further stimulated by discover ies made in the excavations in Romeduring the reign of Julius II . , particularly the ex huming of the Laocoon in the Baths of T itus . At the same

time the Chapel of Masaccio became the school forpainters in Florence .T he Pope s, who, s inc e Gregory

’s VII.

’

s time, hadceased to devote all their ene rgies to the good of theChurch, now encouraged a mo re secular spiri t in artand l iterature . Be fore Julius II . died he had begun

to pull down the old Basil ica of St . Peter ’s to makeroom for the present magnificent structure ; but Bra

manti , whom he employed as the first architect,con

ce ived plans so vast that it took centuries to real ize

them. T o carry on the work,Leo X . now introduced

1 10 I taly : Her People and T heir Story

the idea o f granting indulgences ; and he was no doubtsufficiently gratified when he saw how this adroitscheme was br inging in mill ions

,not only for his wars

and the building of the great Cathedral,but to satisfy

his own luxur ious tastes .T he patronage of art had reached its cl imax under

Julius II . , who brought from Florence to Rome thepa inter and sculptor, Michelangelo , and employed himin decorating the ceiling of the Sis tine Chapel

,built

by Sixtus IV. T hese adornments are at the present

day more studied than any others o f Michelangelo’sworks .It was later, in Clement VI I .

’S time , when Miche l

angelo was engaged in painting T he Last Judgmenton the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel , that the romanceof his l ife began with his ardent friendship for Vittoria Colonna . In perfect reverence and loyalty helavished on her not only all the deep tenderness anddevotion of which such a nature as his was capable ,but he was prodigal in dispensing for her the treasuresof his great genius ; for she is said to have been thetheme of his finest sonnets

,which he mastered with the

same gigant ic stroke as he did the productions of hischisel ; and his most exquisite drawings were createdfor her gratification. Besides all of this

,he found

time in the midst of hi s mighty undertakings to spendlong, bright hours in her society ; and finally when ,during political crises

,they were separated, a close

correspondence kept their hearts united.

”

T his attachment was also a great solace to thegi fted poetess, who rej ected all suitors to her handand remained true to the memory of the husband ofher youth

,the Marquis of Pe scara, while cult ivating

l iterary pursuits to the end of her li fe in the compau

d of Invas ion 1 1 1

ionship of the great sculptor ; and when she diedMichelangelo’s l ife was darkened by the shadow of

thi s great grief.'

At Florence , Michelangelo had met Leonardo daVinci and competed with him in making de signs forthe Palazzo Vecchio. Leonardo had been brought toMilan by Ludovico Sforza, and in the short time hewas there he painted T he Last Supper on the wa l l

of the Church of Maria delle Grazie . Unfortunatelytime has so inj ured the wonderful painting that it isfeared it will soon be entirely obl iterated . Leonardodi Vinci, l ike the Greeks, a imed at pe rfection ; therefore

hi s works are few.

In the time o f Julius II. Raphael painted the D isputa, which is in the Stanza della Segnatura in theVatican in Rome . Most of the famous paintings ofthis celebrated artist, such as the Sistine Madonna,the Madonna della Sedia,

” etc ., were executedduring the re ign of Leo X . , but some of those in the

Stanze were finished by his pupils after his death.

Raphael designed the galleries called his Loggie, whichconnect the diff erent parts of the palace, and hadthem decorated as seen to-day. Between the years15 13 and 15 16, in Leo X .

’

s time, Raphael prepareddrawings for some tapestries, the design s of whichwere taken from the Acts of the Apostles . T heywere worked by the weavers of Flanders

,or some say

in the looms of Brussels . Having been completed inthe marvelously short time of three years , they wereplaced on the lower wall of the Sistine Chapel

,and

though afterwards carried off , they were returnedand are to be seen at present in a much damaged condit ion in the Galleria degl i Arazzi

,in the Vatican .

T he design s, having necessarily been cut in strips for

1 12 I taly : Her People and Their Story

the weavers, were le ft in Flanders , until Charles I.

of England bought them . Cromwell preserved them,

and in the reign o f William II I . they were joined

together and hung in Hampton Court near London,

but at present are to be seen in the South KensingtonMuseum . Raphael ’s last work,

“T he T ransfigura

tion,” was pa inted for Clement VI I .

In his historical scenes Raphae l was ass isted by

many young artists,who frequently exhibited l ittle o f

the genius and keen artistic insight of their master.Michelangelo’s paintings are easily recognized by

the magnificent outl ine o f the drawing instead o f

the high coloring which is the characterist i c of theVenetian School . T he three great Venetian artistsare T itian , T intoretto and Paul Veronese . Benevenuto

Cell ini did his best work in the reign of Pope ClementVI I . He i s we l l known as a Florentine goldsmith ,as well as being an engraver.

T he Go lden Age of Leo X . was also distinguishedby much literary achievement. Ariosto and PietroBembo

,among others , wrote in Ital ian . Ariosto com

posed in an age o f courtly splendor, at a time when

the accompl ished men of the day could equally wielda sword or write a love poem . Hence he wrote of

mad adventure , of combat, of paladins and the lover’s

devotion . In his “Orlando Furioso ” he captivated

both the gay and the earnest.T asso , a court ier as well as a poet, wrote hal f acentury la te r, when the bards of the s ixteenth century,l ike those of two centuries earlie r, wove their sorrowsinto their writings .Poor T asso, out of j oint with everybody andeverything, finished only two poems of great merit

,

Aminta and the Jerusalem Delivered . T he latter


CHAPTER IX

AGE OF SPAN ISH RULE— CLEMENT VIL—FALL OF THEMEDICI.—T HE JESU IT S.— DECLINE OF VEN ICE.

15 18—15 74 Ad).

OPE JULIUS had so extended the rule of theChurch that when Leo succeeded himhe found

that hi s sway was vast. King Fe rdinand of Spainstil l held Sicily, Sardinia and Naples and was as

anxious as the Pope to keep the French from gettingthe upper hand in Italy. T he people, however, of theDuchy o f Milan , which now included Ge noa, weretired of the Sforza rule under Swiss support ; and oneAntonio Adorno of Genoa having incited a revolutionin favor of Louis XII . , Maximilian Sforza was obligedto flee . But the French were again defeated and Sforzaretu rned to his duchy for two years longe r.

In 15 15 Louis XII . died and was succeeded byFrancis I . , who immediately claimed Milan . Leo X .,

alarmed, sent his nephew Lorenzo tomeet the forcesof Francis, who was joined by Robert de la Marck,the leader of the Free Company called the Black Band,and by the Doge of Genoa , Ottaviano Fregoso. Whi l ethe Florentine forces and the Spanish under their vi ceroy, together with the Papal army under ProsperoColonna , were marching to unite with the Swi ss mercenaries, Prospero Colonna was taken prisoner atVillafranca. T he remaining all ies fail ing to appear,on account of lack of united act ion , the Swi ss were

left alone to meet the enemy. On September 13 the

n of Spanish Rule 1 15

great battle of Marignano was fought. T he Swiss ,who had now become the great mercenary force ofEurope

,made the French waver by their courage,

keeping up the fight by moonlight,so that the victory

was stil l undecided when the moon set. T he nextday the Venetians, however, attacked the Swiss in therear

,and the battle ended in favor of Francis , twenty

thousand dead being left on the battlefield. T his hasbeen termed a Battle o f Giants .” T he Swiss nowleft the Italian service forever and hired out as mer

cenaries to the King of France .Ferdinand

,King of Spa in , who by his marriage

with Isabella had united Aragon and Castile, died in15 16, and was succeeded by his grandson Charles.T he latter was also the grandson of Maximil ian theGreat of Germany ; for Charles

’ mother Joanna,the

daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella,had married

Philip of Austria, the son of Maximil ian and Mary ofBurgundy.

When Emperor Maximilian died in 15 19, CharlesV. and Francis I . o f France were candidates for theelection ; and Charles , who ruled over Spain and theLow Countr ies , the T wo Sicilies, the Netherlands ,Franche Compte, and the new colonies in Americaj ust discove red by Columbus , was now elected. He

also inherited Imperial dignity and the title of King ofJerusalem . It was at this t ime that the titl e of Kingof the Romans was changed to Emperor elec t, andbecame the natural appendage of the King of Germany. Charles V.

’

s rule was much more extensivethan that of the Roman Emperors in the days of theirgreatest glory ; and his ambition was even greater thanthe irs . T his was the beginning of Spanish supremacyin Italy.

1 16 I taly : Her People and T heir S tory

A re formation had long been brewing in the silenceof the German cloisters , and was now led by theAugustinian monk, Martin Luther, who was assistedby the Elector of Saxony and many others in the Em

pire ; and this movement was j oined later by Zwingli ofZurich and Calvin of Geneva . Charle s V.

’

s interest as

a Spaniard leaned toward the Church in this matter ;and besides it was better policy to fight on the s ide ofthe Pope . Accordingly he made a treaty with Leo X .

in 152 1 , and in the long struggle which followed hewas a lways most act ive in his hostil ities against Luther

and those especially interested in carrying on theReformation .

After the Battle of Marignano, September 13, 1515,

when the Duchy of Milan fel l into the hands of France ,Maximil ian Sforza was forced by Francis I . to ret ireinto exile in France

,where he l ived as a private citizen

until his death in 1530 ; but Charles V. and the Popenow availed themselves of the opportunity, in theabsence of the governor placed ove r the duchy, toenter Milan without opposition

,and to proclaim as

Duke , Francesco Maria Sforza, Ludovico’s son , and

the younger brother of Maximil ian Sforza . Francesco Sforza II . married Christina , daughter of Christian II . of Denmark. She was the princess who, whensought in marr iage by Henry VIII. , is said to have

replied that i f she had two heads one of them shouldbe at his disposal .At his death Sforza bequeathed the duchy to Charles

V., Parma and Piacenza being gi ven back to the

Pope ; and in the midst of his rej oicing at anothertriumph of his party over the French, Leo X . died in152 1 . T he culture and bril l iancy of his reign havealmost obliterated in the minds of posterity the cor

1 18 I taly : H er People and T heir S tory

an all iance with Charles V. ,Henry of England, and

the Pope . Francis , having heard of the powerful combination against him , did not dare to leave the country for fear of an English and Spanish invasion .

Accordingly he gave the command of the Frenchtroops to Guillaume de Bonnive t, the Admiral ofFrance

,who was soon defeated by the diplomacy of

Prospero Colonna, and obliged to quit the country.

In 1524, when the French army was retiring, theirrear was defended by Chevalier Bayard, the idealknight of chival ry. In directing the retreat Bayard

was mortally wounded and taken pri soner. T he GreatConstable found him under a tree , dying with hi s facestil l turned to the enemy and his eyes fixed on the

cross formed by the hilt of his sword . T he Constabletried to console him ; but Chevalier Bayard repliedIt is not I who am an object of pity , for I die as a

man of honor . It i s you who have turned traitor to

your country and king.

”

T hough the Great Constable forced the French to

leave Italy, he himsel f was obliged to retire from anencounter in Provence ; and in doing so he gave theenemy the advantage , so that the French again crossed

the Mont Cenis and would have marched directly to

central and southern Italy had not Charles V. by hisdiplomacy circumvented them . T he latter’s cause , how

ever, was almost lost, when Giovanni di Medici (descended from Cosimo of the younger Medici l ineand leader of the Black Band

,went over to the French .

Besides this , at that same t ime the Pope became neu

tral . T he Great Constable,howeve r

,with the Marquis

of Pescara, came back to the rel ief of Charles’ army

and united with the Emperor’s brother,Duke Fer

dinand of Germany, who , with a force under General

Age of Spanish Rule 1 19

Freundsburg , on the 24th of February , 1525 , defeatedthe French at Pavia . Francis and his brother Henrywere taken prisoners

,with eight thousand others ; and

many were drowned in the T icino, Admiral Bonnivetand Richard de la Pole being among the French

nobles and commanders slain .

Francis was shut up in the Castle o f Piz z ighittone,near Milan ; but was afterwards confined in the T ower

of Alcazar at Madr id, where he had plenty of time toindulge in his favorite pastime of wr iting sonnets.Duke Francesco Sforza II . , assisted by Henry VIII.and the Venetians , and j oined by the dowager queenof France , all united to drive the Spaniards and Germans out of Italy, and they also attempted to del iverFrancis I . from pri son . T hey were abetted by thePope, the combination being called the Holy League .T he Marquis of Pescara, however, discovered the plot,and though for a time he pretended to favor it, soonbetrayed the whole plan , and at the command of

Emperor Charles V. seized all the strongholds in theduchy except the castles of Cremona and Milan . T he

Marquis of Pescara died be fore the end of that year.He was the husband of the gi fted Vittoria Colonna .

T he Great Constable again took command in the Marqu i s of Pe scara ’s place ; and, although his army wa s

scantily supplied with food and pay, he was victoriousand forced the Duchy of Milan to endure every kindof outrage because the duke had j o ined the Holy

League .In the beginning of 1526 Francis I . obtained hisfreedom by renouncing his claims to Naples, Milan,Genoa and Asti in the T reaty of Madrid ; but as soonas he was restored to his kingdom he declared all hisconcessions null and void because they had been made


under duress . T he Pope then tried to induce himtoj oin the League .In the spring of 1527 the Ge rman troops under General Freundsburg we re j oined by the army of theGreat Constable, which had become mutinous on ao

count of the scantiness of the pay. T hese marched

quickly towards Rome, to overthrow the Pope, whosegenerals were de fending the city . Freundsburg diedin a fit j ust before reaching Rome ; and the GreatConstable on the 6th day of May, 1527, assaulted thecity.

Although the Constable was s lain while scaling the

walls,his forces continued the struggle and the cap

ital of the world soon lay at the mercy of thi rty orforty thousand ungovernable soldiers .” T he Papal

Guards were put to fl ight and the Vatican and theChurch of St. Peter ’s plundered . T he Ge rman Lutherans destroyed

,as idolatrous , pictures and statues which

were priceless,but the Spaniards committed even

greater atrocit ies ; and for seven months the city wasat the mercy of an army which became a mob, greaterviolence being infl icted than during the barbarian invas ions . Clement VII .,

who had succeeded Hadrian VI.

in 1523, himsel f e scaped to the impregnable fortress

of St. Angelo, where he lived in close confinement fors ix months .T his great diplomat ist had earl ier, as Giulio de

’

Medici , been the counselor of Leo X . , and fo r a longtime the real ruler of Florence. At present, however,Clement VII .

’

s position was no easy one, s ince, on

account of pre serving the ba lance of power,”he did

not desire that the Sicilies and the Duchy of Milanshould be under the same rule ; and he was accordingly hostile to the Spaniards, who had cared nothing


the invading army of the latter enduring the greatestvicissitudes on account of not being acclimated.

T he news of the capture of Clement VII. causedgreat rej oicing in Florence , s ince it is not only provedthat Savonarola had prophe sied correctly conc ern ingthis Pope ’s reign , but a lso because his rule had been

scarcely tolerated during the minority of the youngMedici . Accordingly the leading citizens told Alex

ander , Clement VII .

’

s nephew, and the young CardinalIppo lito, the natural son of Lorenzo, that they must

go ; and on May 17, 1527, Florence was for the second time free from the yoke of that family, Nicolo

Capponi be ing chosen Gonfa loniere . T he governmentthen proceeded to form an all iance against Charles V.

In the Peace of Cambray,1529, notwithstanding all

that had been done for Francis , the latter, h0ping to

place hims el f on a more sol id basis , le ft Florence and

all his other allies in the lurch . T he various other

states and duchies in connect ion with Francis j oinedthe party of Charles V. , and in 1 530 the latter was

crowned King of Italy and Emperor by Clement VII .

in Bologna .

T he Florentines now saw that they must again come

under the power of the Medici or struggle alone forthe ir l ibe rty ; and when they heard of the perfidy of the

French king in l eaving them out in the cold at

the T reaty o f Cambray,their courage almost entirely

deserted them . T hey had learned, however, fromMachi avelli , in hi s Prince , the necessity of organ

i z ed res istance ; and the inspirat ion received from theBlack Band of T uscany had kept the ir mil itary vigoral ive . Michelangelo

,also

,was ready to assist them ;

and, when he was appointed to superintend the buildingof the fort ificat ions of Florenc e , laid waste themag

Age of Spanish Rule 123

nificent suburbs in al l directions,lest the enemy should

find a hiding place in these charming environs.Charles V. soon sent an army of Ge rman and Spani sh troops under the Prince of Orange , to assault thecity. T hese were at first beaten off by StephenColonna , the commander of the fortress of San Miniato ; and France sco Ferruccio, a former leader of theB lack Band, fortified Empol i , making it a storehouse

from which the Florentines were supplied with food,

Empoli , however, was betrayed while Francesco Ferrucc io was away retaking Volterra . T he Florentineswere soon in great want of provisions

,especially s ince

Ferruccio, while marching over the mountains of Pistoia , in order to reinforce the city , was misled by hisguides and his plans were revealed to the enemy. A

desperate encounter took place in a l ittle hamlet amongthe hill s , and the Prince of Orange being shot, it lookedas i f the Florent ines had gained the day ; but Ferruccio, pierced with many bullets , was taken pri sonerand then struck down in the market place by anImperial ist general, meeting his death fearlessly.

T he last hopes of Florence now faded . After anheroic defense the city was betrayed

,in 1530, through

the treachery of Malatesta Bagl ione,chief captain of

the armies of the republ ic ; and the Signor ia werecoerced into capitulating to Emperor and Pope . T he

former was,to regu late the government of the city,

which , though it nominally preserved its l iberty, wasobliged to pay a ransom and give hostages to admitthe Medici . A Balia was forced upon the citizens andthe republican magistrates were compelled to lay down

their office ; and thus the world- renowned repub l icwhich had lasted four centuries became a prey to thedepraved ambition of Clement VII., the most crafty


and corrupt of all the Medici : and for three hundred

years after, the history of Florence i s almost a cipher,

her provinces and dukedoms be ing at the beck and callof the sovereigns of the re st of Europe .When the Medici took vengeance on those who hadfought for the freedom o f the city, Miche langelo

was saved by Pope Clement VII . , who needed him tocomplete some arti sti c work . T he old bel l which had

peal ed forth so many times in the cause of freedom ,

bringing the citizens together to consult or fight, was

now broken up , a new Parliament was chosen , a newCouncil elected for l i fe with a new Senate ; and Ales

sandro di Medici was placed ove r them as duke. All

the years o f pestilence , war and famine had not sodesolated the city, nor had the misery o f the pe0p1eever been so hopeless as during the s ix years of Alessandro de ’ Medici ’s rule . He was finally murdered bya distant kinsman

,and with him the elder l ine died out,

Ippolito the Ca rdinal having previously bee n assassi

mated at Alessandro ’s instigat ion .

T he in famous Pope Clement VII . died in 1534, and

was succeeded by Paul III .,who by his ability gained

the respect of his subj ects . T he latter hated the Mediciand occupied much of his t ime in exalt ing the Farnese

family. Cosimo II.,the son of Giovanni of the Black

Band , was chosen by a party led by the historian

Gu icciardin i , and was so powe rful that after one ortwo revolutions the Florent ines were obl iged to sub"

mit, and Cosimo’s reign crushed out all that remained

of the old republ ican spir it. He, l ike the earl ier of the

Medici , cast a false halo over tyranny, by rul ing theState with apparent j ustice and moderation as well asby patroniz ing art and l iterature . H is successor,Ferdinand, however, governed badly and all the pros


new doctrine of the Reformat ion . T he reform viewshad much less influence in Italy than in other countries , yet the re were some persons in almost eve ry town ,who , seeing the scandalous l ives of the Popes andCardinals , were in favor of a Reformat ion in someform . T he Society of Jesuits soon sprang up to checksuch heretical tendencies

,their founder being a Span

iard, Ignat ius Loyola , who had bo rne a rms against theFrench . In 1540,

with the permission of Paul III helaid the foundat ion of this Society of Je sus , andafterwards labored with unt iring energy to crush theRefo rmation . Under Loyola, that system of court

spies,j udges and executioners , known as the Inquisi

tion , was set up by Pope Pau l III .

Pope Paul IV. ,who followed Julius III . in al l

Church affairs , estab l ished more firmly the Inquisition .

On account of the host il ity of the populace against

Paul IV. ,the citizens at the news of his death formed

amob and opened the prison doors ; and after l iberating the prisoners , whom he had ready for the Inqui

sition , they set fire to the building.

At first the Jesuits numbered only s ixtymembers ;but, assisted by privileges granted by the Pope , theygained great power among the people . There hasbeen much discussion conce rning the benefits conferred upon mankind by this order. T heir worldwidemissionary work was no doubt of great servic e tohumanity , for through it they establ i shed seats oflearn ing

,and in it exhibited wonderful devotion to duty

in eve ry direct ion . T hey obl iged the Popes to reformtheir lives, and the requirements of their holy offi cewere soon defined. T he Jesuits , however, presentlybecame the enemies of freedom and progress, becausethey thought it was for the interest of the Church.

'

Age of Spanish Rule 127

Culture and science among laymen was frowned downby the order

,Galileo being twice prosecuted on account

of his discoveries . All books printed in the countrywere subj ect to the criticism of a Jesuit tribunal ; andaccordingly l iterature gradually disappeared and artbecame enfeebled

,s ince pa inters were obl iged to con

fine themselves to religious subj ects . Many of theoppressed fled to England and Germany and Switzerland

,to e scape being burned as heretics . T he Jesuits

were not suppressed until the end of the eighteenthcentury

,when a solemn Bull was hurled against them

by Clement XIV.

Among the reformers who flourished in the s ixteenthcentury there was a sect called the Waldenses, whodwelt for the most part in the western Alps . T hesetook their name from Peter Waldo, a reformer of thetwelfth century, though it has been sa id that Waldo

took the name of the sect when he became a convertto their views . At that time the Bible had been translated into their language, and from its study theythought the i r faith was mo re genuine than that of the

Albigenses, a sect then almost extinct on the other s ideof the Alps ; and accordingly there were many quarrel sbetween them , each claiming that their religi on wasthe only correct doctrine .During the sixteenth century both people and rulersdegenerated,

‘ and, domest i c l i fe losing much of itssacredness , true social standards for the most partwere sacrificed .

T he Papal States remained unchanged in this century, fourteen such insignificant Popes occupying theChair of St . Peter tha t it began to be apparent thatPontifical power was on the decl ine. Gregory XIII .

,

however, the successor of Pius V. and Pope between


1572 and 1585 , founded many useful institut ions . He

o rnamented the ga lleries of the Vatican, and i s espe

c ially famous for completing the reform of the calendarwhich Julius Caesar had commenced so many centuriesbefore .T urki sh power reached its cl imax in the last part ofthe sixteenth century under Sultan Solyman . I taly wasnever free from his ravages

,the towns in the south ,

including the island of Venice in the Adriati c, andCorfu , which Venice held for the most part after thecrusades until 1797, being especially subj ect to hisdepredations . Solyman ’s son Selim was a no lessdreaded opponent, and, he having determined to reduceCyprus , which had belonged to Venice for eighty years ,the great Battle of Lepanto was fought . T he commander having been forced to make terms with Sel im

’

sgeneral

,Mustapha

,was tortured and slain , and the

garri son sent to the ga lleys .

T he Venet ians at last had to accept the aid of anallied fleet gathered by the exertions of Pius V. T hiswas victorious over the T urks outside of the Gul f of

Lepanto ; and, on October 7, 157 1 , with great loss on

both sides, Venice and a great part of Christendomwere temporarily del ivered from the Infidels . T he all ies

failed to make a treaty, however, and the Venet ians in1573 were forced to yield thei r claims to Cyprus and

pay a large tribute to the Sultan , thus giving the sameprestige to the T urks as i f the latter had been victo

rions at Lepanto . T his was the close of the era ofVenice’s greatness ; though later in the seventeenthcentury she waged eff ective warfare in the Mediterra

nean against some Bulgarian pirates called the Uscoc

chi . In 1669, after a siege by the T urks of more than

twenty years , she also lost the i sland of Candia ; but in


CHAPT ER X

T HE RISE OF T HE HOUSE OF SAVOY.—HER DUKES.

CHARLES EMANUEL 1. T H E GREAT.—EXCITEMENT

AT T ENDING STRUGGLE OF SPAN I SH SUCCESSION .

MASAN IELLO.— ITALY’S KINGDOMS

,DUCH IES AND

REPUBLICS AT NAPOLEON’S INVASION.

1574—1792 A.D.

T the time of the Peace Of Cateau-Cambresis, celebrated between France and Spain in 1559, there

were only four free governments in Italy. T hese wereVenice

,the l ittle republ ic of San Mar ino

,Genoa and

Lucca . T he last two were only such in name, sincethev we re subj ects of the greatest power in Italy, theK ing of Spain , who ruled Naples , Sicily and the islando f Sardinia as well as Florence and Milan . T here was ,however

,another influence spreading in a remote cor

ner of Italy ; for a clause in the T reaty of Cambresisrecognized the right of Emanuel Fil ibe rt , Duke of

Savoy, to Piedmont . It was his family which three centuries later was to emancipate and reunite the whole ofIta ly. T hey at this epoch ruled the most genuine Italian State in the peninsula—Savoy, which was formerlyonly a l ittle doma in in the valley of the Savoyard,earl ier held by the Counts of Maurienne . T his diminut ive estate had extended its terr itory over a realm ofmountains , ravines and forests on the western slopeof the Alps

,and continued to reta in the same name .

T he most famous of the nobles who became subj ectsof Emperor Conrad when Rudolph III ., King of Bur

Rise of the H ouse of Savoy 13 1

g undy died in 1027 , had been Humbert , Count of Bur

gu ndy, called Humbert of the White Hand .

”Some

trace his l ineage back to the Saxon Wittekind, andothers to the Ma rgraf of Ivrea . In any case he wasfifth in descent from Boso of Provence . He had re

ceived from Rudolph III . the counties of Savoy andMaurienne , and by the marriage of Humbert

’s sonwith Adelaide

,daughter Of the Count of T urin, Bur

gundy and western Lombardy were united , theirheirs becoming Counts of Savoy. Little by little they

lost their possessions on the French side of the Alps,but gained new ones in Italy, unt il their boundariestouched the Mediterranean at Savona . In the thirteenthcentury Savoy became influential among the Europeancountries , since the daughter O f one of her counts wasthe mother of Margaret, wife of Louis IX . Of France,of Eleanor, queen of Henry III . of England, and ofBeatrice, wife of Charles of Sicily. T he familydivided in the next two hundred years , its elder branchruling Savoy and the northern shores of the Lake Of

Geneva, and the younger divis ion holding Piedmont,with T urin for its capi tal .T he Humberts in the meantime had succeeded the

Amadeus, and the Amadeus the Humberts, one afterthe other as dukes . T hey were always engaged inwarfare with their neighbors up to the time of Amadeus VIII ., who had come into the inheritance of theelder line in 1391 ; and in 1418 had j oined Piedmontto Savoy and received the title of duke from Em

peror Sigi smund . Amadeus VIII . vanquished theMarquises of Montferrat and of Saluzzo, and hiskinsman, the Prince of Achaia, his three most effectiveantagonists . He annexed Saluzzo and Chivasso and

received Vercell i from Fil ippo Maria Visconti, only


being checked later in his advance on Milan by Francesco Sforza .

Amadeus VIII . was one of the mo st remarkablecharacters of his day. He not only built up the fortunes O f his house

, but, through it, of all Italy. Aconspiracy aga inst his l i fe

,together with other causes

,

resu lted in his abdicat ion in 1434 in favor of his sonLou is , after which he entered a cloister as a priest.Later he became ant i-Pope as Felix V.

,at the Council

Of Basle, in place of Eugenius IV. ; but he resignedin favor of Nicholas V. in 1449. H is two sons married princesses of Cyprus ; afterwards through themthe Dukes of Savoy claimed the t itle of Kings ofCyprus . In the t ime of Francis I . Of France Savoywas enfeebled by the fickle course of her duke,Charles III . T here were troubles between the latterand the Imperial City of Geneva , which revolted , thenobles of Vaud supporting him while Berne , Freiburgand King Francis I . adhered to Geneva .

It was during this war that Bonnivard was keptconfined for six years in the Castl e of Chillon, onaccount of having dared to take sides against Savoy.

H is footpr ints are st ill seen worn into the grim stonepavement in the dungeon deep down below the castle .Lord Byron records the fact most pathetically in hisPrisoner Of Chillon .

T he war was decided in favor of Geneva , in 1536,

a fter which the French took away the larger part of

Savoy ’s terr itory . Charles V. ,who had helped the

Duke at first,occupied Piedmont, while Duke Charles

was left with only Nice . Savoy and Piedmont werethe center of much of the stri fe between France andSpa in in the sixteenth century ; and when Duke CharlesIII . died in 1553 , his son Emanuel Filibert , styled the


port of Spain, he married Cather ine , sister of KingPhilip II . of Spain . Venice and the other Ital ianpowers

,j ealous of the Dukes O f Savoy, who had be

come some of the most notable men of the s ixteenthcentu ry, depended upon France to check the powe r ofCharles Emanuel . In the time of the struggle withthe Huguenots , the latter j oined the Catholic Leagueunder the Duke of Guise and invaded Provence, laying siege to Geneva . When Henry III. was assassi

mated in 1589, some supported the claim of CharlesEmanuel to the throne of France through his mother

,

who was Margaret, daughter of Francis I . ; but afterthe Battle of Ivry Henry of Navarre became Kingof France as Henry IV., and Charles Emanuel wasrequired to give up Provence . A protracted warensued, which was only brought to a close, in 1601 ,

by the T reaty of Lyons , according to the terms ofwhich Charles Emanuel had to renounce Provence bygiving up Bresse , Bugey and Pays de Gex, but wasallowed to keep Saluzzo . T his drove the French outof Italy and, giving Charles Emanuel control of the

French side of the Alps, was the stepping-stone whichfinally made the future rulers of Savoy Italian kings .During the fifty years O f Charles Emanuel ’s reignthere were disputes with Spain with reference to Valtell ina

,which has only belonged to Italy since 1859,

and diff erences about the Gr isons , stil l a part of

Switzerland, Louis XIII . and Venice siding withCharles Emanuel against Phil ip IV. T he latter as wellas Philip III . had always coveted this territory inorder to insure a thoroughfare between Austria

’

s and

Spain’s possessions in Italy . In the course of this warthere were many plots against the oligarchy, in whichthe people Of Genoa sought the aid O f Charles Eman

Rise of the House of Savoy 135

uel , the Vaschero Conspiracy being one of them . T hi swas similar to the “ Conspiracy of the Fieschi ” in1 547, which well-nigh extinguished the Doria familyin Genoa . Charles Emanuel also had aspirations withreference to Mont ferrat, but this was given to France ;and

,when Charles died

,all his diplomacy came to

naught except the acquisit ion of a few place s on theborders of Montferrat . Casale, with a fortress builtin 1090, was not added until later.Christina

,the wife of Victor Amadeus I . , successor

of Charles Emanuel the Great, was the daughter ofHenry IV. of France and the mother of CharlesEmanuel II . ,

who commenced to reign while a youth .

Christina was also the s ister of Louis XIII . Onaccount of this fact Cardinal Richelieu had a greatinfluence over her husband, Victor Amadeus I ., forcinghim to take part against Spain ; and this influencecontinued, after the king

’s death, during Christina’s

regency. Charles Emanuel II . developed influentialtraits of character, and under him the princes of theHouse of Savoy returned to their allegiance to Spain ;and the trouble of the two nations ended by theT reaty of the Pyrenees in 1659. For six years, withthe aid of the Spanish , Charles Emanuel II . withstoodthe despot ism of Louis XIV and under him Piedmont acquired much mil itary renown .

In spite of promises which Charles V. and hi sbrother Ferdinand had made

,the viceroys in the

Kingdom of Naples often imposed unfair assessmentson the most common necessit ies O f li fe. In 1647, on

account of a new and very unj ust taxation, T omaso

Aniello,a fishmonger, called Masaniel lo, stirred up

the whole people and, putting himself at their head,gained possession of the government. T he mob burnt


the Custom House and shut up the Duke of Arcos ,who was then viceroy, in the Castle of St. Elmo inNaples ; but at the same time an insurrection in Palermo increased the dange r to such an extent tha t theDuke of Arcos was able to take advantage of it andgain over the principal citizens .Although Masaniello was nothing but a commonpeasant, he possessed wonderful personal magnet ism ,

and the viceroy was obliged to combat his eff orts bystrategy . Accordingly at a feast he drugged him withmixed wine, which upset his balance and made him dosuch extravagant things that he lost his influence ; andthe insurrection fell to pieces . T he Neapolitans had

looked upon Masaniello with a superstitious regard,and when he was assassinated they lost thei r spirit ,and never again made but feeble attempts against

Spanish rule .T he French under Louis XIV. were also at war with

Spain ; but, in 1678, Louis made peace by the T reatyof Nimwegen , and, having withdrawn his forces , heformed an all iance with Victor Amadeus II .

,Charles

Emanuel II .

’

s successor, ceding the fortress of Casaleto him ; and in 1684 Louis made Genoa submi t under abombardment.T he peace was not interrupted for twenty years ;but the I st of Novembe r, 1699, Charles II . of Spaindied and in his will Phil ip of

'

Anjou , grandnephewand grandson of Louis XIV. , was declared heir to theSpanish dominions

,with the t itle of Philip V. T he

right to the throne was contested by Archduke Charles,son of Leopold of Austria, who ,

through his mother,was in a direct descent , both she and the grandmother of Philip V

, being daughters of Philip IV.

T his war of the Spanish Succession raged four


who was a lso descended from Cosimo III ., he succeeded to the Grand Duchy of T uscany.

In defiance of the T reaty of Utrecht, Philip Vunder the influence O f his minister

,Albe roni

,took

away Sardinia from Austr ia and was bargaining forthe new Kingdom of Sicily, which the Duke of

Savoy held wi th his troops . A quadruple all iance wasaccordingly formed between England, France, theUnited Province s and Charles of Austria to enforcethe T reaty of Utrecht ; and because Victor AmadeusII .

, Duke of Savoy, was suspected of being on the sideof Spain, he was obliged by the allied powers to yieldthe Kingdom of Sicily to Empe ror Charles VI . , t e

ceiving in return the Kingdom of Sardinia . Charl es

VI . now became King of the T wo Sicilies, while Sar

dinia, which was to include Savoy, Piedmont and theisland o f Sardinia , was the cradle of the future sovereigns o f united Italy.

Victor Amadeus II .

’

s misfortune in having to e x

change the fruitful land of Sicily for the unproductiveIsland of Sardinia marks an important epoch inI tal ian history ; for had he st il l kept Sicily, he and his

hei rs would in al l probab il ity have become so embroiled in the succeeding Spanish and Austrian quarrels that the i r independent growth would have beenstunted and their final great service to Italy rendered

impossible .In 1730 Victor Amadeus II., in order to contract amorganati c marriage with the Countess of San Sebastiano ,

gave up the crown to his son, Charles EmanuelIII. T he close of his l i fe was saddened by this step ;for within a year after his abd ication this second wifebecame weary of their Obscure andmonotonous existence in the fortress of Chambe ry , and influenced him


to try to reclaim his possessions and dignities ; andaccordingly they set out for T urin . Charles Emanuel

III . reached the capital before his father and upse t

these plans ; but Victor Amadeus II . kept instigating

new plots , until his son finally had him put in prison

in the Castle of Rivoli, where he remained until h isdeath in 1732 .

In 1738 the T reaty of Vienna was made betweenLouis XV. of France , Philip V. of Spain and CharlesEmanuel III., King of Sardinia , for the purpose Of

driving the Austrians out of Italy and placing DonCarlos , son of Phil ip V., on the throne of the T wo

Sicilies and at the same time securing Milan to CharlesEmanuel . At the close, however, France and Spainignored their agreement with the King of Sardinia,leaving Milan and Mantua to Austria, while Spainreceived Naples and Sicily. Don Carlos

,now being

acknowledged King of the T wo Sicilies, gave up hisclaim to T uscany and Parma, and Francis of Lorraine, who had married Maria T heresa, daughter ofCharles VI ., received the Grand Duchy, Gian Gastone, the Medici heir, having just died. Stanislaus

Lesz cynski , the father-in-law of Louis XV. , who hadlong been struggling in vain to obta in the throne of

Poland, received Lorraine from the Emperor.By this compromise, what was called the War of

Polish Succession was also brought to a close, and atthe same time the power of Spa in was re-establishedin southern Italy. Charles Emanuel III . was ap

peased by receiving, as an extension to his frontier,Novara and T ortona . In the meantime Don Carloshad become King of Spain by the death of FerdinandVI. , and the latter

’s son Ferdinand became King of

Naples . T hus one power after another kept acqu ir


ing and ceding back the diff erent parts of Italy,until

the death O f Charles VI . o f Austria , which resulted in1740 in the War of the Austrian Succession .

France , Spain and Naples , all Bourbons , nowjoined with Prussia

,Bavaria and the King of Sar

dinia to plunder Maria T heresa,the daughter of

Charles VI . , whom Frederick the Great was harassing on all s ides . In 1742 ,

however, the King of Sardinia broke away from his union with the Bourbons ,into which he had entered only in a half-hearted way,and made an alliance with Maria T heresa on condition of getting back Milan . T he Genoese, who hadkept up the same government which Andrea Doriahad established in a semi—independence, we re now

much disturbed at the union,for fear Charles Emanuel

III . would absorb their city, since he needed a way tothe sea . At first in 1745 Charles Emanuel III . wasde feated by the French and Spanish, and the victorious

armies were allowed to pass through Genoa on theirway to their prospect ive conquest of Milan ; but duringthe same year Maria T heresa’s husband, Francis of

Lorraine,was elected Emperor

,and, a truce being tem

porarily made between Prussia and Austria, peacereign ed in Europe .In 1746 the King Of Sardinia and the Austriansdefeated the French and Spaniards in a great battleunder the walls of Piacenza , the city being given up ;and when they advanced and demanded to be admittedto Genoa

,which was the key to the two Rivieras and

to the Island of Corsica, the Genoese were obligedto open their gates ; and the Austrian leaders per

fidiously treated the city as though it had really surrendered . But when the Austrians tr ied to force thebystanders with blows to help them get a cannon out


of the Inquisition , and a much needed restraint of theclergy . He also redeemed much land which wars andneglect by the pe0p1e had allowed to degenerate intoswamps and marshes

,and restored the Maremma and

the val ley of the Arno and Paglia to something of the irformer fertil ity . H is memory is st il l cherished withgrat itude in T uscany, and he is j ustly regarded as themost distinguished Of the early l iberal Italian rulers .Under his second son

,Ferdinand

,the excellent prince

who succeeded him in 1790, T uscany continued happyand prosperous until Napoleon ’s time.Charles Emanuel III . was alike a great general , awary polit ician and an illustrious king. Although

after the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle he engaged in nowars, he strengthened himsel f in his Alpine boundaries by a l ine O f magnificent fortresses and kept upsuch an effi cient mil ita ry force that he was ready totake the field at any moment with an army of fortythousand men well discipl ined in the modern scienceof war. Like the rest of the rulers of Italy, he emterta ined Frederick the Great’s conception of the rightof kings , and was a mild despot ” ; but at the sametime he followed out his father ’s wise pol icy . T herewere twenty thousand priests and twelve thousandmonks at that time in the province Of Piedmont alone .

Accordingly he felt it necessary to diminish thestrength and wealth of the Church , lest it should overshadow his own power ; but, notwithstanding his diplomatic character, he was not sufficiently progressiveto advance educat ion .

T he court of Charles Emanuel was carried on withthe same ceremony as Versailles . Over three hundredcourtiers surrounded the king and the yearly ex pendi

ture was more than two mill ion liras . In accordance


with the ideas of that age of absolutism , the sovereigndemanded entire subservience from all the nob il ity,in even the most trifl ing personal matters . T urin,Charles Emanuel ’s capital , was then cons idered bythe French the most beauti ful village in the world,and from that time it has kept its reputation for beingone o f the most stately cit ies of northern Italy.

Victor Amadeus II . had sa id that Italy was l ike anart ichoke

,which had to be eaten leaf by leaf. T he

Dukes of Savoy had first consumed Piedmont, and then

Sardinia, and in this way established the Kingdom of

Sardinia , the nest egg of the future United Kingdomof Italy. T hey then went on absorbing contiguousterritory, unt il after the T reaty of Aix-la-Chapelle , in

1748, when their frontier extended to Lake Maggioreand the River T i cino, and the Kingdom of Sardiniaincluded nine thousand square miles . In its threeprovince s there were three mill ion inhabitants, with a

revenue of fourteen million dollars.During the e ighte enth century many moral andintel lectual Popes had followed in success ion ; but informer times the States of the Church had beengove rned so badly and the expenses of the Holy See inkeeping up their temporal as well as spiritual dignityhad been so great, that the Popes were obliged to taxthe necess ities of li fe ; accordingly the poor had beenkept down and were always in destitution . T hus, muchtime was required to remedy the defects of inst itutionswhich had debarred all intellectual progress and hadkept the people in ignorance . T he enlightenment whichnow prevailed in all the European nations had alsothreatened to undermine Papal power to such an extent that the po l icy of the Popes had necessarilybecome that of throwing their influence on the side Of


the most powerful , while appearing to be neutral . In

1769, however, Clement XIV. had the courage to suppress the Order of Jesuits , who by their dark dealingshad gained the odium of Western Europe .Among other re forms in the Papal States , Pope

Pius VI . tried to restore the Campagna, which haddepreciated into an unhealthy marsh

,imperil ing the

l ives of the inhabitants for centuries . At the time ofthe accession of Pius VI ., in 1775, the population ofthe Papal States was two million five hundred thousand, and their army numbered five thousand . T histerritory covered an area of seventeen thousand squaremiles , with a revenue of nine mill ion dol lars . It extended as far south as the Kingdom of Naples and asfar north as the Po, while it was bounded on the westby the Mediterranean and on the east by T uscanyand Modena . T he remarkable visit of Pius VI . to theCourt of Vienna to interview Emperor Joseph II . inorder to arrest his reforms is a memorable event inhistory . Although he was received with due respect,he accomplished nothing.

Charles VII . o f the T wo Sicilies, afterwards CharlesIII . of Spain , Don Carlos as he was called, had donea great deal for the institutions of Naples . He

adorned it most tastefully and brought from Parma,which he also held, many arti stic treasures of theFarnese family . Some of these are to be seen to-dayin the Neapo l itan Museum , together with others takenfrom the Farnese Palace in Rome , the FarneseFlora and the He rcules being among the number.

T he“ Farnese Bull

,

” also seen in Naples , a Greekwork of art from the Baths of Caracalla , is one of

the finest sculptures in the world .

When Don Carlos succeeded to the Spanish throne


T his brief review of the situation indicates the condit ion of Italy when the French Revolut ion rousedthe pe0p1e all over Europe from despair into a wildfrenzy. It shows the subj ect ion of the T wo Siciliesand Parma to Spanish rule, and how the Duchies ofLombardy, Modena and Piacenza we re subj ect toAustria ; also that the Grand Duchy of T uscany wasAustrian , and that Venice and Genoa were just supporting a semi- independent existence, the latter havinggiven up Corsica to France . T he States of theChurch were still occupied in trying to aggrandize ,and the l ittle republi c of Lucca now belonged to

T uscany. T his state of affairs shows us the Kingdomof Sardinia with the only real ly vigorous territory inall the Ital ian peninsula , except the little republ ic of

San Mar ino , all the others but Genoa and Venice beingunder Austria or Spain . At that t ime not one Italian

State was subj ect to France .

Strangely enough , in the midst of all this confus ion science and literature had somewhat revivedduring the century. Alessandro Volta, a nat ive of

Como, had discovered the theory of galvanism by contact

,and in 1800 invented the voltaic pile, while the

Piedmontese count, Alfieri , had brought out his firstvolumes glowing with patriotism . T hese

,dwell ing as

they did on the idea of a new Italy, caused the peopleto reflect on their ancient glory and aroused an ah

horrence 111 themfor tyrants and a hope of freedom .

Napoleon in Italy 147

CHAPT ER XI

T HE ABSORPT ION OF ITALY BY NAPOLEON .—FORMATION

OF H IS REPUBLICS.—ENTHUSIASM OF ITALY FOR

NAPOLEON’

S lNST IT UT IONS.-ITALY RESTORED IN

NAPOLEON’S ABSENCE IN EGYPT.— BATTLE OF MA

RENGQ— EXCAVATIONS OF ROMAN RUINS IN NAPOLEON’

S TIME.

1792—1812 L I).

T the close o f the eighteenth century the Bourbonrule seemed about to end in Italy ; but after the

Revolution all the despotic governments in Europewere alarmed lest the example of the French in establishing a written Constitut ion should be followed.

T herefore they united to put down constitut ional l ibertyand once more restore the Bourbon family to power .Soon after 1792 the French invaded Savoy ; but fornearly four years after

,the tu rmoil at home absorbed

their entire attention,the First Coal it ion

,consisting

of all the despotisms of Europe,having in the mean

time been formed . In 1795 the new French government sent an army across the Alps and the masses ofthe Italian people, hoping thereby to drive out theAustrians , welcomed it heart ily. Savoy, glad to ava ilhersel f of the chance to escape from the Kingdom of

Sardinia, threw hersel f upon the French , who rejoicing

”

said : “T he Alps bid France welcome Savoy.

”

Piedmont, however, was forced by the Austr ians to

assist in levying forty thousand troops to help make


up one of the armies of the First Coalition, which waseither to attack the invaders or to enter France whenthe Prussians on the Rhine should have drawn awaythe French army in that direct ion .

In 1796 Napoleon Bonaparte , the Corsican , was

made commander of the French troops . He was thentwenty-five years of age , Slender in form and almostas del icate as a girl in appearance . T he condition of

Italy furnished an unbounded field for ambit ion,and

the manner in which Napoleon was received by therestless people , longing for freedom ,

was no doubt thekeynote of his phenomenal succe ss and unprecedentedly great career.T he small force of forty thousand men with whichhe was furnished were badly equipped soldiers of theRevolution , more l ike the mercenary bands

‘

of theMiddle Ages than a regular army. T hey were hal fstarved and freezing and lived on hal f rations takenfrom the mouths of the peasants already impover ishedby constant warfare . T he ofl‘i cers received only adollar and a half a day and were obliged to go onfoot, s ince the cavalry horses had succumbed to therigors of the cl imate .T his meager force Napoleon posted along the ridges

of the Mont Cenis and Little St . Bernard in the faceof the Austrian troops awaiting his advance in therich plains of Italy .

Napoleon was at first received with suspicion by hissoldiers and with open host il ity by the generals incommand

,who disliked being placed under an inex

perienced youth . By his wonderful genius , however,he overcame all difli culties and soon gained the loveof those who had tried to circumvent him , this lovesoon growing into something like idolatry. Napoleon


men with great eloquence, praising them for thecourage and patience which they had exhibited on thebarren ledges , at the same time reminding them thatthey had not yet been tried in regular a rmy se rvice .He told them that he was about to lead them intoluxurious plains where, i f they would press heroicallyon , they would find rich provinces, great cities andglory await ing them .

From the t ime of the first encounter the genius ofthe leader and the va lor of the soldiers were al ikeevident. By the I st of May the Austrians were drivenout of the kingdom and the King of Sardinia, VictorAmadeus III ., was forced to make terms withNapoleon

,renouncing Nice and Savoy as well as T or

tona and Alessandria on the Ital ian s ide , and givingup several fortresses of Piedmont . He was alsoobliged to grant Napoleon passage through his

'

do

mains .After the Austrians were driven out they retreatedinto Lombardy and, on the 9th of May, the Battle of

Lodi was fought,bringing the whole of Lombardy

under Napoleon ’s sway. T his fulfil led a promise madeto his men that in a month ’s t ime the enemy shouldbe at their feet. He entered Milan the 15th of May,1796, at the location of the present T r iumphal Arch,built afterwards in 1804 as the terminus of the Simplon route . It is almost the duplicate of the Arch ofT riumph in Paris , begun two years later, only that iti s smaller.Napoleon now issued a proclamation tell ing hissoldiers that the standard of the French republicwaved over the whole of Lombardy

,and that the

Dukes of Parma and Modena only existed through hiscourtesy. He said : “

T o you will belong the glory

Napoleon in I taly 15 1

of replacing the statues of heroes who have renderedRome immorta l and of rousing the Romans who havebecome enslaved .

” And indeed it was a fact that theDuke of Parma had already compromised by payinga heavy indemnity, and giving up twenty of the bestworks of art ; while the Duke of Modena had deserted his subj ects, taking his art treasures to Venicewith him. T he Austrians at Mantua had at the sametime withdrawn to the T yrol, pass ing through Veniceon the way.

T hese movements inspired the Ital ian republicanswith great enthusiasm

,and they hailed Napoleon as the

regenerator of Italy. T he King of Naples sol icited anarmistice, and withdrew from the First Coalition ; andNapoleon was soon able to bring the Pope to sue forpeace, at the same time occupying with his armyBologna , Ferrara and Ravenna , terr itory belonging toH is Holiness . Reggio and Modena revolted from theItalian governors placed over them and were formedinto a provincial government, which , united to Bolognaand Ferrara , made up Napoleon

’s first Italian State,called the Cispadane republ ic, with Bologna for itscapital ; and in less than a month all the powers incentral Italy in favor of Austria were compelled toabandon their allegiance .T he Austrians, notwithstanding this, were gathering an overwhelming army in the north to pour downupon Napoleon’s forces ; and , although weakened byservice , they were threatening, with the aid of Englishfinancial support

,to make the situation very critical

for Napoleon . T he Battles of Arcola and Rivoli,however

,fought in 1796 , resulted in a crushing defeat

for the Austr ians,who retired to Verona .

When Napoleon entered Modena the pe0p1e eagerly


demanded his aid in sett ing up republican institutions,

while the populace in the Papal States , which he hadalready taken , received him with overwhelming effu

sion . T he Pope was alarmed, since he saw thatNapoleon was doing everything to create a sent imentin favor of freedom and to impress the pe0p1e with theidea that his mission was not to destroy, but to disseminate l iberty and enlightenment .Napoleon proceeded to annihilate the British fleetthen holding Leghorn . T his was a seaport which theMedici had built up in the sixteenth century by e recting warehouses , bu ilding fort ified harbors , and invit ingcommercial people to settle there . T he Grand Dukeof T uscany sided with France, and was now so delighted to see the English driven off

,and so desirous

of conciliating the rising great general,that he enter

tained Napoleon magnificently. It was of no use, however, for he, with the others, finally had to submit tothe conqueror and go.

After success ive victories Napoleon repulsed theArchduke Charles

,brother of Francis II . ,

at T agl iamento

,and the Austrians were compelled to treat at

Loeben on the 18th of Apr il , 1797. Napoleon was in

censed aga inst Verona on account of an insu rrect ionknown as the Pasqua Veronese, in which the Frenchgarrison had been massacred, and also because the

Veronese had sheltered Lou is XVIII . T he Venetiansalso had off ended him by off ering an asylum to the

Austrians,and Napoleon made all this a pretext for

ext inguishing the Venet ian republ ic . Accordinglyon the 12 th of May, 1797, with the pe rmission of the

Austrians,who had a lready surrendered, he appeared

before the city of Venice . T heir Doge , Luigi Manini ,being paralyzed with fear, the Grand Council sur


Formio modified the condition of the Italian Statesever after ; s ince from the Cisalpine republic flattering ideas of l iberty spread in every direction

,and

from the reforms established by Napoleon’s free institutions the principle of equal rights was dissemimated .

T he capital of the Cisalpine republic was Milan,and its Legislature consisted of a Senate and Houseof Representat ives , every respec table and self-support ing man at the age of twenty-one be ing entitledto the right of cit izenship.

On leaving Italy in 1798, before his Egyptian cam

paign,Napoleon exhorted the people to hold fast the

libe rty he had worked out and to prove themselvesdeserving of the good fortune awaiting them.

Napoleon ’s success so aroused the enthusiasm of theItalian patr iots that they gladly supported the troopswith which France had armed their fortresses ; andthus the new republic was strengthened against thepowerful monarchies of Europe, which we re anxiouslest l ittle by little the whole country should be revolu

tioniz ed. England was so alarmed because her lower

classes sympathised with Napoleon ’s republicanmovement, that She resolved to do her utmost to annihilate the French republics and restore the Bourbongovernments ; and even in Italy the more conse rvativesaw that it was Napo leon ’s aimto establish , not Ital ian ,but French republ ics in the peninsula , and recognizedthat the taxes for his glor ious victories must be pa idby them .

Pius VI . , thinking that the Austrians were sure toconquer in the end, was recreant to his pledges givento Napoleon ; accordingly, during 1797, the latter entered the Papal States and, besides making the Pope

Napoleon in I taly 155

pay a large sum of money , he compelled him to gi veup the cities of Avignon and Vennais, in addition tothe towns a lready surrendered . Revolut ions encour

aged by the French also arose, and the Romans toretaliate attacked the French embassy. After this , on

the 27th of November, 1798, Napoleon entered theHoly City and procla imed the T iberine republ ic ,announcing that the tempora l power of the Pope hadfallen . Pope Pius VI . was seized, the Vat ican plun

dered and its art treasures sent to Paris . T he Popewas exiled to France , where he died at Valence in1799.

Not long after this Ferdinand of Naples , excitedby the ide a of Nelson

’s victor ies over Napoleon’

sforces in Egypt

,thought he was strong enough to

defy France and re-establ ish the Pope, especial ly asNapoleon himsel f had left for Egypt in the May of

1798 . Accordingly, during November Ferdinand oc

cupied Rome with an army of s ixty thousand ; butthe French soon returned and, having routed the Nea

politans in severa l battles , they drove them back to

their kingdom. King Ferdinand took refuge with

Lord Nelson ’s fleet , anchored in the harbor of Naples ,and afte rwards ret ired to Sicily . T he repub licansnow admitted the French into Naples , where, in 1799,

the Parthenopean republ ic was set up .

T he last sovereign in Ita ly to yie ld his kingdom toNapoleon was Charles Emanuel IV.

, who had succeeded Victor Amadeus III . ; but the French hadgradually worked their way into Piedmont, and, havingtaken possession in 1798 , they obl iged Charles EmanuelIV. to give up his throne and withdraw to the islandof Sardinia , since, a lthough professing fr iendship forthe French

,he was suspected of treachery ; and they


did not dare to leave the key to the Alps in the hands

of a recognized hostile power . In 1802 thi s unfortunate king entered a Jesuit monastery, where he re

mained unt i l his death . H is son , Victor Emanuel I . ,

succeeded him that yea r as ruler of the island of Sardinia . Piedmont was at the same t ime annexed toFrance , and, together with all the other continental

possessions of the Kingdom o f Sardinia, belonged to

that nation for twelve years .

Soon after this the Grand Duke of T uscany wasforced to flee to Austr ia , and thus the whole o f the

Ital ian peninsula , except the Duchy of Pa rma,Pia

cenza , Venice and the l ittle republic of San Marino,

was in the power of the French .

When Napoleon sailed for Egypt , England , Austr ia ,Russia, T urkey and Naples engaged in a SecondCoa l ition ; and early in 1799 Genera l Suwaroff , with ast rong army of Russians and Austrians

,entered Lom

bardy. T he French were obl iged to ret ire to Genoa ,where they were blockaded by an English fle et ; andafter a succe ssion of great victories on the part of the

all ies the French republics on the peninsula wereove rthrown . T he Bourbons in Naples , encouraged bythis

,we re guilty of great cruelt ies aga inst those who

tr ied to de fend themselves . Lord Ne l son returnedwith the King and Queen of Naples , and , in spite ofthei r capitulation

,he had the French cha ined in pa irs

in the dungeon of his warships . Many of the people , worn out by persecution , voluntari ly exiled themselves in France

,and carried the idea of l iberty with

them,among them being Botta

,the historian . T he

more humane king, shocked at such barbarit ies , re

turned to Sic ily, leaving his wi fe to administe r aff a irs ,in company with Lady Hamilton , who had com


On the 14th of June, 1800, Napoleon gained lastingrenown by his victory over the Austr ians on thebloody field Of Marengo . It i s said that he would havebeen defeated except for General Desaix

,who

,while

out reconnoitering at the t ime , heard the fighting andthought the battle lost . He exclaimed , however : It

i s only three o ’clock, and there is time to win another .He then j oined Napoleon , and , though he himsel f was

Slain , the result was a splendid victory . T his battledrove the Austrians out of Italy ; but the all iedpowers

,even as ea rly as this, had made up their

minds that there could be no peace without Napoleon ’soverthrow .

When Murat,with twenty-eight thousand men , was

sent to quell the insurrect ion raised by FerdinandIV. of Naples , Queen Carol ine went to St . Petersburg to implore the intercession of the Czar. She

succeeded SO far that France , hoping to gain thealliance of Russia , permitted the Bourbons to remainin Naples on condit ion that they should agree to theterms of the Cont inental Blockade .In 1801 the treaty of Campo-Formio was con

firmed by the T reaty of Luneville ; and the Cisalpinerepublic was t e-established . Later Napoleon changed

the Constitution somewhat , and made himsel f presidentof what was now called the Ital ian republic , a vicepresident also being appointed . It was intended, however

,to leave it for the most part free to govern itsel f.

Piedmont and the Duchy of Parma , including Piacenza

,were also attached to France . In the May of

1801 Napoleon made a monarchy of the Grand Duchyof T uscany

,and called it the Kingdom of Etruria .

In order to paci fy the Spanish Bourbons and to attachthem to France , this was given to the Duke of Parma,


whom they had j ust deprived of his duchy, and who

had married the daughter of Charles IV. of Spain .

It was hoped when Napoleon appeared in 1804 asEmperor of France that the monarchs of Europemight be appeased

,s ince the republican form of

government had been so distasteful to them . ButEngland

,far from being taken in by this device, would

not consent to grant peace on Napoleon ’s term s.T he next year Napoleon changed the Cisalpine or

Ital ian republic into a monarchy, and the Ligurianrepublic was amalgamated with it. He then crossed

the Alps,and , being j oined by Pope Pius VII . ,

onthe 26th of May, 1805 , in the Cathedral O f Monzanear Milan , took the Crown of Lombardy and placedit upon his own brow,

saying : It is from God ; a curseon him who touches it.” Napoleon was accompaniedby Josephine, from his love for whom no adulat ion of

beaut i ful women was ever able to wean him . He ap

pointed as vice roy of Italy, Josephine’s son , Eugene

Beauharnais , who became so beloved by his subj ectsthat even down to the present generation he is refe rredto with affection . Napoleon immediately abolishedthe Legislative Assembly, and Ita ly became a monarchywith the same government as France ; for, though heplanned to separate France and Italy in the future

,

he thought it necessary that at first they should remainin the same kingdom in order to accustom the ItalianStates , which had so long been disunited , to l ive undercommon laws ; therefore he said he would begin bymaking them French

T hat same year Europe made a T hird Coalition, anda large Austrian army under Archduke Charles took

the field in Italy. T hen Napoleon marched uponVienna

,and the celebrated Battle of Austerl itz was


fought, December 2,1805 . T his overwhelming de

feat forced the Austrians to cede the whole of Venetiato Bonaparte , at the T reaty of Presburg on the 26thof December. T he latte r j oined it to his Italian king

dom, and Francis II. was forced not only to lay downthe scepter Of the German-Roman Empire, but obligedto acknowledge Napoleon ’s sway.

Just after Austerl itz , Napo leon heard that the Bourbons had again admitted the British into the harbor OfNaples, and were assailing the French in the rear. He

then made a proclamation announcing the punishment

of that kingdom,and told the army that , though after

Lod i and the other batt les he had suspected Naplesof treason , he had shown her particular favor out ofcons ideration for Russia, and had respected her nominal neutrality ; and after the Battle of Marengo hehad again pardoned the king and had dealt more thangenerously with an enemy who had done everything todestroy himsel f ; but he now pronounced the dynastyo f Naples at an end. T he Bourbon family at oncetook refuge in Sicily ; and in March , 1806, Napoleon

had his brother Joseph crowned King of Naples .Du ring the short time that Joseph reigned he made

many permanent civil and mil itary improvements ,opening new roads

,draining marshes and causing the

peasants to work for good pay. In 1808 Napoleonmade Joseph King of Spain , and appointed Murat,his brother-in- law, King of Naples in Joseph

’s stead .

T he people had been very fond of Joseph , but theybecame equally attached to Murat. Capri , having atthat time been taken from Sir Hudson Low, wasannexed to Naples.T he provinces of Bas il icata, Calabria and the

Abruzz i were at this time overrun with brigands, and a


n ious feel ing be ing greatly developed by the fact thatthe natives of all parts of Italy fought s ide by s ide inthe armies of Napo leon .

”T he historian Balbo says :

“ O f all the periods of servitude this was the mostglorious, and from this t ime the name of Italy waspronounced with increasing love and honor.Napoleon afte rwards at St. Helena wrote out apaper Showing that he had planned to unite theVenet ians

,the Milanese , Piedmontese , Genoese, T us

cans and all the other Ital ian States into one greatnat ion

,with Alpine boundar ies and the Adriatic, the

Ionian and Medite rranean seas for protection , and to

leave it all as a “ trophy of his glory.

”He had in

tended in this way to shut out Austria and to guard theroute to the Orient . Rome was to be the capital of

this glorious country which Petrarch referred to as abeauti ful land divided by the Apennines

,surrounded

by the sea and the Alps . Napoleon thought thatit would take thirty years to complete this proj ect ;and most people believe that i f he had spent his entireenergies in consolidat ing Italy he would never havelost the prest ige gained, for the union which he con

ce ived and partly executed was the harbinger of whatItaly became a l ittle more than a half century later,after many and bitter struggles .Under Napoleon ’s régime improvements were vast.

It was he who establ ished the army organization,such

as has come down to the present day. He constructednew roads and engineered important systems of canals,bes ides beaut i fying cities with graceful memorialarches , and encouraging the population of the countrydistricts to engage in agricultural pursuits.Napoleon also commenced the renovation Of Rome .

T he ruins of eighteen hundred years in the Forum and

AUT HORS.

T a sso . Petra rch .

Da n te .

B occa cc io. d’

Anmmz io.


parts of Italy, made a pressure upon King Ferdinand

IV. for the granting of a constitution after the English model

,and he was forced to abdicate in favor of

his son Francis , as Vicar-General , January 16 , 1812 .

Queen Caroline resisted English protection , and, beingunpopular on account of the extravagance and luxuryof her court

,and on account Of her cruelty, the Eng

l ish banished her and sent her back to Vienna, where

she died in September, 18 14.

Naples continued an independent kingdom , divided ,l ike all the nat ions

,into the Liberals and a despotic

party . T he Kingdom of Sardinia , under the rule of

Victor Emanuel I . , was sustained by the English fleet

in spite of the restlessness of the people, who werealways comparing their condition unfavorably withothe r pa rts of Italy . T he French provinces of Italywere united under Louis Bonaparte , and afterwardsgiven to Count Borghese , the husband of Napoleon

’ssister, the beauti ful Pauline Bonaparte , whose incomparably fine reclining statue is st il l seen in their latehome , the Borghese Villa . T his magnificent park

, in

cluding the galleries with gardens adjoining,has been

lately purchased by the Italian government and willbe kept as a museum of the State .

Napoleon had raised Lombardy from the lowest condit ion of national li fe to prominence in all the environments which tend to prosperity . Among the radicalchanges , the famous road over the Simplon connectingLombardy and Switzerland was constructed, the expense of one mill ion two hundred thousand dollarsbeing borne by France and Italy unitedly. T o this daythe Lombard pe0p1e look back upon Napoleon ’s reignas among the “ brightest of Ital ian days for he hadtaken care to confer all the ofl‘ices of State of any con


sequence upon native Ital ians , and not only kept thepeople united

,but pacified the principal cit izens all

over Italy . In view of his dist inguished services , after

hi s banishment to Elba , he was invited by the authori

ties at T ur in to accept the leadership of the government , in view of receiving the crown of united Italy.


CHAPT ER XII

T HE FALL OF NAPOLEON’S ITALIAN MONARCHY.—AUS

TRIA AGAIN IN T HE ASCENDANCY.—ADVANCED IDEAS

OF T HE PEOPLE—O LD CONSERVATIVE GOVERNMENTSRESTORED.

— T HE CARBONARI . —ALL ITALY AROUSED.

REVOLUTIONS OF 182 1 , 1830, AND 1848.-MAZZ IN1,

CAVOUR AND GARIBALDI .

1812—1848 A.D.

HE destruction of Napoleon commenced when he

planned his disastrous campaign of 18 12 ; for thismighty undertaking resulted in the annihilat ion of hislarge army in the snowfields of Russia . H is selfish

ness, as shown in sacrificing so many thousand l ives

for his own aggrandizement, became at this time moreand more apparent ; and the people , weary of his des

potism, forgot his wonderful achievements and soonignored the regenerat ing influences he had set inmotion . T hus, when all the nations of Europe unitedagainst him, the great demi-god fell .When the cris is came, Murat, hoping not to be re

moved , entered into negotiations with Austria . He

left Naples with a large army, bound for upper Italy,without disclosing his disloyalty to viceroy Eugene .

T he latter, desi ring to keep his throne , after he hadlearned of Napoleon

’s complete downfall in France ,and that the English had occupied Leghorn andGenoa

,declared his will ingness to submit to the rule

of the all ied powers . T he Senate also was about tointercede in Eugene ’s behal f ; but the people of Lom


lished the Inquisition ; but the Jesuits, unadapted tothe newly developed emergencies, soon lost ground .

T he Duchy of Parma , including Piacenza, was, with

Guastilla, ass igned by the allie s to Marie Louise, wi fe

of Napoleon, and daughter of the Emperor of Austria,who was not a llowed to share Napoleon ’s exile. T he

Spanish Bourbons were given Lucca,but on Marie

I taly Aroused 169

Louise ’s death Parma was to be re stored to them andthey were then to rel inquish Lucca to the AustrianFerdinand III . ,

Grand Duke of T uscany. Francis IV.,

son of Beatr ice d’

Este , the daughter,

of the late DukeHe rcule s III . ,

received the Duchy of Modena .

T here was one republic left, and that was the tiny

princ ipal ity of San Marino , surrounded by the Apennine mountains and the Papal States , which in early

times served as a bulwark between the Montefeltroand the Malate sta . T hrough all the centuries it had“ observed the storms which had desolated Italy at

its feet,” and ever since the t ime when it was first

recognized, in 163 1 , no nation had been mean enoughto usurp authority over it . Dur ing the reign Of PhilipV. of Spain , in the eighteenth century , Cardinal Alberoni gained permission from Pope Clement XII . tode stroy this ancient government ; but the latter wasobliged, on account of opposition , to withdraw hisconsent and to confirm the privilege s of the State .

Although San Marino consists of only thirty-threesquare miles

,with a population of about ten thousand ,

which wOuldobe considered in the United States hardlymore than a small country district, i t i s ent irely sel fsupporting, and is governed by two pre siding Ofl‘icers

elected eve ry s ix months , one from the aristocracy andone from the people . San Marino was e stablished inthe fifth century as a hermitage by a stonemason named

Mar inus , and under him it grew into a community ofseven thousand persons, its very insign ificance preventing it, during all these years , from being blotted out .Marinus afterwards was dubbed a saint

,his bones hav

ing been restored to the town by Pepin the Short, thefather of Charlemagne .T he Bourbon Dynasty was restored in the Two


Sicilies under King Ferdinand I . in 1816. Ignoringhis other t itles ,

“ Fe rdinand IV. of Naples andFerdinand III. of Sicily,

” he reigned as FerdinandI . o f the United Kingdom of the T wo Sicilies. Murathad governed in Naples through the latter part of theNapoleonic era , and had not given up his crown during the time of Napoleon ’s banishment to Elba . T he

quest ion of the Ferdinands and Francises in Sicily,the T wo Sic ilies and Naples, is especially confusing,princes with the same title s seeming to appear atintervals somet imes of centur ies . T his is on accountof the intricacies in the separation and union of thesekingdoms from earl iest t imes, which often makes aprince of the same name governing Sicily appear toreign in Naples much later .Outside of Naples , Italy, as i s seen , was left by thepowers virtually a province of Austria , and governedfor the most part by Austrian princes .T he allies at Vienna had not yet brought the irtreaties and fest ivities to a close when they learnedthat Napoleon had escaped from Elba ; but the Battleof Waterloo soon decided his fate .T he people o f Italy at this time assisted the all iesin expelling the common enemy ; but they were disappointed in the results

,since Ita ly was only used as

a puppet in the hands of the ambitious monarchs ofEurope. T he Holy Roman Empire that was foundedby Augustus , re-dedicated by Charlemagn e , and nominally restored by Otto the Great, had been in realityfor many years only the Empire of Austria, and hadcome to an abrupt close after Austerlitz by the en

forced abdication of Francis II .

T he peace of Italy was additionally disturbed by anattempt by Murat to be reinstated in his kingdom.


years of the nine teenth centu ry , the influence of whichincreased on the restorat ion of the Bourbons

,in whose

ranks many of this frate rnity were found . A plotto murde r the Viceroy of Milan instigated by them

failed ; but on the 2d of July, 1820, encouraged by

the success of an insurrect ion in Spain, the pe0p1eof Avellino demanded a Constitut ion . T he governorreluctantly j oined the two l ieutenants , Morell i and

Silvati , who commanded one hundred and twenty

seven men , and went forth from Nola under the tri

colored (black, red and blue) banner of this society,with their watch cry of For God ,

King and Const itution . On the night of the 5th of July GeneralPepe , in charge of the garrison of Salerno , le ft Naples

for the purpose of leading the revolutionists . King

Ferdinand , leaving the government to his son Francis ,with the title of Vicar , granted a Constitution underduress

,and then fled to Leyback, where the Holy

Alliance between Austria , Prussia and Russia was convened . T he ministry which was now formed by the

Liberals promised a Constitution l ike that set up byNapo leon .

Palermo , which with the rest of Sicily, had enj oyeda Constitution in the Napoleonic period ,

rece ived the

news with great rej oicing and proceeded to expel theBourbon troops , though al l the rest of the Neapo l i

tan kingdom stil l endorsed the Old government .

T his exc itement was the s ignal for an uprising inthe Papal States . Piedmont also broke out into aninsurrection , and the people tried to force the kingto adopt a Constitution l ike that of Naples , hOping by

their l iberal pol icy to be able , as they did some yearsafterwards , to take the lead in Italian polit ics ; butVictor Emanuel I . ,

although he could not forget that

I taly Aroused 173

the Austrians had done nothing to keep his father,Charles Emanuel III. , on the throne, was obliged toj oin the alliance at Leyback in the spring of 182 1 , andcould not yield to their demands . T herefore when thecitadel fell into the hands of the Constitut ionalists , heabdicated in favor of his brother

,Charles Felix . In

the absence of the latter,Charles Albe rt, Pr ince o f

Carignano,was made regent ; and the same day he was

inveigled into adopting the Constitution . Charles

Albert was descended in another l ine from T homasFrancis

,a brother of Victor Amadeus I . , both of these

princes being sons of the i llustrious Charles Emanuel

the Great.Encouraged by the sympathy of the B ritish govern

ment, Austria , Russ ia and Prussia sent their armies

to put an end to this republican movement . T he

new Constitutions were destroyed and the patr iotsexecuted and exiled . Some managed to escape, however

,and led a mise rable existence in foreign coun

tr ie s . Ferdinand I . was reinstated on his throne , andthe Neapolitans were forced to bear the expense o fsupporting the immense Austrian army which was leftin occupation .

T he Austrians now took possession of all the fortresses and entered T urin in triumph . Charles Felix,who had never supported the l iberal measures en

dorsed by Charles Albe rt in his absence , declared

that he would not adopt the government establishedby the latter. Charles Albert was urged to breakaltogether with his cousin ; but, being scarcely more

than twenty-three years of age and inexperienced , he

saw no way to free himself from the polit ica l entanglements . Accordingly, he secretly le ft T urin and, not

succeeding in gaining an interview with Charles Felix,


he sought the home of his father-in-law,the Grand

Duke of T uscany.

T he roya l party , aided by the Austrian troops ,forced the revolutionists to retire

,and in 182 1 the

revolution ended. T he people Of Genoa received theexiled patr iots, and gave them money ; and some ofthe most sympathetic even proposed with them to forma nucleus of a party for future resistance . But therevolut ionists admonished them that the time was notyet ripe.Ita ly was shrouded in gloom for many years andthe people were reduced by taxation to intolerabledest itut ion . From this time up to the revolution o f1830,

few events of importance occurred .

T he greater number of the Piedmontese patriotswho had joined the insurrect ion of 182 1 finally tookrefuge in Spain or fought for Greek independence.Among these last was a comrade of Charles Albert,Santorre di Santarosa , who met death in 1825 l ikea hero .

Ferdinand of Naples’ minister, Canosa, having terrori z ed the people into some thing l ike orde r by imprisonment and death , the Austr ian troops enteredNaples on the 23d of March , the leaders of the rev

olution at Avellino being executed among the first.On the 5th of May , 182 1 , the miserable Fe rdinand I .

died ; and in 1830 Francis I . , who was more wickedthan his father, also died, and was succeeded by hisson, Ferdi nand II .

Having made the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom agreat fortress

,with which to overawe all Italy, Austria

committed the most monstrous outrages against the

Ital ian people and nob il ity. Among such instances

was that of one Federigo Confaloniere, suspected of


which Francis was obliged to flee to the Austriangarrison at Mantua ; but he took care to have Menottibrought along with him as pri soner.In 183 1 Pope Gregory XVI . , who had recently beenelected, was a lso having trouble in Romagna

,on ac

count of the same revolut ion ; and the Duchess ofParma , becoming involved , was obl iged to flee . It

was in the course of this revolut ion of 1830 that the

two young Bonapartes first appeared, one o f them

dying afterwards at the massacre of Forli, and theothe r be ing the subsequent Emperor of France.

T he Pope had been forced to leave Rome, and aprovis ional government was set up everywhere ; but

the Austrians came to the aid of the Pope and broughtback Francis of Modena and the Duchess of Parma .

Francis , when restored, did not spare his former comrades . He imprisoned some

,executed others, and was

not even merci ful to Ciro Menotti, whom he had

promised to protect.Although the revolts of 1831 had been put down,

the French we re uneasy because Of the power Of theAustrians in the Papal States ; and in 1832 Louis

Phi lippe sought to check . their influence by establ ishing a military post at Ancona. T his was kept up unti l1838, when the Austrians were obliged to evacuate .

Soon after the revolts in his kingdom were quelled,Charles Felix died in 183 1 , l eaving no children ; andCharles Albert succeeded to the throne . T he latter’sconduct had made Austrians and Italians alike doubtful of him , and the former hesitated to uphold himasKing of Sardinia, while the Liberals in Italy con

s idered that he had betrayed his colleagu es who hadsustained him in 182 1 . T he people, however, hopedfrom his early course that he would take the lead in

I taly Aroused 177_

throwing off the Austrian yoke ; but this would have

brought on a war with that nation , and he knew thatwithout the aid of France , who did not support him,he was not powerful enough to meet it. T he sorrowand perplexity he felt at the situation , and the doubtas to which course to follow , may be seen by the re

mark he made on ascending the throne I standbetween the dagger of the Carbonari and the adulationof the Jesuits .”

About this t ime Charles Albert received a fanaticalanonymous epistle urging him to defy Austria andplace himsel f at the head of the nat ion as the representative of advanced ideas . T he letter told him that thiswas his opportunity to hand his name down to posterity, and impressed upon him that i f he hoped tosucceed he must consecrate himsel f to the work asto a holy miss ion . It recalled the hopes centered inhim from the position he had taken in 182 1 , and urge dthat if he disappointed the expectations of the peopleOpprobrium would succeed the j oy which had greetedhis succession ; and the writer added : You will behailed by posterity as the first among the heroes orthe last of Ital ian despots .T he author of these sentiments was Giuseppe Mazzini , a young Genoese who had been confined in Savonafor complicity with the Carbonari . On receiving themessage Charles Albert ordered the prosecut ion of

the wr iter whenever he should appea r in Piedmont.T his was just as Mazzini had expected ; for he hadwritten the letter to undeceive the Radicals

,who had

trusted in Charles Albert ’s liberal principles ; and nowhe organized a society called “ Young Italy,

” whoseobj ect was to unite the nat ion and establish republican institutions . T hough fanatical

,impractical and


impatient O f results , Mazzini was an eloquent speaker,and was the first Ital ian statesman to declare that“Italy might and must some day exist as one freenation .

”He and his party, aided by Crispi, were san

guine that, with an army of patrioti c countrymengathered from the ends of Italy, they might free the irland from the Austrian yoke .Charles Albert re fused to lead the party, and Mazz ini

,incensed at his conservative attitude, made the

mistake of tampering with the king’s soldiers , and bydrawing them away from their allegi ance threatenedto de stroy the only military support upon which Italy

could depend. In putting down these revolts,many

were executed , while others sacrificed their l ives,among these being Mazzini ’s most devoted followerand trusted friend, Joseph Ruffmi , who committedsu icide lest

,maddened by some of the tortures , he

should in a frenzy disclose his friend’s methods ofprocedure .Mazzini now established himsel f at Geneva

,and, in

January,1833 , with his army of exiles , Sought to bring

about a revolut ion in Savoy ; but the undertaking was

abortive, and he was obliged to hide for a time inLondon.

T he Moderate party had confidence that CharlesAlbert would unite Italy and make her free ; and ao

cordingly they were content to wait . T he man destinedto unite this Moderate party, and make it a neutraliz

ing force against the Liberals, was Count Camillo

Benso di Cavour, who was born in 18 10, and wasaccordingly two years younger than Mazz ini . He wasat this era writing articles for the Risorg imentoin T ur in , a j ournal in opposit ion to the Mazz ini organ,the Concordia, and all the whil e he was devoting


speech ; and it soon began to look as if the restorer ofItalian freedom walked among them in pontifical garb .

Italy went wild with enthusiasm , much to the dis

sat is faction of the radica l republ icans , who were theextremists in Rome ; and frequent disturbances followed in the streets . Cardinals were attacked and thePapal Gua rds and po l ice, not being strong enough toput down the riots, we re obl iged to accede to theirdemands .On July 6, 1847, the Pope proceeded to form aNat iona l guard throughout the Papal States , while

the Austrian government in tu rn despatched an armyand took possess ion of Ferrara in spite of the Papallegate .T he following September the people rose againstthe Bourbon Duke in Lucca ; and T uscany, whoseminister was Bettino Ricasol i , was soon roused .

Events became more cr itical when the rulers in Parmaand Modena were forced to allow Austria to garri sonthei r cities as a defense against the Liberals .T hese were a few among the series of events whichcaused Charles Albert to turn to his own people forsupport, declaring that i f the Austrians dared to gofurther

,he would fight to the death for Italy. As

early as 1845 Massimo d’

Az eglio brought before him

the hope s of Ital ian patriots and their expectationthat help would come from Piedmont. T he king thenreplied without hesitat ion “

T ell these gentlementhat it is useless to act at present , but they may besure that when oppo rtunity comes

,my li fe, the l ife of

my son , my weapons , my treasure and my army shallall be used for the Ital ian cause .

”

T he cl imax was reached when Austria taxed theSardinian kingdom in the matter of wine and salt

I taly Aroused 181

for the pu rpose o f testing her subservience , and as far

back as the t ime when the Emperor required all the

Ital ian rulers to be present in Milan to witness hiscoronation as sovereign of the Lombardo-Venet iankingdom

,Charles Albert had flatly refused to accede

to the demand .

T he first sound of the new revolutionary movementcame from Sicily , the I st of January, 1848 ; and by the

beginning of Februa ry the whole island was in a flame

of revolt. T his spread to Naples , and on the 28th ofJanuary Ferdinand II . of the T wo Sic ilies was obl igedto promise a Constitut ion . T he excitement advancedas far as Piedmont, and Cavour declared that a Con

stitution must be demanded and a statute given. T his

was granted by Charles Albert.

T hese demonstrations were re-echoed in T uscanywhen Leopold II . promised a Const itution, and on the

14th of March the Pope granted a Const itut ion inthe Papal States, a ministry having been previouslyestablished .

During the first of January the Austrians goadedthe Milanese into a riot about the tobacco tax, threescore of the inhabitants being slaughtered. T he newsof the Sicil ian revolt and of the Constitution grantedby Ferdinand II . reached the north about the sametime that the revolution of 1848 stirred the whole ofEurope in a great struggle for freedom . T he revolu

t ion in Vienna , in which the Constitution was demanded and finally granted by the Emperor, followed ;and Metternich , who had control of Ferdinand’sgove rnment, and who had once said contemptuouslythat Italy was only a geographical expression,

” wasobliged to flee to England .

On the 18th of March Milan grew wild at the news


of these successes , and the people formed itself intoa mob against the soldiery, barricading the streets ,men

,women and even children coming to the rescue

of the insurgents . On the 20th of March they at

tacked the Hungarian garrison under General Radetsky, and he, with his army of fourteen thousand men,having been driven out of the city on the 2 1st, Milanwas free . On the 22d the gate of the city wasburned, and the tricolored flag waved from the highestpoint of the Cathedral .”

When the news of what was going on had reachedVenice, on the 17th of March

,the pe0p1e broke out

into a riot, demanding that those incarcerated forpol itical offenses Should be set free ; and on March22 the whole city arose against the commandant of

the arsenal , a provisional government be ing Set upby Daniel i Manin, a Venet ian Jew. For s ix days theconfl ict raged, and General Z ichy wrote to Viennathat it would take seventy thousand troops in additionto his eighty thousand to quell the mob. T he otherprincipal Venetian cities also capitulated

,and on

the 22d of March, 1848,“ the fall of the Austrian

dominion and the re—establishment of the Venetianrepublic were proclaimed together from St. Mark’s

Square.”

On the 23d of March immediately following, thenews flashed over the country like l ightning thatMilan was free and that the Austrians had retreated ,a messenger arriving in T urin to implore CharlesAlbert to send an army to help de fend Lombardy.

Count Cavour appeared with an article in the Risorgimento, saying that the hour had arr ived on whichthe fate of the Empire and the destiny of the peoplehung l ike a thread

,and that doubt

,hes itation and

184 Italy : Her People and T heir Story

CHAPT ER XIII

T HE DEFEAT OF CHARLES ALBERT.— RESIGNS IN FAVOR OF

H I S SON.— H IS MELANCHOLY DEATH .

— VICTOR EMANUEL I1.

’

S LIBERAL REIGN .— CAREER OF CAVOUR.

LOUIS NAPOLEON RESTORES T HE POPE—MASSIMOD’AZEGLIO.

1848—1859 A.D.

HE enthusiasm attending the se l iberal movementskept Charles Albert firm in his resolution to del iver

Italy from the yoke of Austria . Volunteers from allparts of Ita ly enlisted under his banner, and in thelast part of April , 1848, at the head of seventy-fivethousand men

,he j oined the patriots at Milan . In

all , ninety thousand voluntee rs we re engaged againstthe fifty thousand veteran soldiers unde r the agedRadetsky, who , unfortunately for the volunteers , wasa host in himsel f. Accordingly the struggle draggedon month after month , unt i l finally

,when Radetsky

was heavily reinforced , Charles Albert had to ret ireat the Battle be fore Santa Lucia , the trouble beingthat he exhibited no origi nality of act ion , but l ittlediscretion , and lacked mil itary genius . But after thishe success fully besieged the fortress of Peschiera andgained a victory at the Bridge of Goito . H is troops ,however

,were scattered from the mountains north of

Verona to Mantua ; and the Pope’s army in June had

already surrendered to Radetsky. St il l Cha rles Albertresisted bravely

,with hal f of his a rmy at Custoz a for

three days,

“ four brigades holding the ir own against

S truggle for Independence Commencesfive Austr ian army co rps , notwithstanding that theywere overcome by the heat and many other demoralizing circumstances . But at last he was complete ly

defeated on the 25th of July.

In the meant ime , events in the other parts of thepeninsula had not been standing st i ll . As early as

the 29th of April Pope Pius had announced his ln

tention of withdrawing from the contest as soon as

he could recall his troops , who were already engagednear Verona under General Pepe . Ferdinand II . of

the T wo Sicilies also took this opportunity to ret ire ;and the rest of the Italians , j ealous of Charles Albert

’

sgrowing power, cooled in their enthus iasm . Venicehad formed herself into an independent republic, and

in Milan the more advanced Liberals had come out

against the king . Charles Albert thus found himselffighting alone in this gigant ic struggle ; and all thesedisagreements served to rouse discontent in the ranksof the army

,interrupting concerted action and le ssen

ing the bravery of the troops .Accordingly, after the defeat at Custoz a, on the

25th of July, when Charles Albert, instead of proteet ing his retreat

,turned toward Milan

,st ill unsuc

cessfully fight ing the enemy,his entrance as he ap

proached the city was a ve ry different affa ir from what

he had formerly imagined No huzzahs of thepeople , no acclamat ions of victory and no shouts of

triumph met his ear . Instead of these he saw onlyanger at his fa i lure . T he streets were barricaded

,

bell s tolled , and all was in the attitude of heroic de

fense .” Accordingly the ofli cers Soon decided thatit would be folly to hold out any longer, and term sof capitulation were s igned . T he pe0p1e went wildat this terrible news, some even imputing disloyalty


to Charles Albert . T hen the latter off ered to fallfighting with the Milanese i f they still wished to re

s ist. T he government thought best, however, to rati fy

the treaty of surrender, and that night, when the kingtried to address the crowd , guns were fired and therage of the exasperatedmob was so great that CharlesAlbert was obliged to withdraw secretly, s ince he hadleft the greater part of his troops outside the gates .Consequently Charles Albert went out of the city

on foot,many Lombard families accompanying him

into his own territory . T here he issued a proclama

tion, saying that he was not unaware of the aspers ionswith which some would tarnish his name , but that“God and his conscience were witnesses to the in

tegrity of his act ions , which the impa rt ial j udgmento f posterity would j usti fy.

”He said : Every pulsa

tion of my heart has been for Italian independence,but Italy has not yet shown herse lf strong enough toaccomplish this alone .”

T hus, in le ss than hal f a year’s time Italy had

learned that l iberty cannot be gained contending overbarricades , but that there must be firm and harmoniousact ion to insure freedom to a nation .

T he House of Savoy, now in dust , could no longerthink of governing Sicily. Accordingly Charles Al

bert ’s second son , the Duke O f Genoa, decl ined thecrown of the T wo Sicilies j ust proff ered him . Before

King Ferdinand was victorious,however

,nearly ten

thousand Neapo l itans were Sla in in a riot, and theseverest measures were necessary to put the revolu

tion down ; the Constitut ion in the meantime beingsacrificed . Fina lly in September , 1848, Ferdinandbombarded Messina , and , a fter the general massacreusual in the Sicil ian kingdom

,the city fell .


On the 5th of February, 1849, in a Roman Assemblythe temporal power of the Pope was oncemore deelat ed at an end . A republ ic was then set up, thechief place being occupied by Mazzini as one of the

T r iumvirate , of which the two others were Saffi and

Armillini .T he Grand Duke Of T uscany also fled to Gaeta when

the Libera ls tried to compel him to organize a Stateaccording to their ideas under Gueraz z i

,Montanell i

and Mazzini .

After Custoz a , Charles Albert declared to the British and French ministers

,when they wished to mediate

,

that “ he must either abdicate or see an Ita l ian re

public established . He said that he had thought ofgiving up his crown after the campaign of 1848 , bu t

had deferred the plan froma desire to vindicate hisown honor against the aspersions of his enemies . Buthe now saw that i f he fought he must fight alone, andhe feared this was useless .On the 20th of March

,the truce having been set

aside , war broke out anew . T he Austrians under Radetsky entered Piedmont with eighty thousand troops,and Charles Albert having given up the command

,

his army was led by Cz arnowsky,a Pole . T his

proved to be an unfortunate exchange,and as a result

the campaign , from a strategic point of View ,was a

failure . T he Piedmontese, after one or two successes ,were defeated, first at Mortara, and then in the terrible battle at Novara .

It was a dreadfu l night, that 23d o f March , whenthe Piedmontese soldiers scattered in fl ight, and

Charles Albert, ascertaining that it was impossibleto continue the struggle

,saw that all was lost . T he

terms of the surrender were hard,and Charles Albert

S truggle for Independence Commences 189

would have gladly died fighting ; but s ince he wasdenied this solace

,he determined to leave Piedmont

forever. As he departed from the scene of hiscalamitie s he said to one of his generals : T his isthe last . I have exposed the life Of my family andmysel f

,and imperiled my throne

, and I have failed.

I am now the only Obstacle to peace ; and since I cannot Sign the deathblow to Ital ian independence, I willmake mysel f a final sacr ifice to my country ; and ac

cordingly I lay down the crown and pass it over tomy son , the Duke of Savoy.

”

Not wa it ing for daylight , Charles Albert set out thatnight on his sel f-appointed exile, and a few monthsafter

,this heroic monarch died , broken-hearted, at

Oporto in Spain . H is pathetic death Silenced the discord of party stri fe ; and when his body was broughthome for burial on the Superga He ights , Italyrecognized his sterl ing virtue and made him her patronsaint . Bands of pilgr ims j ourneyed to his tomb , and

from that time all felt that to do honor to his memorythey must serve Italy and more and more thepeople pledged themselves to fidelity and to the unitywhich his son with undeviating energy soon broughtabout.Victor Emanuel II . was born at T urin in 1820, andwas brought up a rigid Catholic . He had little inclination for study and books , but later threw himselfheart and soul into the Italian struggle for independence. In the battle at the Bridge of Goi to he turnedthe tide of battle favorably by his bravery, and inevery subsequent encounter he was seen in the thickestof the fight . He had withal a soldierly bearing andwas a cheerful and j olly companion

,his qualities being

in strong contrast to the melancholy and secretive


character of his father, Charles Albert . He was verystrong physica lly and fond of the chase ; and manystories are told of his l i fe as crown prince, while hunting in the Val de Cogne . He knew everybody in theregion personally and was especially fond of the fa i rsex . Inured to hardship, he astonished his companionsby his power to endure the vicissitudes of rough camping li fe . At two thousandmeters above the sea he

would camp out in a hunter’s tent, r is ing at three

o ’clock to smoke his favorite pipe while promenadingin the icy mountain air

,all the t ime laughing at the

fears of his suite about the danger fromexposure .For the pu rpose of checking his restless hab its , a

marriage was contracted for Victor Emanuel II . withthe Archduchess Adelaide of Austria , a kind andgenial companion whom he admired and alwaystreated with confidence, though he cared nothing forsocial etiquette and posit ion , i f he found any otherlady charming. H is ministers were annoyed by hisexpensive hab its ; but he understood how to disarmcrit icism by a quick wit ; and the fact that he finallyopened the way to the independence and unity of I talywas atonement for all his sho rtcomings .Victor Emanuel II . , when he first ascended thethrone , was obl iged to make a compromise in favorof whatever terms Austr ia placed upon him

,because

the most powerful fort resses of Piedmont were in thelatter’s hands . On the 24th of March

,1849, he went

to treat in person with Radetsky, who had hoped that,s ince Victor Emanuel II . had marr ied the daughter ofArchduke Reinier,

“ the tricolored flag would disappear from the country forever.” Disappointed in this ,Radetsky obl iged the king to pay fifty million dollarsready money

,and to garrison the Sardinian frontier


St . Mark’s in Venice , where the inscription on his

tomb is now read daily by interested tourists .On the 29th of March , 1849, a revolt in Genoa wasput down by a body of troops under Alphonso laMarmora ; and on the 12th of April of the same year

Leopold went back to T uscany. But he disaff ectedthe Moderate party

,who had reinstated him , by re

turning under the protect ion Of the Austrian mil itia,himsel f clothed in an Austrian uniform . Parma andModena also replaced their dukes on the throne, andKing Ferdinand of Naples .kept his subj ects trodden

down by the help of foreign mercenaries .

Soon after the final defeat of Charles Albert it be

came evident that Austria intended to take possessionof Rome and restore the Pope ; and she graduallyadvanced her forces as far as Ancona . In the December of 1848 Louis Napoleon , having succeeded inobta ining the pres idency of the French republ ic , sawthat, though opposed to the Austr ian movement, inorder to have the support of the Church he mustreinstate the Pope at Rome . He now despatched toItaly General Oudinot, who landed at Civita Vecchiain April with twenty—eight thousand men and be

s ieged Rome . T he Romans recalled Garibaldi andplaced him in command of their forces . Ferdinando f Naples with his troops went out to help the Papalarmy, but was defeated by Garibaldi at Pa lestrina onMay 1 1 . Garibaldi, knowing that his handful of volunteers could accomplish nothing against the wholeof the French army, temporarily made a truce with

France ; but General Oudinot declared that these ne

gotiations were not valid, and for nearly four weeksGaribaldi , with his men and the extemporized Ro

man fort e fought outs ide the city. On the 13th of

Struggle for Independence Commences 193

June there was a memorable struggle , in whichmany of the Liberals fell , thus immortal iz ing theirnames

,Goffredo Mameli , the young poet, being among

the number . In the contest the French made a largebreak in the wall , so that on July 2 the gates of thecity were opened to them . At the request of Na

poleon III . all the great works of art we re spared.

Gar ibaldi wi th five thousand men escaped, as wellas Mazzini . T hey had intended to carry on a guerillawarfare in the passes of the Apennines ; but, findinghimsel f menaced by both Austr ia and France , Gariba ldi took leave of his men in the territory of the t epubl ic Of San Marino, which had received them asrefuge es .In a little street on the summit of that great rock on

which the village of San Mar ino is Situated there is atablet of which the inhabitants are j ustly proud. It

reads from the original Italian l ike thiS ' Soldiers,in this friendly refuge allmust deport themselves in amanner which sha ll deserve the consideration due tothe unfortunate . I now release you from the duty ofaccompanying me . Return to your homes ; but t emember that Ita ly must not remain in servitude anddisgrace . T his was written on the 3oth of September, 1849. On the same wall there is another framedinscript ion , with the date of 186 1 , probably a quotationfrom a letter, which says I am proud to be acit izen of this est imable republic

,

” and another written in 1864,

“I sha l l always hold in memory the

hospitality of San Mar ino in the hour of extreme danger to mysel f and Italy.

”

T hree hundred of Garibaldi ’s followers desired togo with him to Venice to help in a struggle which wasthen going on with the base Haynau and his troops.


Accordingly they procured a dozen l ittle fishingsmacks and set out ; but the beaut i fu l night provedunfortunate for the wayfarers

,so that the Austrian

vesse l s which pursued them were able to captureall but five of their boats . In one of these were Gar ibaldi and his wi fe, who had he roically Shared all hi s

trials and dangers . She was ill, and he was obligedto ca rry her in his arms to the Shore, where , havingfound a hiding place in a cornfield

,he laid her down

and sent his companions to seek shelter somewhere inthe mountain passes . Much to Garibaldi ’s delight, anold companion-in—arms , who was recuperat ing amongst

the heights , appeared and soon helped them to procurea refuge with his relat ives . Gariba ldi ’s wife, alreadydying from fatigue and exposure

,expired before they

could summon a doctor, her last words being lovingmessages to her sons . Garibaldi was obliged to leave herto be buried by the strange cottagers ; and, a fter muchsuff ering

,he reached Genoa, whence he embarked for

America . He remained here about five years .

It was not until Apr il , 1850, that Pope Pius IX . wasbrought back to Rome , where, guided by the Jesuitsand supported by the French garri son , he kept thepeople under martial law unti l the entry of the Ital iansin 1870.

T he Italian insurrection was indeed crushed,and

the hopes of the revolutionary party for a t ime vanished ; but the assertion of d

’

Az eglio,

“ the House of

Savoy cannot retreat,

” expressed the determinationof the rul ing classes . T he greatest inspi ration to al lat this crisis was the thought “ that the defenders ofRome and Venice had not been pr inces or nobles , butmen of the people , artisans and tradesmen, as well asadvocates and attorneys .” All had now come to see


what this able minister made it, since the king placedhimsel f largely under his polit ical guidance

,as a

leader every way capable of pioneering the State to anational union .

Vincenzo Gioberti , before his death , the precedingyear, had written a book which pointed out Piedmontas the substantial basis for a united Italy

,and empha

s ized the mistakes they had all made in 1848-49, in amanner which helped all Ital ian statesmen in the

future.T he Siccardi Law was soon put in force. T h is setaside the ecclesiastical courts , which for a long timehad stood in the way of Ital ian unity ; and in 1854, atthe inst igation of Rataz z i , monastic bodies were suppressed. T his movement was a great blow to two orthree thousand ecclesiastics , who had still remaineda fter the expulsion of the Jesu its in 1848.

Rataz z i , the advocate, and Cavour, the skillful debater and great statesman, at first worked apart ; butfinally they were attracted to each other by what isca lled the affinity of contraries and, together withd’

Az eglio, they played a most important part inshaping the constitutional government o f that era .

D’

Az eglio,however

,thought that Cavour was advanc

ing too rapidly in reforms when he j oined the democratic party in Piedmont, headed by Rataz z i ; and in

1853 he resigned, the premiership being taken byCavour . T he latter forwarded all progress ive movements throughout Italy, but he gave a special impulseto Piedmont, intersecting the country with railwaysand telegraph wires , and altogether greatly developingcommerce.In the face of great opposition Cavour favored thealliance with England and France, who were opposed

Struggle for Independence Commences 197

to Russ ia ; for he considered the latter the hot-bed of

despotism as well as an enemy of Italian freedom ; and,besides, he knew that by this alliance European equil ibrium would be better maintained. He also soon Sawthat otherwise , in order to Secure the co-operation of

Austria , these powers might connive at her encroachment in Italy. By a secret stipulat ion in the treaty theFrench and English were to cancel the obligationsome time in the future in the ever impending Ital ianstri fe. Cavour also perceived that by proving hersel f a valuable auxil iary in the Crimean War Piedmont would acquire the respect of the powers. Ac

cordingly, taking advantage of his alliance withEngland and France, on January 10, 1855 , fifteenthousand troops set out for the Crimea under Alphonsola Marmora , and on August 6, on the banks o f theT chernaya ,

” in a measure “ redeemed the glory oftheir flag from the shame of Novara .

”

It was at this time that, wi thin the same week,the king’s mother

,Maria T he resa , his wife , Adelaide ,

and his brother, Ferdinand, Duke of Genoa, died.

T he nation sympathized deeply with him ; but theclericals regarded it as a just visitation upon him forhaving so lately legislated against them .

In pouring out her best blood and treasure in theCrimea, Piedmont had not fought for conquest or

glory, but for the right to be heard in behalf of Italyin the great council chambers of Europe . Conse

quently in 1856 she was invited to take part in theCongress of Paris . Here Cavour, by his dignifiedbearing, great tact and keen insight, took a dist in

gu ished place in the del iberat ions of this body. He

insisted that Italy should be placed on the same footing as the other great powers ; and , seeing that Austria


intended to pers ist in her course, he arraigned her at

the bar of European opinion , and made a touching

plea in behal f of his oppressed country . He reproachedAustria with her bad faith, enumerated her usurpations

,and exposed her subterfuges . He depicted the

melancholy condition of Piedmont, ove rrun by foreignsoldie ry and subj ected to a military despot ism . He

then cited the occupation of Venice in open violationOf solemn treaties, charging Austria to deny his assertions.

Austria assumed a defiant attitude , although shewas able to make but a lame de fense . Lord Clarendon, among othe rs , was much excited, tell ing Austriathat if she refused to make pledges with reference toItaly the l iberal element in Europe would consider ita challenge which at no distant day would be taken up .

Furthermore , Gladstone reported that the tyrannyhe had observed while wait ing for an audience withKing Ferdinand II . in Naples in 185 1 had so arousedhis ire that he withdrew without seeing his Maj esty ;and on his return to England he publ ished a letter hehad written to Lord Aberdeen , saying that the Bourbonrule in the T wo Sicilies was in the present era of advancement a disgrace to humanity. T he powers, however, remonstrated with Ferdinand in vain . At this

Congress of Paris the Pontifical rule also was denounced as a scandal to Europe .About this time some of Mazzini ’s followers triedto organize conspiracies against the King of Naples ;and later Baron Francesco Bent ivegna was Shot forengaging in one of the se . T here were also many

other unsuccessful plots,which proved the impossi

bility of putting down despot ism by mobs .On the 16th of April , 1858, Cavour in the Chamber


j ured party ; and, accordingly, Cavour determined toobserve the same tact ics with regard to Austria thatBismarck, a little later, practiced in hi s dealings with

France, namely to dr ive the Austrians to an earlydecla ration Of war. Victor Emanuel

,there fore

,had

notified the Austrian Empe ror that he would make waron Austr ia unless a nat ional government we re granted

to Lombardy and Venice . Austria immediately t e

called her minister at T ur in, and, commanding theKing of Sardinia to disarm his forces, mobi l ized anarmy, which was sent to the var ious posts on the Piedmont frontier . T hereupon Cavour despatched mes

sengers to Garibaldi and warned him to be ready.

In answer to an accusation that a bil l had beenbrought forward for raising fifty million francs, forthe purpose of involving all Europe as well as Sar

dinia in war,Cavour recalled the pol icy of Victor

Emanuel s ince 1849, which was never to provokerevolut ion

,but to develop the principles on which the

inst itutions granted by Charles Albert were basedthose of l ibe rty and nationality. He then remindedthem that after the Par is Congress events had warranted the Opinion that the diffi cult ies Of the Ital ianquestion could never be settled by pacific and diplomat ic means

,and that later proceedings had just ified

this theory. T he Sardinian ministry immediately decided on war .During these perilous days the labor of Cavour washercu lean . He was Pres ident of the Council , Ministerof Marine and Minister of War. He even transferredhis bed to the War Offi ce

,protracting his labors far

into the night, hurrying from one debate to another inhis dressing-gown

,dictating dispatches

,transmitting

orders, and directing the operations in the field. He

Struggle for Independence Commencesinfused a portion of his own patriotism into the heartso f the despondent

,saying : Courage

,my fr iends, we

will give to Italy the regeneration dreamed of by

Gioberti .”

T he adroitness Of Cavour was never more apparentthan at this epoch . He temporized with Mazzini , i fit served his purpose , and proposed terms of friendlyall iance to the Bourbons . He managed his coalitionwith England and France with the greatest dexterityand extended a hand to any who were will ing to co

ope rate with him . H is power over Napoleon III .

amounted to a fascination , compell ing him to engagein a war which he neither sought nor desired .

As the republicans in Venetia had rushed to thestandard of Daniele Manin , saying : Regenerate Italyand we are wi th you ,

” so the noblest of the Ital ianyouth now flocked to the standard of Garibaldi , askingfor nothing better than to die for their country. Ac

cordingly thirty thousand volunteers awaited withswords ha l f drawn the signal to ru sh upon the Austrian legions.T he formal announcement of hostil ities followed,and Victor Emanuel roused his troops to enthusiasmby the following speech : Soldiers , we are not insens ible to the cry of suff ering that arises from somany parts o f Italy. Austria threatens to invade ourcountry, and dares to tell us, who are armed only in

our own defense , to lay down our weapons and putourselves in her power. I am certain that you are prepared to make your nation ’s wrongs your own

,and I,

who recognized your prowess when fighting under

my magnificent father, will be your leader, convincedthat on the field of honor and glory you will be ableto j ustify and augment your mil itary renown . You


may remember with pride Pastrengo, Goito, SantaLucia

,and above all Custoz a , where four brigades held

out three days against five army corps . Crown withfresh laurels that standard which rall ies from allquarters the flower of Italy to its three- fold colors

,and

points out your task— that sacred enterprise undertaken for the independence of I taly.

”


Lombardy in 1848, and was now among the first tore-ente r that country.

”

After the Battle of Magenta, Emperor FrancisJoseph , who had succeeded his brother Ferdinand I . on

his abdication in 1848, assumed command of the Austrian army. During the night Of the 23d of June theretreating Austr ians took a stand to the south of theLake of Garda

,and on the following morning they

were met by the Franco-Piedmontese army,the com

bating force covering a line o f fifteen miles . T he

Austrians held their position on a range of hills overlooked by Sol ferino and San Martino ; and it was onlyafter a terr ible day ’s battle that the French succeededin occupying Sol ferino, on the 24th of June , 1859.

San Martino was taken and lost four times before theAustrian army retreated, protected by the darknessresulting from a terrific tempest. T he combatantswe re reckoned at three hundred thousand , one hundredand Sixty thousand of whom were Austrians. T he

total loss was twenty-five thousand.

Francis Joseph now retired into Venetia behindfortresses which Austria had been years in constructing for such an emergency ; and it now seemed ce rta inthat the Austrians would be headed off and driven outof Italy . But, instead of this , the most unexpectedevents happened. On the 8th of July, 1859, Lou isNapo leon demonstrated the inefficiency of his weakcharacter by ratifying terms of peace with FrancisJoseph at Villafranca without consulting VictorEmanuel . Austria was obliged to cede only Lombardyto the west of the Mincio to the Ki ng o f Sardinia,leaving Venice out in the cold ; whereas Napo leonIII . had agreed to free Italy from the Alps to theAdriatic. According to the treaty, the Italian States

The Unification of I taly Completed 205

were to be united in a confederation , with the Popeat thei r head

,and Austria

,by keeping Venice, would

have been a member of the confederation . T he GrandDuke of T uscany and the Dukes of Modena andParma , all of whom had been obl iged to flee , were tobe restored . But none of these weak rulers ever re

turned,and the proposed confede ration was never

realized, s ince the se duchies unde r the ir provincialgove rnors , togethe r with Romagna, begged VictorEmanuel II . to annex them to his kingdom . At theloss of Romagna and the Marches

,which a l so rebelled,

the Pope sent a Bull of Excommunication against al lhis enemies.Cavour had promised Napoleon III . that he should

have Savoy for his pains ; and now the latter claimedit ; for he thought that otherwise from a military pointof vi ew Savoy was highly dangerous to him . T o re

fuse such a command from his only remaining allywould have been madness

,and Victor Emanuel II .

was obliged to consent to give up the “ cradle of hismonarchy

,

” as well as Nice . Garibaldi was so grievedthat he said “ that man Cavour hasmade me a strangerin my own house .

” Cavour replied with deep emotion : “

I know that between General Garibaldi andmysel f there exists an unfathomable abyss ; but I wasperforming the most pa inful duty of my li fe when Icounseled the king to cede Nice and Savoy to France .From my own grief I can real ize what Garibaldi hassuffered, and I can well afford to pardon him if hecannot forgive me .” T his startl ing controversy tookplace in the memorable session of the April of 1860.

It was a long time before the Ital ians forgave thegreat statesman for his share in Piedmont ’s losses,resulting from, what seemed to them , premature


promises . Outside of Italy, too , this cession of Niceand Savoy caused great discontent, since by the treaty

of Vienna these provinces , i f ever separated from

Piedmont, were to be annexed to Switzerland .

T he Peace of Villafranca was so great an affl iction

to Cavour that he grew careworn and aged greatly

in the space O f three days ; and , overcome by fat igue

and chagrin, he retired from the Cabinet to his villaat Leri, leaving Rataz z i to open a new ministry . He

,

however,saw compensation ; for Villa franca had

opened a new vista— the final subj ection of Austriaand the unity of Italy ; and, accordingly, in 1860 heresumed his place in the government .T hough Louis Napoleon did al l he was strongenough to accomplish, and probably what was the bestin the end for Italy, it has been a great question whyhe did not follow up his advantage . No doubt the firstand greatest reason was that, although he favoredItalian freedom

,he was afraid he could not control

Italian po l it ics ; and accordingly he arranged a confederacy in which France was sure to have the ascendancy. Another potent explanation for his action wasthat he feared there would be an alliance betweenAustr ia , Prussia and Great B ritain against himsel f andItaly, which would be too overpower ing to meet ; andsome have thought that besides these greater influences he dreaded the hardships and horrors of prolonged war fare .While the late startling events had been going on ,Ferdinand II . of the T wo Sicilies, who had acqu iredthe name o f Bomba,

” from his frequen t assaults uponhis people, had died on May 22

, 1859, detested byeverybody. T hroughout hi s whole reign he hadsought to keep down insurrections through fear, Shoot


Of May, 1860, in two Italian ships , the Lombardoand Pi emonte,

” Of the Rubatino Company. Garibaldi was not di sheartened at the ostensib le disapproval of the government, because he knew that success would make it all right everywhere .

On the 1 1th Of May Garibaldi stepped out upon thebeach at the town of Marsala, followed by his men ;and

,after taking possession unopposed, he unfurled

the flag of Sicil ian independence in the name of VictorEmanuel , King of Italy.

”Here they met with many

curious expe riences, one of them being at the telegraph offi ce . T he operator was j ust reporting over

the wires that two Sardinian vessel s were disembarking troops in the harbor, when one of Gar ibaldi

’s partywho was an expert in telegraphy, pushed himaside andfinished the message with : made a mistake , only twotrading vessel s . ’ T he reply to this was brie f and rathe r

profane, and then the pseudo-operator cut the wires .”

At Salemi , the next halt, Garibaldi declared himselfdictator in Victor Emanuel ’s name. T he Neapol itangovernment

,now alarmed, telegraphed to Genera l

Landi , at Palermo, to meet Garibaldi with a largeforce ; and the struggle which took place at Calatafimiwas most terrible

,though Landi was finally defeated .

After a week’s siege Garibaldi succeeded in gettingpossession of Pale rmo by strategy, his troops enteringon the 27th of May. Although they were d riven awayfrom here, they again defeated the king

’s troops atMilazzo on the 7th of June , where the mountaineersand peasantry rallied around Garibaldi dur ing the en

gagement. T h'

e conquest of Sicily was now completeexcept for Messina

,which continued to hold out even

after be ing abandoned by King Francis ; and in. fact

i t never really surrendered.

T he Unification of Italy Completed 209

T he Neapolitans we re paralyzed wi th fear and the

upper classe s left the city, all me rcant ile transactionsbeing suspended. T he terrified king promised to

ameliorate the condit ion of his people and beggedVictor Emanuel to put a stop to the movement, andthe latter was finally Obliged to send word to Garibaldi

not to cross over to Naples . Cavour , fearing that thecountry and the people were unprepared for so suddena union

,would far rather have delayed the con

solidation with the south for awhile ; but Since aff airs

were so wel l started he wrote to Garibaldi not to leavethe work uncompleted

,and at the same time he himse l f

did all in hi s power to secretly precipitate revolt inNaples . But it was in Potenza , in the Basilicata, thatthis revolution finally did its e ff ective work ; for, onthe 16th of Augu st, the citizens in this town were thefirst to raise the flag of Italian independence.T hus , when Gar ibaldi lan ded on the shores of

Naple s wi th his heroic followers , thousands were thereready to unite with them, and the insurgents in Umbriaand the Marches were “ l istening for Garibaldi ’sbugles .” On the 8th of September, 1860,

Garibaldihad overcome all difficulties and entered Naples . Allthe populace at the windows and in the stree ts welcomed him with a kind of delirium

, Shouting, weepingand embracing each other, amidst loud cries of Longlive Ita l ian Unity.

Gar ibaldi, having inaugurated a provisional government, was as inconsistent in his procedure asthe wildest of the throng. He launched one proclamation afte r another ; first expe ll ing the Jesuits and thenconfiscating the goods of the clergy, and at last abol ishing lotteries and such vices . In his visionary momentshe proposed, after the reduction of Capua and Gae ta


to march upon Rome, l iberate the Marches and Umbr ia,and in the name of Italian l ibe rty advance from victory to victory unt il he could unfurl the tricolored flagupon the summit of St . Mark’s .” A republic mighthave been established in such a way, but more likelychaos would have followed,

instead of the subsequentmagnificent consolidat ion of the State, since the re wasa lack of concord

,and an exhausted treasury crippled

the government .T here were fifty thousand troops in Naples loyalto the Bourbon dynasty

,and ready at any moment to

break through Gariba ldi ’s l ines . In this ca se a counterrevolution was sure to follow . Indeed, on the I st of

October Garibaldi was obliged to meet such an emergeney.

Had it not been for Cavour’s statesmanship at thist ime these complications might have resulted in fore ign intervention ; but, act ing under his counsel aspr ime minister, Victor Emanuel II . now took a moredecided stand , and sent word to the Pope , whose troopswere getting troublesome

,that he was abou t to rescue

the inhabitants fromthe cruelt ies Lamoriciere was thencommitt ing in Umbria and the Marches . Accordingly,on September 1 1 , without await ing a reply, the Italian soldiers crossed the frontier under Cialdini , andoccupied Pe rugia . On the 18th of September thePapal army was beaten at Castelfidardo, and Lamoriciere, having fallen back on Ancona, was obliged to

capitulate on the 26 th of September.Piedmont wished to immediately annex the Neapolitan provinces in order to show the European nat ionswhat had really been done . Garibaldi , however, influenced by the erratic counsels O f Mazzini , as well asby his own inclinations, was determined first to l iberate

2 12 I taly : H er People and T heir Story

ingly, a bill was passed to that eff ect by a unanimous

vote of the people . T he great revolutionist now volun

tari ly laid aside his dictatorial dignity and reti red to

Caprera with a dis interestedness worthy of an oldRoman ; and the sword left by the Ghibell ine leader

,

Castruccio Castracani , as a legacy to him who shouldbecome the l iberator o f his country was given overto Victor Emanuel II. T he latter was then proclaimed

King of Italy by the Grace of God ” and the will ofthe pe0p1e .When Victor Emanuel II . made his opening speechat T urin in the Febru ary of 186 1 , he expre ssed spec ial

appreciation in the name of the Ital ian people for thekindly attitude which the English had exhibited towardthem in the ir recent struggle for l iberty. Up to thistime Victor Emanuel had s imply been recognized asKing of Sardinia ; but on his b i rthday

,the 14th o f

March , 186 1 , Parl iament, by acclamation, declared himKing of Italy ; and on the 17th of the same month the

enactment was put on record as one of the statutes.

Soon afterwards this titl e was acknowledged by England, and a little later by Switzerland and the United

States .On the 2d o f November, 1860,

the fortress of Capua

had been taken ; but Gaeta , the brave defense of whosegarrison was one of the most remarkable events ofthe period , could not be seized on account of the protection of the French fleet. Napoleon III ., however,on being reminded that he was violating his neutrality,withdrew his squadron.

It was three months a fter Franci s Il.

’

s success ion tothe throne that the last insurrection in Naple s brokeout ; and , when in September o f 1860 he fled in aSpani sh ship to Gaeta , his noble wi fe, a s ister of the

The Unification of I taly Completed 2 13

late Empre ss Eliza of Austria, compelled him duringthe long siege of five months

,to take a stand. It was

she who furnished “ all the inspiration,brains, cour

age and strength of the defense against the greatlysuperior force . She appeared constantly on the battlements to cheer the garrison and direct the operations ; and, though the weak, cowardly king kept outo f Sight, she made hersel f everything that he ought

to have been to the defenders . Europe looked on

“ amazed at this modern mediaeval fighting queen,”

a bride of only two months,and hardly Older than a

gi rl in her teens. Afte r Napoleon had withdrawn hisfleet, they were finally obliged to surrender, from wanto f food and ammunition and men to fight ; but the

enemy recognized her bravery and accorded the sur

vivors all the honors of war . She was afte rwardsmade a member o f the Russian Order of St . George ,reserved for those who have displayed conspicuous

bravery in battle.Queen Maria

,ex-queen of Napl es, has continued

one of the mos t romantic figures in Europe up to thepresent time . Soon after their defeat She and FrancisII . went to Rome and held court in the Farnese Palace ,and afterwards to Pari s , the home of exiled sovereigns .After that time , unti l the death of the ex-king in 1894,

they were often in great straits in order to supply theformer ignoble ru ler with the means for riotous l iving

,

in spite of the fact that his wife had earl ier inheriteda fortune from her mother. Ex-queen Maria i s an

expert in boating ; and in 1900 rece ived a medal forher bravery in saving the l ive s of thre e perishingsailors whom she had drawn fromthe surf into herown boat j ust as they we re sinking.

Several of the States of Europe expressed their dis

2 14 Italy : H er People and T heir Story

pleasure at the invasion of the Papal States and theannexation of the southern provinces , by removingtheir ambassadors ; and many of the European powers

met at Warsaw in October of 1860 to discuss whataction should be taken against Piedmont . England ,however

,came to the rescue and took a public stand

in favor of Italy , Lord Palmerston announcing thatthe Ital ian people had the sympathy and good-will ofGreat Britain . T o further reward the French Em

peror for his part in forming the Ital ian kingdom ,

Monaco was added to a French department made ofNice

,and in return France acknowledged Victor

Emanuel as King of Italy. T hus the first part ofthe great drama

,in which Gar ibaldi had brought free

dom to Naples and Sicily, closed .

When Garibaldi retired to Caprera the lower classeswere not sat i sfied , Since they had no confidence in the

new gove rnment and were offended in many respectsby Cavour

’

s general pol icy, as well as at his lateatt itude aga inst the convents .

In the Parliament of March of the Same year the

breach between Cavour and Garibaldi was widenedwhen the question of the rank of the Garibaldian

office rs came up, and it appeared as though their services had not been appreciated . T his arou sed Garibaldi , and he rushed to T urin , declaring in the Chamberthat he would never again Shake hands with Cavour.T he king, much gri eved , soon brought about a reconciliat ion through a letter which Ga riba ldi at last consented to send Cavour on the 18th of May, 186 1 , j ustbefore Cavour’s death . In the epistle Garibaldi recogniz ed the latter’s supe rior capacity,

” and sa id that heshould gladly await Cavour

’

s summons to a field ofaction.

2 16 I taly : H er People and T heir Story

it was only lawlessness and plunder that animated thegang ; and seeing that the king

’s cause was not advanced he determined to leave them . But before hecou ld accomplish this they str ipped him of everything,and

,while he was hastening to inform Francis II.

about the character of his retainers he was shot . KingFrancis II .,

while l iving in Rome after his downfall,

was in the habit of sending arm s as well as oflicersand men to reinforce the most infamous malefactors ,such as those just spoken of, and others like Ciprian,Lagala , etc . Many thousand brigands joined these

leaders , and one band took the l ittle village o f Melfi.

T hese, with other difficulties , gradually disappearedbe fore the energy and good sense of Victor EmanuelII . and his ministers , all classe s having learned thatthey could trust the new sovereign ; and the greatprogress socia lly and politically reconciled the Neapoli

tans to the los s of what they considered their formerprivileges .T wo momentous questions still demanded solution,Rome and Venice ; for the unspeakable anguish whichthe Venetians felt in being abandoned kept them everon the alert to take advantage of any oppo rtunity togain their freedom .

T he activity of Count Cavour during the year 1860,after he again accepted the premiership

,was Simply

marvelous, and the expenditure of nervous force nodoubt hastened his death . His work throughoutevinced the kindness of his heart and exhibited hispurpose to follow r ight and just ice . He at one t imewrote to the gua rdian of the seal , T he statesman whois not ready to sacrifice even his good name for hiscountry is not worthy to govern his peers.

” Againhe writes : “ My experience of thirteen years con

T he Unification of I taly Completed 2 17

vinces me that an honest, ene rgetic ministry,which does

not fear the press , or let itsel f be influenced by extreme

parties , has much to gain from parl iamentary contestsand debates . I would not betray my trust or deny theprinciples of my li fe. I am the son of Liberty and oweher all that I am . If a veil i s to be placed over herstatue, it wil l not be I who do it.

”

No one suff ered more than Cavour from unbridledlicense of the press ; yet he persistently refused to haveit muzzled. He abolished the dut ies according to hisdoctrine of fre e trade , while at the same time as Minister of Finance this compelled himto see the revenuesdecreasing. Notwithstanding his l ibera l tendencies

,he

favored a monarchy rather than a republic for Italy

yet, though noble himself, he held birth and positionlightly.

T he Papal government was now rapidly crumblingto pieces , and all Saw that the first attack Of the Italiantroops would wind up the tempora l powe r of the Pope.While the Bourbon army was stil l in the field , Cavourspoke in the Chamber on the necessity of Rome becoming the capital of Italy. He showed that it heldwithin itself all the elements that the chief city of agreat State needed ; and in another speech made in186 1 he closed by saying that everything pointed toRome, with its renown of twenty-five centuries, as theglorious capital . With regard to the Church , he said,that l iberty, being favorable to the development ofgenuine religion

,the Church would lose nothing by

the amalgamation of Rome and Italy, and that the HolyFather would sacr ifice nothing by giving up his temporal power ; on the other hand he would gain greaterl iberty than that which he had sought from the Cathol ic powers and had never been able to gain from


concordats . He also said that all enlightened

Cathol ics must see that H is Hol iness would be ableto exerci se the duties Of his office more freely and independently

,supported by the aff ection of mill ions of

the Ital ian people than by twenty-five thousand bayonets . Near the close of his speech , the last he evermade in the Chamber

,he sa id : All the world knows

how to govern by martial law ; I would rule by means

of l ibe rty and then he gave utterance to the samewords which a short time after were on his lips in

death : “Libero Chiesa in libero Stato (A free

Church in a free State).

Cavour’

s strength had gradually failed under thelong strain incident to the changes in the government

o f I taly. On the eve of the 2d of June , the day ap~

pointed and st il l kept by the government as a nationalholiday in commemoration of the accompl ishment ofItal ian unity, Cavour returned home t ired and worn ,and was soon after taken dangerously ill . T he courtyard of his palace was continually thronged with asympathiz ing crowd unt i l the small hours of the night,while the te legraph was kept busy sending medica lbulletins all over Europe.In his del irium Cavour o ften called for his privatesecreta ry, saying to his physician : Cure me at once ;my time is precious ; for I have all Italy on my Shoulders .” He was very anxious about the southern

States, which then presented the same vexing questionsas at the present time. He said to the king, who was

almost constantly with him in his last s ickness : T he

north i s complete, there are no longer Lombards ,Piedmontese or T uscans

,we are all Italians ; but alas ,

there are stil l Neapol itans . Many of them are verycorrupt, poor fellows, but it is not their fault ; they


two great men who worked together, but such weresoon settled, Cavour acknowledging that VictorEmanuel alone could unite Italy ; while the king de

clared that the settlement of pol itical diff erences inPiedmont was due to the great statesman . Indeed, oneof Victor Emanuel ’s important se rvices to Italy washis recogn ition of Cavour

’

s wonderful genius, shownin giving him absolute freedom of action withoutreference to personal preferences .T ime has proved how high Cavour ranks in the rOle

of Europe ’s statesmen ; and the development of Ital ianhistory Since 1860 corroborates the common verdictthat no statesman ever so wisely directed the dest inies of any nation on the road to constitutional l iberty .

”

Cavour was hardly second in diplomacy to B ismarck,whom he greatly resembled ; and in strength andstraightforwardness he had no equa l . Many contemporaries wrote eulogistic notices of his characterafter his death, all agreeing that he would receiveeternal honors from posterity, and that his name wouldlive as long as the deeds of heroes are recorded inhistory ; and it i s since apparent to all that his memory

is every year becoming more and more imperishable.

Venice Given up by Austria 22 1

CHAPT ER XV

THE UN ITED KINGDOM OF ITALY.— CAPITAL REMOVED

FROM TURIN T O FLORENCE— ALLIANCE W ITH PRUSSIA.— PRUSSIAN ARMY VI CTORIOUS AT KONIGGRATZ .

AUSTRIA GIVES UP VENICE— ITALIAN ARMY DEFEATED AT CUST OZA,

ET C— END OF SEPTEMBER CON

VENT ION.—POPE YIELDS TO SUPERIOR FORCE AND

GIVES UP TEMPORAL POWER—THE PAPAL STATESAMALGAMATED.

1861—1870

T the death of Cavour the consol idation of Italyhad in reality been accomplished. Such ab le

statesmen as Ricasol i,Minghetti , Rataz z i , Farini , La

Marmora , Lanza and Crispi , and others who succeededhim, tried to carry out his policy, but none of themapproached him in coolness of j udgment and thoroughness of execut ion .

T he last struggle for Italian liberty took place inRome

,where the early history of Italy began . Ricasol i

formed a conservative government, and Rataz z i ledthe opposition, while Garibaldi swore neve r to restuntil Rome and Venice were free ; and, together withMazzini , he was ready for any act which would bringabout the desired results the most speedily. T hese twomen both wanted to take from the Pope his Spir itualas well as his temporal power

,and to confiscate all the

property of the Church . It was even suspected thatthey were Opposed to a constitutional monarchy

,and

would have been glad to dethrone Victor Emanuel and

l


establish a radical democracy. Although Rataz z i , theformer minister of Charles Albert, did not wholly

agree with Garibaldi, his party at time s all ied themselves with the Garibaldians , thinking that the Statewould grant a subsidy for a speedy expedition to gainVenetia . When , however , Rataz z i succeeded Ricasol ias minister, he changed his pol icy, in the hope that, by

taking a more conservat ive course l ike Cavour,he

would run no risk in the event of fai lure and receivethe benefits of success in case of a prosperous issue .But he was not so tactful as Cavour had been in hisdealings with Napoleon .

In 1862 Garibaldi raised a volunteer army of twentyfive hundred men . Napoleon , regarding this as a men

ace , ordered Rataz z i to stop him ; and the latter, inorder to conciliate Napoleon

,sent out against Gari

ba ldi government troops under Cia ldini , who was defeated by the volunteers at Reggio on the 28th of September, 1862 but the next day Garibaldi in turn wasbeaten at Asprimonte by General Pallavincini . Al

though there were only a few shots fired,Garibaldi

was wounded and carried to Spezia as a pr i soner.Ra taz z i was blamed for his cowardice in allowingGaribaldi to be sacrificed, and also in permitt ing theFrench garrison to stil l be kept in Rome . T he wholedisturbance unearthed so many skeletons that Rataz z i

was obliged to retire from offi ce in 1863, and Garibaldiwas allowed to go back to Caprera .

T he next year Garibaldi went to London for thepurpose of raising money to carry on the war aga instAustr ia . Although England refrained from givinghim any material support, She and all Europe werearoused in favor of Ital ian unity. T hus , though thisexpedition had seemingly ended in failure, l ike all o f


on his ascension to the throne in the January of thatyear, and in the interview he referred to the Similarityo f the early history of Piedmont and Prussia , mentioning that the Italians regarded H is Maj esty astheir friend and benefactor. Afterwards when theearly bitterness between Pru ssia and Austria beganto be apparent, Prince B ismarck broached the subj ectof an all iance to La Marmora , who was prime minister and thus on the 8th of April , 1866 , a compact wasmade between Italy and Prussia, pledging mutual support in case of war against Austr ia . T he latter, whenShe found hersel f so embroiled, offered through Franceto give Venet ia back to Italy, i f Victor Emanuel wouldannul his contract with Prussia . Having pledged himsel f, however, the latter re fused to be disloyal , and theKing of Pru ssia in turn agreed not to yield in caseo f war, until Austr ia Should give up to the Ita l iansall that part of Venet ia which did not include thecity of Venice and the quadri lateral formed of thefortresses of Verona, Vincenza, Peschiera and Mantua.On the 20th o f June , 1866, war having been de

clared against Austria, La Marmora took command of

the army and Garibaldi came over from Caprera tolead twenty battalions of volunteers . At first it wasthought that Garibaldi might be employed successfully to stir up the populace of Da lmatia, and then toforce an encounter with the Austrian troops in thedirection of Vienna ; but, fearing Gar ibaldi

’

s natural

impetuosity the king only dared to send this erraticrevolutionist into the T yrol, while General Cialdini

drew up his large force on the lower Po. T he Aus

trians, although far outnumbered, were strongly forti

fied in the quadrilate ral , under Archduke Albert. Onthe 24th the Italians and Austrians met on the heights

Venice Given up by Austria 225

of Custoz a , that battle-ground formerly SO fatal to

Charles Albert.Although La Marmora Showed great courage, hedid not possess the happiest qualities of a commanderin-chief. T here were many personal deeds of valordur ing the battle, but no unanimity of purpose wasshown ; and no doubt the moral eff ect of the formerdisastrous defeat at Custoz a in 1848 was depressingto the soldiers . In any case

,the disappointment to

the Ital ians , when the ir army was obliged to retreatinstead of achieving the glorious victory expected , wasmost overwhelming. Meanwhile Garibaldi , in theT yrol , was struggling against fearful odds and finallywas beaten and wounded at Monte Suello.In Germany, however, the Austrians had been defeated by the Prussians at Sadowa ; and on the 3d ofJuly they again made the offe r to Victor Emanuel togive up Venetia . T he king refused to agree to suchdishonorable terms, and the Italians stil l determinedto keep on fight ing. Garibaldi, in view of this , pene

trated without diffi culty as far as T rent, while Cialdinicontinued on his way to Venetia . Here, after the de

c isive battle of the 22d of July, 1866 , at KOniggratz ,an armist ice was concluded between Prussia andAustria without waiting to confer with Italy.

In the meantime the Ital ian fleet had been defeated

on the 20th by the Austrians at Lissa , an island on theAdriati c coast. T hei r admiral , Persano, was removedon account of ineffi ciency, since Italy, being proud ofher navy, had expected a great and victorious sea

fightAt the Peace of Prague , on August 23, 1866 , Austria was obliged to give up Venetia to Napoleon III. ,

who yielded it practically entire , including Venice and


the fortresses on the frontier, to Victor Emanuel , afterthe people had rat ified it by a vote . T he Iron Crownof Lombardy, also, which had been taken in 1859 andcarr ied to Vienna , now had to be given up. Austriakept for hersel f Istr ia and Aquileia and other pr imit ive cit ies of Venet ia on the Dalmatian coast . Althoughthe Italians had gained little personal glory , their longwished- for purpose was attained ; and, on the 7th of

November when Victor Emanuel entered Venice, thepopulace raised a j ubilant shout at being at last freefrom foreign servitude, and cried simultaneously :Long l ive the King"Long live the King"After seventeen years of French rule , in accordance with the September Convention , the French troopswe re withdrawn from Rome at the end of 1866, andthe Pope was le ft to his own resources . T he republicans under Mazzini wished to attack the city

,while

Rataz z i followed the same prudent course as in 1862 .

Notwithstanding the king had announced that hewould try to bring the two partie s to an agreement,Garibaldi as usual made an effort to rouse the citizens

in several districts ; and everything was ready for anupris ing. But on the 3d of September the Ital ian

gove rnment was obliged, on account of complicat ionswith Napoleon , still a defende r of the Pope , to putGaribaldi under guard in Caprera . T his arrest wasonly a farce, however, for in Spite of it the revolu

t ionists went right ahead and penetrated into the Papal

States .Louis Napoleon now considered that the SeptemberConvent ion had been violated

,and on the 16th of Octo

ber, 1867, sent a fleet from T oulon to rescue the Pope.T his was just after the time that Ga ribaldi had es

caped from Capre ra in a little fishing-boat and had


were becoming more violent eve ry day,should molest

H is Holiness, especially since Mazzini was urgingthemtomore strenuous effort. It now looked as i f

,

unless the king moved at once,the revolut ionists

would r ise en masse and engul f the whole Ital ian government and i f Rome were taken without the authority of the king, it would be the capital of the re

publ ic o i Italy, and unity as a nation would withoutdoubt be lost . Besides , the king still felt himself

bound by the September Convention ; and accordinglyhe had Mazzini seized and confined at Gaeta ; not because his untiring eff o rts were unappreciated

,but be

cause his violent methods would have overturne d themonarchy.

On the 24th of August, 1870, Prince Jerome Bonaparte, the ki ng

’s son-in-law,arrived in Florence to

push matters , agreeing to let the Roman questionalone . It was too late

,however

,for any alliance, since

it was an establ ished fact that Louis Napoleon had no

further power to prevent them from absorbing thePapal States .After the victory of Sedan a republic was procla imed in France on the 4th of September, 1870 ; andthe foreign minister of the new French republic de

elat ed the September Convent ion, which had lastedSix years , at an end. T he agitat ion in Italy was now

at a white heat,and the newspapers were full of vehe

ment articles ent itled T o Rome,” which declared thatthe Pope must now yield his temporal power . Meetings followed in all the principal cities of Italy demanding Rome as the capital of Italy, and the seizure

of the Papal States . T he excitement was so greatthat no ministry

,and not even the monarchy itself,

cou ld resist the wil l o f the people.

Venice Given up by Austria 229

Victor Emanuel , who saw that immediate actionmust be taken , wrote a letter to Pius IX .

, begging himat last to give up the tempora l power . T he Pontiff

repl ied to this that he would do so only under compulsion. T he court at Florence also sent a respectfulletter to the Holy Father, saying that the Ital ian government regarded his spiritual office with the profoundest reverence ; but that the exigencies of the timesdemanded the downfall of his temporal power, and thati t was hoped he would yield amicably.

T he Pope flatly refused in a concise letter read before a formal audience given his ambassador in Florence on the loth of September, 1870, and the nextday, Sunday, September 1 1 , the troops of VictorEmanuel entered the States Of the Church at threediff erent points . Genera l Cadorna , setting out from

T urin for Rome soon after stationed his forces at

Porta Pia on the lgth. A second division proceededfrom Orvieto to Civita Vecchia under General Bixio,while a third unde r General Angioletti invaded thePapal States by the way of Frosinone and Anagni.T he Pope commanded, that Since any resistance wouldbe useless

,the re should be only a suffi cient exhibition

of force to prove to the world that his realms weretaken away from him by military violence .At ha lf-past eight on the 2oth of September, 1870,a breach was made in the Porta Pia, at half-past nineit was leveled to the ground , and at ten O

’clock a partof General Cadorna’s army entered Rome and took possession . T he temporal power of the Pope had lastedeleven centuries, ever Since Pepin the Short cede d theterritory to Pope Stephen in return for the coronationof himse l f and his sons .

Although Pius IX. had long seen that his temporal


power hung by a thread, he was obliged, in order toreta in his prestige with the Cathol ic Church, to seemto yield only under the greatest pressure , and to ap

pear in the rOle of a martyr shut up as a prisoner in

his own domain . T he Popes have done this ever s ince ,but there never has been the sl ightest effort on the part

of their people to change the environment or separatethem from the dign ified and luxurious l i fe they have

there enjoyed without intermission .

T he Palace of the Caesars , the Forum , and the mostof the ruined monuments of Ancient Rome, besidesthe business and residence port ions , are on the le ftbank of the T ibe r ; while on the r ight i s the LeonineCity

,

” consisting of the Vatican and St . Peter’s andnearly all the artistic wea lth which the Cathol ic

Church has accumulated during a period o f a thousand years ,

” and especially dur ing the re ign o f Pope

Leo X . , the illustrious pontiff from whom the LeonineCity is named .

In order that these environs of the Pope might notbe disturbed, a regiment of Ital ian troops were sta

tioned in the gardens of the Vatican to protect H isHol iness . On the 2d of October, 1870,

by a unanimousvote

,the people of Rome cast O ff all temporal alle

giance to the Pope , and became the subj ects of theKing of united Italy . T he clerica l party would not

vote, declaring that they were overawed by sixtythousand bayonets and that any appeal to the ballotbox was a farce .”

In the September previous to this the Italian government issued a manifesto declaring that, although thepol itical authority of the Pope had been superseded, thepontiff should stil l be free to exerci se his ecclesiasticalfunct ion s. It was also agreed that besides supporting


king. Bills were passed conce rning Church property,religious corporations , convents, monasteries and their

superiors , so as to avoid interference with the Pope’s

peculiar position . T he heads Of these institu tions were

given an annuity from the State , and while the incumbents l ived, apartments were left them in the houseswhere they had so long resided.

T he new parliament in Florence opened on the sthof December, 1870. In his speech at this time VictorEmanuel said : When Rome i s finally made thecapital of Italy I shall have fulfilled my promiseto my people and shall have finished the enterprisewhich was begun by my sainted and heroic fathertwenty-three years ago. My heart thri lls both as amonarch and a son as I salute al l the representat ivesof our united country for the first t ime and say : ‘

Italyi s free and united ; it only remains for us to make hergreat

,happy and prosperous.

’


After Victor Emanuel II . took up his residence in theQu irina l Palace , desirous of making any sacrifice cons istent with the welfare of united Italy, he sent a message to Pope Pius IX . , in which he expressed his personal devotion to the Church and congratulated H isHoliness on having held his sacred offi ce more thantwenty-five years , a longe r space of time than legendary history assigns to St . Pete r. It was a great disappo intment that Pius IX . denied an audience to theambassador and disdained other s imilar attentionsfrom the Quirinal .From the 2d of July

,187 1 , the time when the king

established his court at Rome , the Chamber of Deputies occupied the Monte C itorio Pa lace

,while the

Senate took possession of the Madama Palace .From that era there has been no considerable interrupt ion in the public peace ; but although the relationof Italy with foreign affairs involves many problemswhich require great tact, it has been in the control ofdomestic concerns that the most nume rous difficultieshave been found . T he lack of previous training incarrying on a constitutional government

,the apathy

and ignorance of the people , so long held down bytyranny, and the subtle influence of the Papal partyover the people , has made the business of governingunited Italy very perplexing.

Victor Emanuel continued to carry on the aff airs ofState with great fa irness to the end . He adopted whatever measures his ministers , selected by a vote of Parliament, approved ; and his great success was due tohis wisdom and firmness in adhering to constitutionalforms . In opening the first Parl iament he saidT he work to which we have consecrated our l ive s i s

completed . Italy i s restored a fter long and sel f-sacri

Victor Emanuel II . and King Humbert 235

ficing effort. Everything Speaks to us , not only of pastgreatness, but of future duties, and in the joy o f theoccasion we must not forget our respons ibil it ies . Regenerated by l iberty, may we seek in freedom andorder the secret of strength , and endeavor to reconcileChurch and State .”

T he government now took up the management ofpublic instruction , and , though they confined themselvesto teaching e thics in the elementary schools

,in 1874

there was unrestricted rel igious freedom given to thosepr ivate and eccles iastical schools and. to the monasticinstitutions which until recently had been the onlysource of learning open to the Ital ian youth . Yet theChurch was not satisfied with the provision .

In order to Show their gratitude, aff ection and ap

preciation, the people celebrated on March 23, 1874,

the twenty-fifth anniversary of Victor Emanuel’saccession to the throne , his sovereignty at that timehaving extended over little more than Sardinia and

Piedmont.T he next year Garibald i S wise and patrioti c coursein Parl iament surprised all who had feared that therewould be some disturbance ; and the government wasmore firmly established by his attitude .

T he attention of the State was drawn more andmore to the destitution in Sicily and the south , wherethe industries had been neglected and the people wereindiff erent to progress . T he railroad system throughout Italy was but poorly Sustained, Piedmont, Liguria, Lombard and T uscany, all together in 1859 supporting not much more than a thousand miles of railroad. In the Neapolitan provinces , with an area equalto the combined terr itory just mentioned, there wereonly one hundred and fourteen miles ; while in Sicily,

236 I taly: Her People and T heir Story

which is as large as Piedmont, no railway existed at

all, and the ordinary roads , and postal and telegraphicservice were correspondingly inferior.But as early as the end of 1871 there had been nearly

six thousand additional miles of rai lway laid, of themost difficult construction . T hat year the Mont Cenistunnel between France and Italy was completed ; anda fter that the two largest tunnels in Europe were built,the Arlberg, in the Austrian T yrol , and the St. Gotthard, the latter having been the principal route from

Switzerland to Italy.

Meanwhile the great men whose wisdom had accomplished the consolidation of I taly had passed away oneafter the other. Mazzini had l ingered at death’s doorfor a long time in exile at Lugano in Switzerland, butat last he was permitted to die in Pisa, a beloved city,in the midst of loving companionship . He was followed to the grave by a vast throng, who felt that hehad ennobled their patriotism . H is remains were placedin the Campo Santo in Genoa. T he London T imes hadwarned the Emperor of France, at the time of thes iege of Rome, that he had to contend not with abroken-hearted exile, but, with the Mazz ini in everyIta l ian breast . T he truth o f this admonition now became apparent ; for, although he had been hunted l ikea felon while l iving,

” the Ita l ian Assembly and Officersof rank, and the whole European press, now delightedto crown his grave with laurel . T he fact that Mazz ini

preferred cross roads to beaten tracks in reaching thegoal was soon forgott en by posterity in the ir gratitudefor the part he took in bringing about the l iberation of

Italy.Mazzini had among his friends the great and

learned ; but during the many years of his exile, spent


Marmora breathed his last at Florence, the city of hisadoption ; and on the 9th Victor Emanuel also passedaway. T he king was a loyal Catholic sti l l

,and when

he saw his end approaching he desired to receive theHoly Communion ; but his private chaplain did notdare to administer the sacrament to an ex commun icated person unt i l he had permission from the Pope .H is Holiness , notwithstanding that he had so fre

quently stigmatiz ed Victor Emanuel as a sacr i legioususurper

,

” sent a message, regrett ing that his own feeb lecondition did not permit him to leave the Vatican to

solemnize in person the “ last communion ” at theQui rinal .During his reign of eight years Victor Emanuel

II . had preserved,amidst the splendor of his fashion

able court, the s imple tastes of his early l i fe . H is werethe ways of the people , and nothing gave him suchgenuine pleasure as a ssociating with them on equalte rms . It was no uncommon experience for him tos i t down to the villagers ’ humble table and eat breadand cheese at thei r family board .

A story is told of a countryman who, when unsuc

cessfully trying to li ft his wagon out of the mire, sawa strong, burly stranger passing and said : I Shouldthink you might lend a hand in li fting this wagon .

Certainly,” the stranger replied, as he put his shoulder

to the wheel , and li fted the vehicle onto level ground.

At this moment a traveler coming along made ahumble obeisance , and the rustic , greatly humil iated,d iscovered that his friend in need had been the King of

I taly.Victor Emanuel first won the confidence of the

Italian nation when , soon after Charle s Albert’s abdi

cation,he induced Radetsky to allow the Sardinian


Constitution to stand, at a time when every othervestige o f representative government in Italy was

swept away.

T he king’s death excited the most pro found demonstrations of respect and sorrow throughout thecountry . We read to-day ove r his tomb in the Pan

theon , where he was then buried, the familiar wordsT o the Father of H is Country.

”

Every year up to the time of K ing Humbert’s death,at a very late hour on the 9th of January , a sombermourning cortege passed through the streets o f Romefrom the Quirina l to the Pantheon, where the retinueremained for several hours in private devotion before

Victor Emanuel ’s tomb, the whole day being given upto general memorial services . Dur ing the entire weekthousands of the populace and many strangers visitedthis renowned structure, which was shrouded in gloom .

T he large opening in the dome was enveloped inmourning draperies and the black hangings about thetomb of him who devoted his l i fe to the inte rests ofI taly were decked with stars o f pearl ; while on theother hand Rapha el ’s tomb and themonuments of otherfamous Ital ians were concealed .

T he death of the king was fol lowed a few weeks

later, on the 7th of February, 1878, by that of PopePius IX . T he latter had also done much for the consolidation of Italy at the dawn of Ital ian independence,by supporting the national movement in the beginning

of his reign ; while his subsequent withdrawal madethe accomplishment of the task easier ; Since othe rwisehampering concessions with reference to his temporal

sovereign ity, as well as with respect to the rights ofthe Church , would have been obligatory.

Pope Pius IX .

’

S body lay in state three days in the


Church o f St. Peter’s , on a rich cover Of crimson , sur

rounded by twelve golden candlesticks . It was soplaced that all the faith ful could gather around andkiss his feet.In the conclave which was held immediately after,s ixty-one cardinals were present ; and a fter a sessiono f thirty- s ix hours inside closed doors, Cardinal Gioachino Pecci , then s ixty-eight years Of age , was chosen .

He took the title of Leo XIII . , the coronation ceremonies taking place on March 3 , 1878 .

Leo XIII. for a time followed closely in the footsteps of Pius IX . , though he Showed himself a muchbroader ecclesiastic. For many years he supported theillusion that temporal power would be restored

, Sincehe held that otherwise spiritual authority could not befreely maintained . At the same time he kept beforethe Catholic world the idea that the Pope was be ingkept a pri soner in the Vatican . Notwithstanding this ,the Pope ’s subj ects in Italy from the first appearedsatisfied with the new régime.T he Prince of Piedmont, the eldest son of VictorEmanuel, succeeded to the throne as Humbert I . In

the course of his memorable speech on the occasion o fhis taking the oath , he said T he only solace left to

u s i s to prove worthy of the departed, I , by followingin his footsteps and you by imitating his civic vi rtues ;and I Shall not forget the precepts my father wasalways anxious to impress upon me, that a religiousobservance of Ita ly ’s l iberal institutions i s the surestsafeguard against al l peril . T hat has been the strengtho f my House ; that Shall be my strength also .

”

With Victor Emanuel the violent per iod of the rapidunificat ion of Italy closed , that era of tragic con

spiracies, bo ld diplomacy, and bloody batt les with

Victor Emanuel I I . and King Humbert 241

Humbert there Opened an epoch of pacific labor whichwas to make the Ital ian union more ri ch , prosperousand compact ; and the people more capable of understanding their country’s needs .King Humbert was born the 14th of March

,1844 ,

his mother being Mary Adelaide o f Ranieri . H is

various praenomina were suffi cient to stifle the growtho f any smal l boy, though they seem not to have aff ectedhim physically or mora lly. T hey were HumbertRanieri Charles Emanuel John Maria FerdinandEugene . He remained under the care of his mother

unti l She died , when he was ten years old, and then hewas put under Giuseppe Rossi for mil itary training.

AS is usual in the case of royalty , he held a milita ry

rank from childhood, but it was only after rigoroustraining that he gained his offi cer’s epaulets . At fourteen, in March , 1848, he became captain Of the 3dRegiment of Infantry. In 1859 he was with his fatherat the Battle of Magenta, where he was received withsuch enthusiasm that he gained the name of the gallant Humbert ” ; and great honors were conferred

upon him by his countrymen in memory of his noblebravery. Humbert and Amadeus both took part inthe Austrian struggle of 1866 at Custoz a, the former

receiving a medal for valor.Humbert was at first engaged to an Austrianduchess, and bridal presents had been exchanged,when the charming young lady was burned to death byher si lken scarf igniting from a lighted cigarette .

Soon after thi s he was affianced, by his father, to hiscousin , Margherita, daughter of the Duke o f Genoa .She is said to have been the most beaut i ful woman in

Italy and was afterwards called the Pearl of Savoy.

”

T he wedding festivities were celebrated at T urin on


the 22d of April , 1868 , and were very brilliant. VictorEmanuel

, Pr ince of Naples, now king, was born thenext year.Victor Emanuel II . had been careless in his expenses, and at the time of his death the leader of theLeft proposed that his debts should be canceled bythe nat ion ; but Humbert replied resolutely : I mustpay all my father’s obligations .” He was able toaccomplish this only through great economy in hisroyal household .

T he exhib ition of feel ing throughout the peninsulaat the time of King Humbert’s accession to the throneproved that, though slowly, the critical point had beenreached and safely passed, and tha t the enduring

strength of the government was cemented by the aff ection of the pe0p1e .At first the Ita l ian government Simply sought tokeep up friendly relations with all nations ; but at theBerl in Congress in 1878 it became apparent that it wasfor I taly ’s interest to no longer abstain from formalall iances with other powers . France had never forgiven Italy for what she considered the latter’s ingratitude in refusing support in the war against Germany ; and the breach widened when France took possess ion of T unis , a country Ita ly wished to appro

priate . Out of this Mediterranean question otherj ealousies between the two nations arose , and Italymade advances to Germany, who drew Austria intothe League ; and thus in 1882 the T riple All iance wasformed , which was renewed in 1887, and again in 1891

and 1896 , and sti ll exists.On June 2

,1882 ,

the great Ital ian patriot and hero,Giuseppe Gar ibaldi, died at the age of seventy-Six ,

in his island home of Caprera . He i s remembered by

244 I taly: Her People and T heir Story

Pope Leo XIII . , although a shrewd diplomat, was adevout Christian , the interests of the Church throughout the world having been his most absorbing care .H is greatest des ire was to take part in the memorableceremonies of the Jubilee Year of 1900 ; and in Spiteof his advanced age he ofli c iated at the opening of theHoly Door in St . Pe ter’s . T his SO fulfilled all thehopes he had entertained of seeing the end of the nine

teenth century that it was feared he would not longsurvive the beginning of the twent ieth . He showedgreat fort itude, however , throughout that year, continning to appear occasionally in the great Basil ica and

to give private audiences. He took part in the ceremonies connected with the shutt ing of the great JubileeDoor in St . Peter ’s on the 24th of December, 1900,

there being above the l intel a tablet stating this fact .Near it another records that Leo XII . opened and Shutthe Jubilee Door of 1825 while a third tablet chronicles

the fact that Pius VI . officiated at a s imilar service in1775In the presence of a large audience Leo XIII.blessed all the material to be used in the Closing ofthe door, and then threw upon the threshold three tinygolden shovelfuls of mortar. Bricks , engraved with

the Pontifical coat-of-arms and other inscriptions,were placed over a diminut ive urn fil led with commemorative medals of gold, bronze and s ilver ; and themechanical labor followed.

T he years o f Pope Leo ’s l i fe were much prolongedby the watchfulness of his attendants and physicians,who were ever at hand on important occasions .During the summer months he spent his days amongthe walks and drives of the Vatican gardens , which are

a world in themselves, breakfasting and dining under


the trees , where he received visits from his cardinalsand ministers .On March 3 , 1903, the twenty-fifth anniversary o f

Pope Leo’s coronation was celebrated with elaboratedisplay. T he il luminations which the Pope observedfrom his study windows embraced the T rastevere andthe Leonine City, and , beyond , the View extended a distance of seven miles . As the Pope withdrew fromgazing on the scene he remarked : T his wil l indeedbe a pleasant thing to dream of.”

Although the Pope endured the fatigue and excitement of the day remarkably well , and notwith

standing it was almost five months before the end came,

from this time his strength decl ined percept ibly. Aftera noble fight, Leo XIII . passed away on the 2oth ofJuly, 1903 , at the age of ninety-three . T he efforts of

his physicians had been unwearying to keep the s ilkencord, so fine ly spun out, stil l unbroken ; and theirendeavors were supplemented by his own almost superhuman tenacity

,which kept him al ive nearly three

weeks after his case , a complication of pleuro-pneumonia, was pronounced hopeless . H is death wasgrand , calm and serene ; and according to the testimonyof his doctors few persons , even in youth , have shownsuch heroic courage in dying. It was the birthday feteof Queen Margherita ; but out of respect to His Holiness no salutes were fired ; and when the news was circulated that the end had come , flags and ensign s of re

joicing were withdrawn from the streets and houses allover Rome. T he Pope had always had confidence inthe loyalty of the royal family, as was indicated by aremark made on hearing that the king had deferred hisvisit to Paris : We know how chivalrous the Houseo f Savoy has ever been to its opponents .”


Bes ide the same bed over which all the world hadwatched without regard to creed or pol it ics

,the car

dinals soon assembled to take offi cial notice of the

Pope’s decease . Cardinal Oreglia, in his capacity ofDean of the Sacred College , approached the dead Pontiff and struck his forehead with a Silver hammer, calling him by name ; and then after a short Si lence heannounced in the Assembly that the Pope was reallydead. After this came the ceremony of taking off theFisherman’s Ring,

” this amulet having belonged , itis said, to St. Peter ; and it i s cla imed that i t has beenworn by every Pope since that time .Cablegrams and dispatches were immediately issued,noti fying the sovereigns and rulers of foreign nationsand be fore nightfall many messages of condolencewere received . At eight o ’clock commenced the ceaseless clanging of bells from the four hundred churchesof Rome , which was kept up for an hour, until thewhole city seemed a tremendous reverberation . T hiswas repeated at the same time in the evening until theday of the funeral .Pope Leo XIII. was a state sman and a scholar aswell as an ecclesiastic, the very simplicity of his character constitut ing his greatness . It is said of him thatno man held so much influence for good in the last twodecades of the nineteenth century , during which timehis hand was visible in almost every public event ofimportance transpiring in the world . He was an indefatigable worker to the last, his days being spent inunremitting labor and toil ; and, even after his i llnessset in , it grieved himwhen he saw his capaci ty forwork diminishing.

Pius IX ., with his rule of thirty-two years, was theonly prelate who ever reigne d longer than Leo XIII . ,


been the only cardinal who did not complain of hisquarters .After Clement IV. died the choice of hi s successorwas debated two years and a half be fore any decisionwas reached, while Leo KIII.

’

S election was aecom

plished in thirty- six hours .

Each morning the people outside the Vatican lookedfor the coil o f smoke coming from a certain chimneyin the Sistine Chapel

,which denoted that the ballots

were be ing burned because no decis ion had yet beenreached . La fumata

, la fumata,” was often re

peated amongst the crowd of sixty thousand somet imesassembled in the square of St. Peter

’s,this undulat ing

mass o f humanity be ing kept in order by squads o f

soldiers . On the fourth day Rampol la threw his influence, which up to this t ime was the greatest, in favorof Sarto, and on the 4th of August, 1903 , the latterwas elected as Pius X . T his Giuseppi Sarto was acardinal , Sixty-e ight years old

, and the Patriarch o f

Venice. At first he refused the honor, but when hisduty was made clear he fin ally accepted, not withoutreluctance ; and on the following Sunday , August 8 ,

he was crowned in St . Peter’s , the first Pope to re

ceive the diadem there s ince Gregory XVI . in 183 1 .

Pius IX . in 1846 and Leo XIII . in 1878 had assumedthe offi ce in the Sistine Chapel . T he length O f thePope ’s Pontificate is reckoned from his coronation

day.

Pius X . i s a man from the common pe0p1e and muchadmired in Venice . He i s endowed wi th handsomefeatures and a magnificent clear voice with a musicalVenetian accent. When chosen , although alreadysomewhat advanced in years

,he walked with the firm

ness of a man in his pr ime . He was first a parish


priest, then’

a “canon of the Cathedral of T reviso andafterward Bishop of Mantua. He was made a cardinalin 1893 by Leo XI II . , and when he was elected

Patriarch o f Venice, the highest office in the Catholichierarchy, conside rable opposition was raised by the

Italian government this being a part o f the king’spatrimony. But, be ing a friend of King Humbert , thediffi culty was easily solved and he held the Off ice ten

years, beloved by the Catholics and esteemed by theState.T he scene in the Vatican square when his electionwas announced was of unparalleled interest. T he peo

ple we re wait ing as usual for the smoke , when CardinalMacchi

,in offi cial robes , appeared at a window and a

wild shout went up . Just as he was reading in cleartones the preamb le, and the name of Sarto was pronounced, terrific applause of acclamation arose fromthe great crowd . In vain the cardinal waved his handfor Silence ; the pent-up feel ings of those who hadwatched day after day for the “ fumata ” could not besuppressed.

In the conclave Sarto was the only candidate strongenough to secure the two-thirds vote required by theChurch. It was believed by most that he would follow out the broad lines o f Leo KIII.

’

S policy, s ince hehad the same reputation for wisdom and culture, andhis piety i s said to possess a strong element of commonsense. H is personal ity and dignity are in keeping with

the tradit ions O f the ablest pont iff s who have ruled theVatican , though he is not aman of strong physique.It i s said that Leo XIII . himsel f predicted at onetime that Sarto would be his successor. Many thoughtthat his election would finally result in the union of

Church and State in Italy, and that before many


decade s the Popes would cease to imprison themselvesin the Vat ican ; but, although Soc ial isti c inclinationsbetoken necessity of cO-operat ive action betweenChurch and State , and the Pope

’s tendencies favorsuch a policy

,the calm of Ital ian pol itics has not

yet been disturbed by the excitement inevitable in thesettlement of a question which would not only derangethe foundat ion o f government , but tend to counteractembryonic educational influences.


him with great cordiality. T he Duke lost severalfingers in the North from exposure to the cold

,

and was thus prevented from going with the

party who left their Sledges on the 28th of Feb

ruary in order to explore nearer the Pole. T heyfound the temperature 50

°

below zero, Fahrenheit, andthree out of the six died fromexposure , the rest beingobl iged to turn back on the l 1 th O f March. T he Dukeo f Abruzzi was born in T urin in 1873 .

T he annual allowance of the King o f Italy is fi fteenmillion liras . He acts through his ministers

,nomi

nated by himself, and taken from the national rept esentation . T hese protect him in all his State negotiations , their signature being necessary to gi ve validityto the royal decree . With the help of the Chamberthe king makes the laws ; he has the right to declarewar, and to br ing about peace , and has the chief command on land and sea . He coins money, stamped withhis own image, confers orders and has the right topardon . He also calls the National Assembly togetherand dissolves i t.

T he coat-of-arms of Italy is a white cross on a redfield, with a gold regal crown on a Shield surroundedby a cha in of the Annunciata Order ; and the tricoloredflag of the nation consists of vert ica l stripe s of red,green and white, the green next to the flagstaff .

Negotiat ions with foreign States , commercial andmarine , are decided by the National Assembly, which

consists of Senate and Chamber of Deput ies , thesetogether

,as complements of each other, forming the

Parl iament. T he Senate , which i s the Upper House,has no fixed number, but never exceeds four hundred ,the members being appo inted for l i fe by the king.

T he pr inces when twenty—one years old are admitted

Improvements and Modern Insti tu tions 253

to the body, and when twenty-five have a voice in

itsmeasures ; the president of the body i s ele cted forthe sess ion .

Any Italian more than forty years of age out of

twenty-one categor ies i s eligible to the Senate ; as forinstance those of the learned class , or artists, of theclass of high offi cials or of a category who pay the


three hundred liras in taxes to the State . Only a certain number, however, can be represented from each ofthe classes , the king

’s appointments being subj ect toan examinat ion by a committee chosen for that pur

pose .In case o f high treason , and also in the impeachment

of ministers , the Senate is the highest court of j ustice .In contrast to the changing House of Deputies

,the

Senate represents the Conservat ive party, although allitsmembers do not necessarily belong to the latter.T he Senate is not equal in importance to theChamber of Deput ies , without whose consent the lawsare not valid . T he Deputies are chosen eve ry fiveyears by a College of Electors behind closed doors ;and its members are selected in a rat io of one to everyfifty

- seven thousand inhabitants ,making, in all, aboutfive hundred . T hese must be thirty years old or up

ward,and of irreproachab le character. Only forty of

one profession can have a seat, but in every categorythe choice is made by lot , and those who are not chosenstand open to the next elect ion . Nominally the kingopens the Chamber and dissolves it

,but in reality the

members themselves perform this function . T he

choice of Deput ie s gi ves rise to much party feeling through complaints and frequent accusations ofbribe ry.

When there i s a vote passed by the Chamber of

Deput ies unfavorable to the cabinet,the latter is forced

to retire, and the king places the responsib i l ity ofselecting a new cabinet on the leader of the opposit ion .

T he president of the Chamber is chosen from theministers .T here are eleven offi cers in the cabinet : the Secretary of the Interior

, of Foreign Affairs , of Justice, of


black uniform with stripes o f red surmounted by longblack cloaks, and cocked hats . T he Carb inieri , to prevent surprise from the crimina l s they are tracking

,

always go in pairs, so that there i s a popular j oke tha tthey are born tw ins . T he fact that these are chosenfrom the Pi edmontese and T uscans and from Lombardy, because more rel iable, disaff ects the southernItalians and arouses envy and hatred towards them .

T his corps is selected from those who in the i r threeyears ’ Obligatory service have never incurred theslightest punishment ; and the king

’s guard is made

up of picked men from this force . T he Carbinieri

have done much to suppress brigandage in the countrydistr icts .

T he need o f the Carbinieri i s stil l apparent from thefact that in the October of 1901 several o f thesebrigands were captured

,among them one Musolino,

a noted and dangerous desperado, who had escapedfrom prison where he was serving a sentence for murder. He had lived three years as an outlaw , kill ingin the meantime several Carbinieri and many citizens .Napoleon in one of his speeches said : T he Ital iannation to exist must have a strong navy to enforceauthority over her i slands and to protect her coast.”

In accordance with this idea Italy has made her navalpower equal to that of her army

,and in doing so fulfil ls

the traditions of the early Marine republics , the gigantic warships of which were the first examples of finenaval armament. T he shipyards in Venice , Spezia,T aranto

,Naples and Castellamare still send forth many

fine ships .All persons who after the age of ten have been onthe sea as fishermen , or six years as stokers on steamships, or have worked in shipyards, are subj ect to

Improvements and Modern Ins titu tions 257

naval duty . T hey enter the navy at eighteen years of

age , and are divided into three classes . First, thosewho j oin the navy for l i fe and have four years of

act ive service , eight years in the Reserve, and six yearsin the Naval Reserve, as i t i s ca lled. Second, thosewho have twelve years in the Reserve and Six years inthe Naval Reserve ; and th ird, the exempts—mostlyamong the wealthy— those who enter immediately onthe so-called Naval Reserve and have no active service .T he Ofli cers, who are educated at Leghorn in a naval

school l ike the German one at Kiel , are given a generalmilitary and naval education

,besides being taught the

minutiae of a seafaring life. T he shipbuilding engineers take the usual engineering course, and then aretaught the art of Shipbu ilding in Special schools.In Piedmont the natura l warl ike inclination has beenfostered for three hundred years by clever mil ita rytra ining. Accordingly the nobil ity of the land forseveral generations have accustomed themselves to

military service,so that there is scarcely an aristo

cratic family who cannot boast of brave offi cers. T he

father of Massimo d ’

Az eglio begged his wife in hiswill not to put on mourning in case he should fallfighting, but to appear in holiday attire ; Since sheought to consider it the greatest happiness that hehad been permitted to give his l i fe for his king andcountry. If one of his l ittle sons complained o fsuff ering, d

’

Az eglio would say to him , half j okingWhen a Piedmontese loses both his arms and legs,and has two wounds in his body, then , and not untilthen , ought he to complain of not feel ing well .

”

Italy is a central ized gove rnment in the sense thatits departments are dependent upon the chief government. T here has been an effort made to decentral ize


the provinces,namely, to give them each a legislature

of their own like our separate States , though st i ll dependent upon the administration at Rome . It has beenthought that the length and narrowness of the peninsula renders a centralized government diffi cult, andprevents that brotherly feel ing which engenders adesire for consol idation . But the greate r facilit ies ofthe present era for communication by means of thenumerous railroads and te legraphs have brought all

countries, and especial ly the divis ions of countries, together

,and made al l sections cosmopolitan .

Italy i s now divided into Sixteen departments, s ixtynine provinces

, one hundred and ninety-seven circles,eighty-seven distri cts , one thousand eight hundred subdistricts

,and eight thousand two hundred and sixty-one

townships . When the census was taken in 188 1 therewas a population of twenty-eight million

,four hun

dred and fifty-nine thousand , six hundred and twentye ight inhab itants ; but in 1900, in spite of

emigrat ion , it had increased to nearly thirty-two anda hal f mill ion and, with colonies , aboutthirty-five million . T he extent of the kingdom isnow one hundred and ten thousand , six hundred andseventy-five square miles , making a population of two

hundred and eighty-nine persons to a square mile .T he population of Rome doubled between 187 1 and188 1 so that at the latter date it was hal f a million ,and In 1899 it was five hundred and twelve thousand,four hundred and twenty-five . As the population in

creased dwel ling houses had to be provided, often atthe sacrifice of old class ical buildings , and for some

years Rome has had the air of a modern city, whichtowers above the monuments of ancient Rome and nowextends a long distance beyond the Leonine City.


poor people spend from fourteen to sixteen hours inthe workshop

,some of the men receiving only twelve

cents a day, the women earning but four cents ; and inthe south

,in some provinces of Sicily and Calabria

,

they have only the waste o f what they help to manufacture

,re ceiving no money at all . T his manner of

l i fe has not only dwarfed them mentally,but stunted

their physical growth , so that the standard of heightfor military service has been lowered . In spite of alltheir poverty , the Ital ians are taxed more heavily thanany other nation— it i s said to the extent o f an average

of fifteen dollars per head . T here is a tax on everything, both the necessities and the luxuries , on railroadtickets , and on the smallest exchange ; and indeed there

i s no package too minute for a government stamp tobe affixed ; so that i t i s thought that it averages fourper cent . on the annual income of each individual .

T he result o f all this i s the enormous emigration ,which amounts to over three hundred thousand a year.T his happens in spite of the fact that nearly fourteenmillion acres of uncult ivated land remain unredeemedand that the government has to import eighty milliondollars ’ worth of cereals annually. Although the in

crease in emigration of able-bodied men from Italyseems enormous

,it must not be forgotten that , in spite

of this,the census Shows an increase of about forty

four per cent. since 1860 ; and that, i f emigration

Should stop,the population , which is now about thirty

two million,would in the course o f a century amount

to nearly a hundred million . Accordingly it i s estimated that i f Italy became as densely populated pro

portionately as the province o f Genoa, where there aretwice as many people to the square mile as elsewhere inItaly, at the end of this century she could not contain

Improvements and Modern Institutions 261

much more than half her population, Since fifty-five

mill ion is about the maximum capacity o f the wholepeninsula ; hence the necessity of the balance of thehundred million emigrating in the course of the nexthundred years.During the past two decades five million have gone

out of Italy into other countries . One hundred thousand annual ly enter Switzerland, and nearly as manymore go to the United States ; though those who go toSwitzerland often return to Italy later, with a littlestock of money saved, and settle down in diminutivehomes . T here i s an immense Ital ian colony in NewYork City as well as in other large American towns ;while in London the Ital ian quarter amounts to a verycons iderable city in itsel f. Many emigrate to SouthAmerica , where they do not meet with the same difficulties in language that they do in the United States .T he day is not far off when the Argentine Republic,ten times as large as Italy itsel f, will be at least hal finhabited by Ital ians, and a new Italy will be formedacross the sea .

T he lack of propo rtion in the management of internal affairs in Italy is apparent when we realize that ithas cost one hundred and five mill ion dollars to support the African colony of Erythrea in the last s ixteenyears, and the expenses of the army are over seventy

one mill ion, while only e ight hundred thousand areused up in rede eming uncultivated land.

T he most disheartening aspect of the s ituation inItaly is the increase of crime. In that region of the

Papal States where St. Francis of Ass is i taught thepure gospel of peace and charity, sanctifying many

who listened to his doctrines , four thousand murdersare committed annually.

” But these discouraging feat


ures are the result of centuries of decay, pol iticalslavery, and moral degradation . It i s wel l to add thatin the north there i s more of fraud, j ust because thereis less violence ; for while inherited criminality of asemi-barbarous civil ization acts rudely and frankly

,

attacking with the knife , modern delinquency worksin the dark, and assumes a mask of hypocrisy.

T he modern facilities of communication have increased the traffi c and have brought into Italy twentyfive thousand to seventy-five thousand tourists annually in the last twenty-five years .In the time of Ferdinand of Naples , called Bomba,the percentage of ill iteracy in some of the provincesof Sicily was ninety—nine , and the average throughoutthe peninsula was then seventy-five per cent. ; and evenin T uscany public instruction did not exist. As issometimes the case at present , at that time publicletter writers , often people Of culture who had seen

better days , were stationed in conspicuous places inorder to help the ignorant.Since the consolidation of Italy things have im

proved greatly ; for where Sixty-four per cent. of the

entire peninsula could not read or write in 1871 , atpresent there are scarcely forty per cent. At that era

there were only about thirty thousand public primaryschools in al l Italy, costing s ix million dollars , withabout a mill ion pupils

,while now there are Sixty thou

sand schools , and over three mill ion pupils , which costannually fifteen million dollars . Every par ish has a

gi rls ’ and boys ’ school with a teacher for every seventypupil s ; and larger cities have higher elementa ryschools . Unfortunately, however, education is obligatory only from Six to nine years of age , and theyfail to enforce even this law on account of insufficient

264 I taly : Her People and T he ir S tory

But the greatest foe of Italy is of her own household

,the household of faith , the clericals being he r

bitterest enemies ; for, Since they have condescended totake part in the government they are ready to supportany antagonist

,whether republ ic or empire . T hese

political diff erences , however, have at present littleeff ect on public tranquill ity . T hus

,

“ the year that

Pius IX . was at the Vatican , Victor Emanuel II . atthe Qu irinal

,and Gar ibaldi at the Villa Casalini, these

three men, who had fought each other for thirty years,l ived in the same city without being in confl ict. Whenthe philosopher

,Giovanni Bovio

,came to Rome and

Saw the situation , he exclaimed : T his i s not a town,it i s the world"When afte r the taking of Rome the clerica l s , a largepart of the conservative element, were forbidden bythe Pope to vote , the Right

” ceased to exist, and thetraditional party line s of Right and Le ft graduallydisappeared ; but afterwards these two parties againtook Shape, and in addit ion to these the Social ists became an important factor with which to reckon

,they

having increased from seventy-six thousand in 1895to one hundred and thirty-five thousand in 1897.

Military Ex pansion and Li terature 265

CHAPT ER XVIII

ABYSSINIAN WAR.—CRISPI .

—AUTHORS.

1885—1899 A. D.

N 1880 the Florio-Rubatino Navigation Companyceded to the Italian government their coaling stationon the Bay o f Assab on the Red Sea , which She had

held Since 1870 and in 1885 the Ital ians were attackedwith the widespread fever for colonization . T he

English were at thi s time engaged in trying to absorbthe Soudan ; and now Italy, desir ing to gain their favor,sent troops to take possess ion of Massowah . WhenKhartoum fell the Ital ians made friendly overtures toJohn , the Negus of Abyssinia , hOping thus to attractthe inland trade to their new port of Massowah. Butthe Negus was not so easily pacified, and , having sent alarge force to Dogali, he surrounded a division of fivehundred Ital ians and massacred them . T his was thesignal for war ; and in January, 1888 , the Negus en e

camped before the Italian fortifications at Massowah ,but later thought it best to retire with his large forcewithout engaging in battle.Menelik, the mighty King of Shoa, revolted from

his allegiance to the Negus John, who was mortal lywounded in the fray. T his Menelik, though stil l halfcivilized, is a much be tter sovereign than his predecessors

’

, such as the usurper T heodore, who tracedtheir pedigree from the ancient line as far back asSolomon and the Queen of Sheba .

When in 1887, Crispi became prime minister after


the death of Depretis, the Ital ian government, wishingstill further to enlarge its terri tory in Africa , occupiedKeran and Asmara , and united with Menelik, whopledged himsel f to support them . Cri spi called hisnew colony in Africa Erythrea, from the Greek nameof the Red Sea ; and a large protectorate was established over a considerable extent of the Somal i peninsula. Cr ispi, who thought that by these conquests agreat colonial career was about to Open for Italy, hasalways been censured as the one to blame for the cont inuance o f the war.In his early histo ry Crispi was known as an adventurons , amb it ious , and daring spirit, he having beenan animating force throughout the struggle

,which led

to the overthrow of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

After be ing repeatedly banished on account of hi s

fanati cal tendencie s, he wandered in the disgu ise of atourist, and somet imes as a j ournalist, between London ,Pari s and Italy, the agent of the United Italian party,organizing committees to incite revolut ion . He Sidedwith Mazzini against the Piedmont alliance with LouisNapoleon

,it be ing understood that i f at any time Vic

tor Emanuel himse l f became the head of an invadingarmy

,they would unite with him . Having returned to

Naples , Crispi was allowed to land on the 3oth of

August ; and on the 13th of May, 1860, he set out with“T he T housand, under the command of Garibaldi .

H is acts we re so decided that he is said to have beenthe best abused man in Italy next to Mazzini . He,

with Garibaldi and Mazzini, adhered to the originalprogramme of freeing Venice and Naple s and crowning Victor Emanuel King of Rome.Although the Cavour party wished to keep Crispi

out of Parl iament, he was not only elected, but, being


of Menelik is sa id to be so heavy that he cannot Speakwithout its being l i fted.

In 1893 Menel ik got control of all Abyssinia andrefused to recognize the Ital ian protectorate . T akingcourage from this

,the Dervishes

,followers of Osman

D igrna , annoyed by the Ita l ian advance, stormed thefort of Agordat, but were defeated with great loss , andin 1894 General Baratieri succeeded in expell ing theremnant of thei r band from Kassala, thus securing thesa fety of the Ital ian colony on that side . Italy andAbyssinia now came to open war fare

,and though Bara

t ier i succeeded in occupying the whole T igris by defeating Ras Mangascia, the viceroy, at Coati t andSenefeh,

in 1895 , the latter secured the a id of Menelik,and with a large force carr ied all Abyssinia with himin tu rn , advancing aga inst Baratieri . T he latter was

badly equipped and poorly supported at home by theministry

,who knew nothing about the s ituat ion in

the East,and did not look out that the resources were

suffi cient to prosecute the war.In December, 1895, Major T osell i was killed atArnba Alagi , while resisting a large force of theenemy. Major Gall iano , at Makaleh, held out againstthe Abyssinians for a month ; then, not being relieved

and seeing his men dying for want of water, he decided to blow up the fort ; but Menelik, either out of

respect for their bravery, or because he had himsel fbeen meeting with great losses , allowed them to march

out and j oin Baratieri at Adigrat.'After reinforcements arrived, General Baratieri , notwithstanding his hardships, kept on the defensive ,but on the I st of March he led fourteen thousandmen into act ion against the Abyssinians at the fatefulBattle of Adowah. On account of the lack of good

Military Ex pansion and Literature 269

generalship in advancing,the Italians were routed

by the enemy, who greatly outnumbered them . Someseven thousand, a third of their army, was Slain, andsixty or seventy guns taken . Among the dead therewere severa l prominent generals

,including General

Arimondi and General Ga ll iano,who had j ust been

promoted, for his distinguished services at Makaleh,

to the posit ion of Lieutenant-Colonel . General Dabormida was mortally wounded. Another third of theforces were taken pr isoners under General Albertone,who bore the brunt of the battle ; but the latter wasmissing after the fight was ove r. General Baratieri ,who was wounded

,was tried by court-martial for

inefl‘iciency, and, though acquitted, was superseded

by General Baldissera, who arrived five days after

and proceeded to reorganize the army in Erythrea.

Menelik was too cautious to advance further.T he people were greatly aroused at the news from

Adowah, and accused the government of mismanagement, censur ing Cri spi for forcing upon their countrysuch vast and unprofitable proj ects without suffi cientresources to back them .

In the meantime the troops left in Adigrat,together

with two other garrisons , several thousand pri sonersin all

,were wa it ing for peace in order to gain their

release. On the 5th o f March Crispi again gave uphis ministry to Rudini

,who rej ected the former ’s ex

pansion pol icy. At the same time he rel inquishedItaly’s newly acqu ired possessions , restrict ing theirboundaries to the Mareb-Belesae-Muna l ine, thus virtually reta ining only their colony of Erythrea . Finallythe prisoners were l iberated at the cost to Italy of alarge ransom ; and later the popular feel ing was thatthe English

,in order to keep the advantage in their


Soudanese expedition , had unduly influenced Italy togive up Kassa la , which the latter had just ceded tothem . T hen the people real ized that it would be along t ime before Italy would be able to draw fromher foot the thorn of Abyssinia ” ; and when threeyears later, in 1899, it was thought that the Englishwere trying to spur them on to regain what they hadlost at Adowah, they said that they would not again“ pull the chestnuts out o f the fire for England ” asthey had done at Kassala .Some time before this, frauds had been detected inthe management of several of the State banks , andinvestigations brought to l ight the fact that there wasdishonesty in various departments of the government. Cavallotti

,one of the wr iters of the day, and

the leader of the Left,” was at the head o f this move

ment, and was a great instrument in again bringing

about the fal l of Crispi .Just at this t ime , in 1898 , the effect of the SpanishAmerican War raised the price of bread and precipi

tated notorious riots in Milan , which were only suppressed by the impr isonment of many. In this revoltthe nation thought they recognized an attempt to un

dermine the great structure of Italian unity. But the

Spirits of the people were raised and the populace op

portunely diverted by a Splendid exposit ion at T urin,where for the next six months thousands of people hadoccas ion to not ice the great progress which Italy hadmade during hal f a century.

T he king, by the advice of his minister, Pellou , hadissued a decree against the Social ists, which had reference to the r iots of 1899 in Milan . T his was theoccasion of great disturbances in the Chamber, so that

Parl iament was dissolved and Zanardelli, pres ident


T he writers of the seventeenth century had crossedthe Alps and, after communicating with the French,

German and English, had translated their books andcaught their spirit ; and from this contagion the firstI talian novel was de rived, T he Last Letters of JacobOrtis,

” by Ugo Foscolo, which introduced the l iterature of the nineteenth century. T he sentiment of theItal ians in the Napoleonic age are brought out in thel i fe and works of Foscolo and Monti . T he othe rwriters of that pe riod were but satell ites who reflectedbut l ittle of the white heat of the times.Foscolo, though stil l young, having been born in

1778, was no longer full of the i l lusion and hope fulness o f youth when he wrote the novel in which hedepicts his gri ef at the course of Napoleon in sell ingthe liberty of Venice, a city with a record of thirteencenturies of splendid independence . In 1827, severalyears before his death , he published his subl ime poem ,

T he Sepolcri ,” written in 1806, reminding the Ital

ians that only national traditions and the memory Ofthe illustrious dead would be able to bring about theregeneration of Italy.

Vincenzo Monti, though an olderman, born in 1754and dying in 1828, also lived in the Napoleonic era .

He had more confidence in Napo leon than in the Italian nation ; and, though he had once clung to thePapacy and railed at revolt, he now devoted his li fe torevolution , even endorsing the tragic putt ing away o fLouis XVI . He clothed his language in classical andmythological garb, in relat ing contemporaneous events,and gained the name of poet of the Italian government.When Napoleon was Emperor o f France and Kingof Italy Monti made him the sole subj ect of his songs

and poems, celebrat ing his victories in the Il Bardo

Military Ex pansion and Literature 273

and other books,at the same time that Foscolo , anxious

and aloof, was at Brescia writ ing his patriotic

Sepolcri .”

T he work, however, which endeared Monti to poste ri ty and showed his perfection in writing verse, wasthe translation of the I l iad .

”

When Napoleon had renounced his dominion inItaly, and Austria had regained her hold in that peninsula , a mental activity took the place of the din of

arms , and the writers of the day again returned to letters and study.While Foscolo was far away in exile doing his bestwork, and Monti had grown old and ill in the advancing century, two other sovereigns in letters grew tomaturity—Alexander Manzoni and Giacomo Leopardi .T hese two men , who came from diff erent parts of Italyand possessed diverse characteri st ics and educat ion,gave to the Ital ian language some immortal works .Following the example of Sir Walter Scott, Manzoniintroduced the historical novel , representing Lombardand Spanish society dur ing the first hal f of the sevente enth century , and the character and lives of obscuremen in the most unhappy epoch o f I tal ian history.

Although Manz oni’

s theor ies leaned toward romantic ism

,in his novels he brought real people before his

readers,adapting them to the era in which they lived ;

and real ism soon after characterized Italian literature.A Christ ian spirit of charity and j ustice ran throughall Manz oni

’

s writings and developed in him the lovefor his country. I Promessi Sposi and Il CinqueMaggio were his most dist inguished works

,the for

mer being without doubt the greatest Ita l ian romanceas well as the most beauti ful example of popular mod


ern Italian prose , both on account of its Simplicity andart istic dignity.

Leopardi in his youth knew only fleeting dreams .He was a pessimist, his mind being devoid of fa ithboth in mankind and in Divine Providence , and thusby an unhappy and reserved li fe he became entirelyengrossed in l iterary pursuits . While he studied theantique he divined, almost without contact with theoutside world , the rich and fervid motives of modernthought ; and by his own impuls ive romant ic doctr inesand aspirat ions he chose subj ects which we re not suchas literary traditions teach, but what rea l l i fe bringsbefore one . Indeed , he presents us with li fe itself,which makes us all brothers in suff ering .

“In his

prose works he reasons out by philosophy themecessary unhappiness of l iving be ings ; in his poetry hepours out the cry of his divine heart, which wept forthe misery of his country and the sorrows Of theworld.

” Day by day he wrote the story of his indefatigable spir it in a great and immortal volume calledhis Pensieri .”

Now no other voice but that o f the l iterary worldremained to the martyred nation . T he passion for thel iberty of their country had once more arisen in theeager hearts of the youths , after the first terror atItaly’s fall into Slavery under Napoleon had passedaway ; and among the conspirators there arose the newpatr iotic l iterature which was to educate the Ital iansto revolution as a nat ion . T he condemned and exiles

of 182 1 gave to poetry a new fire of youth , which brokeforth in the songs of Giovanni Berchet, Gabriel Rosettiand others . In 1832 Silvio Pell ico returned from ten

years’ confinement in the prisons of Spielberg, and

publ ished Le Mie Prigioni,” a story of his sufferings,


of the century was Giuseppe Mazzini , whose poeticprose

,vibrat ing with enthusiasm , ga ined innumerable

co-operators of that revolution , brought about in thename of God and the people, for the unity of Italy andrepublican l iberty.

Nicolo T ommaseo, a companion of Daniele Maninin the insurrect ion of Venice, and an exile with him,produced many strong polit ical

,criti cal

,and philologi

cal treatises . Balbo, the minister of Victor EmanuelI . , w rote Speranza di I ta l ia (Concerning the HOpes

o f Ita ly). Manno,Capponi

,Cantu

,Corrente , Amari

T roya and Vanucci also wrote historical works and

patriotic art icles .In Florence , that quiet center of study, all lovers ofl iterature gathered togethe r in the club founded byGian Pietro Viesseux . T hence came the “Antologiaand “Archivio Storico Ital iano (T he H istoricalArchives of Italy), the publ icat ion of which worksopened up the modern revival o f historical study.

Vincenzo Giobert i in the revolutionary period hadtaken the part of the exist ing confederation and rec

ommended concil iat ion at the same time that Mazz iniwas in stigat ing plots and uprisings . T he real ity ,

how

ever,proved far different from Giobert i

’

s ideals, andin 185 1 , recognizing his mistake, he publ icly took hisstand in favor of the revolut ion ; accordingly in hisRinnovamento Civile d ’

Italia (T he Civil Revival ofItaly), he urged a change from ideal aspirations tothe study of the real and more imminent practical matters . T his work turned the tide in pol it ics towards

the dest iny of the nation under Victor Emanuel andCount Cavour.One by one the old patrioti c writers died or werealmost forgotten, and between 1849 and 1859 only

Military Ex pans ion and Literature 277

Giovanni Prat i was noticeable . He brought forth

poems and splendid lyrics, which , though gems , werelost in the midst o f digress ions and strange bursts o fallegory .

Ippol ito Nievo portrayed in a novel the l ife of

the Italians during the transition period ; but thepromises of his genius were cu t off through his accidental death by drowning while he was returning

,in

March , 186 1 , from taking part in Gar ibaldi’s revolu

tion in Sicily, j ust at the time that the Kingdom ofItaly was being procla imed at T urin .

T he j oyful cl imax was not the signal,as might be

expected, for a bold revival of l iterature ; minds werecon fused by the upheaval and there was less and lessof that intel lectual concord which had governed thewriters of the first hal f of the century ; and besides,I taly as a nation had to revive educat ionally in orderto come up to modern standards . T hen art took di

vided paths , either turning with Prati to the imitationof the classic style , or, with Aleardo Aleardi, givingvent to romantic sent iment.At the proclamat ion of the Ital ian kingdom roman

ticismreally passed away,as in the first hal f of the

century classicism had given place to the romantic ,Goldoni being the first of the former and Giordanithe last ; and be fore the third quarte r of a centurydawned the real istic school had superseded the ro

mant ic.When Carducci

,the leader of the l iterary world be

tween 1870 and 1890, came upon the scene , he p roclaimed himsel f opposed to romant ici sm . H is stylewas influenced by Alfieri and Foscolo , while his poems,though resembling the foreign poetic masters , arebo ldly original and cl ing to class ic requ irements .


Although it was many years be fore his genius wasrecognized, he dimmed the fame of all his contemporaries and formed a school of l iving poets who haveadopted the severe purity of Greek and Roman metricforms . He also w rites valuable prose in the form ofpo l iti cal and histori cal treatises .Rapisardi stands alone as an exception to this ruleand resembles Prat i and Arthur Graf, the latter a German romanticist who stands by himself in writing theIta l ian language .

Villar i , the l iving historian , has wri tten fascinatinglyof Florentine l i fe as it existed in the time of Savonarola and Machiavelli , presenting those past scenes withthe same vividness as experiences of to-day. He alsotreats current topics ably.

Besides several distinguished poetesses,there are

many other l iving write rs of some note , but we will

only mention two : d’Annunz io and d’Amicis, whosefame is world-wide.Gabriele d’Annunz iO, the poet and novel ist, born in

1862 , is equally cr iticised and landed. He i s an imaginativo poet and expresses himsel f like a writer of thes ixteenth century, portraying the li fe of the fashionable set . Although he egoistically works into hisnovels the turbidne ss of his soul , his fervid temperament and weal th of imagery develop something of theoriginal ity found in Goethe and later in T h eophileGautier. Among his latest works are several dramaswhich have attracted much attention, one of his latestbeing the tragedy

,Francesca da Rimini .” D

’

An

nunz io’

s poetry is greatly admired in Italy, and greatthings are expected of him ; but he is immoral in his

tendencies .Edmondo d’Amicis, on the other hand, exerts a de


and Popes overwhehned himwith decorations and

honors .Sculpture continued to prosper under Alberto Thor

waldsen, a Dane who came to Rome in 1796, whentwenty-six years Old, and remained there more thanforty years . He sustained fanat ically the systems ofWinckelmann and Davi d, using Greek art for hismodel. T heophile Gautier wrote of him : He hasstudi ed the antique thoroughly and has copied naturewith seeing eyes , s impli fying or eradicat ing usele ssdeta il s and leading up to a beauti ful ideal .”

T he greatest sculptor of the last half of the nineteenth century is Vincenzo Vela

, who was born in theSwiss Canton of T icino and now l ives in T urin . AS

a real ist he has exercised,for hal f a century

, the

greatest influence on Ital ian sculptu re .

Romant ici smhas found its warme st adherents in thesculptors Lorenzo Bartol ini and Marochetti , and inthe painter Hayez , while the art ist Morell i , who dieda year or two ago in Naples, was a more decided ro

manticist than any of them . T he brothers Domenicoand Girolamo Induno we re realists in the highest sense ,making genre pictures the ir specialty.

In music Italy no doubt has led the world, Rossini ,Bell ini

,Donizetti and Verdi being four names , any

one of which would have brought glory to a nation .

Rossini effected a revolution in music l ike that o fGoldoni in the drama , and one can only appreciate whatforce

,what vari ety of expression and what fullness

and richness of form he added to it by compar ing himwith his predecessors . H is fame can be j udged by

these l ines from the pen of an illustrious French critic :

After the death of Napo leon there was another manwho was the subj ect of conversation each day from


can say what ocean of touching harmony he scatteredthrough the world" Others aroused men by barbar icviolence. He did i t by a beneficent force .

Giuseppe Verdi died on the 27th of January,1901 ,

at Milan, where fifty-eight years be fore they had ap

plauded the great maste r in a fever of delight. He

i s resting, rest ing after the weari some labor of the day.

Just as eighteen years before , Richard Wagner diedin Venice, in one of those palaces on the Grand Canalwhose magic architecture is Silent music, this other

giant of the Opera also closed his days full o f inspiration and glo ry, under the Ita l ian sky which Alfredde Musset once celebrated as the home of harmony.

Aside from the works of these great masters onlytwo of the nineteenth century are l ikely to survive : the

Giaconda” o f Ponchiell i , and the Mefistofele of

Arrigo Boito, an intimate friend of Verdi . Amongthe new l ights which are now appearing are Mascagn i ,Puccini , and Leoncavallo .

During the course of the century there graduallydeveloped among the I talians an incl inat ion for thedrama ; and , besides the tragedies produced by the earlywriters of the century, comedies appeared , numerousas the leaves in the spring which disappear with thefirst autumn wind .

” On the stage we have few prosedramas of world-wide fame ,

though La Cava l ler iaRust icana by Verga , from which Mascagni took hisplot, and the tragedies of Gabri ele d

’

Annunz io havecreated lively discussion in Europe and America.

T hese have done much to enrich the prose of the stage,which had greatly dete r iorated since the time of itsfounder Goldoni .T here are scores o f scientists wo rthy to bemen

tioned, among them many astronomers . Piazzi

Military Ex pansion and Li terature 283

brought to l ight the l ittle planets between Mars andJupiter

,and Schiaperelli disclosed the canals on Mars,

while Dunbowski discovered the duplex and multiplexstars . Italy, even though not first among Europeannations, was eve r second to none in astronomy ; butthe money to keep up with the progressive inventionsin astronomical instruments was lacking unti l after .

Italy’s consolidation .

For twenty years a new force has been upsetting theold régime ; and electr icity, through the genius of greatscientists , particularly Ita l ians , has accomplished marvels . Italy has great hydraulic forces , and electricitywill therefore be of inca lculable benefit to her, and,together with the discove ry of aluminum , will largelycompensate for her lack of iron and coal , and make upfor her losses incurred by the newer methods used inmanu facture in other parts of the world .

Wireless telegraphy, as invented and perfected byMarconi in 1902

—one hundred and three years after

Volta’s birth, Sixty-three after the invent ion of telegraphy

,and twenty-six after the invention of the tele

phone—soon became one of the acknowledged featuresof science . Marconi announced as early as the night ofthe 16th of December, 1901 , that he had received inNewfoundland signals sent directly from England, a

distance of over two thousands miles .On January 19, 1903 , Marconi transmitted fromCape Cod Station to Cornwall , England, a messagefrom T heodore Roosevelt, President of the United

States , to King Edward VII . of England . H is system

was then in use, however, on only seventy ships andtwenty land station's ; while in 1905 all the principalocean steamers are able to send and receive messagesdaily and hourly. T his makes it possible to issue on


shipboard little newspapers recording the latest newsfrom all parts of the world .

Marconi was born in Bologna in 1874, and the re foregained fame before he was thirty years old. He has

shown great intelligence in his work, and his triumphsare well deserved, although there is much stil l to discove r before the system will compete with the telegraph . Since his father is an Italian, and his motheris a native of the Bri tish Isles, i t i s no wonder that hehas all the ardor of the South and the cool-headedperseverance of the Anglo-Saxon race .

T he re has been great excitement in Italy concerningthe alleged discoverie s in respect to malaria, scientificexperiments made between Battipaglia and Paestumseeming to prove that this disease is inoculated bysmall insects of the same genus as the mosquito. Othervaluable developments are expected.

Italy at the Present Day 285

CHAPT ER XIX

ASSASSINATION OF KING HUMBERT.— VI CTOR EMANUEL

I I I .—DEATH OF CRISPI .— BIRTH OF PRINCESS IOLANDE.-BIRTH OF HUMBERT, PRINCE OF PIEDMONT.

1900—1905 A. D.

N July 29, 1900, the Ital ian people were paralyz ed by the news of the assassination of King

Humbert I . With his aide-de-camp,the king was re

turning from a distr ibution of prizes at Monza , nearMilan, and was j ust entering his carriage when threerevolver sho ts hit him in quick succession

,one piercing

his heart. He had only t ime to exclaim : It i s nothing (aniente), and , s inking immediately into unconsciousness, he expired a short time after. T he assassinwas Angelo Bresci , a native Of Prato in T uscany, butlately from the noted society of anarchists in Paterson, New Jersey, whose motto is : Death to Rulers .

”

T he queen , Marghe rita , was out dr iving ; and whenon her return to the Palace the truth that the kingcould not survive was made known to her, she burstinto tears

,exclaiming : I t i s the greatest crime of the

century. Humbert was good and faithful to his people ,and bore no ill-will to anyone .”

T he Prince and Princess of Naples were absent ona pleasure excursion in the Levant, and were on thehigh seas on board their yacht when the news reachedthem . Crispi met the sorrowful young couple with

dispatches on thei r arrival at Naples in the middle of


the night ; and the following day they proceeded asrapidly as possible to Milan and thence to Monza

,

where they were welcomed by the sorrowing QueenMargherita .

King Humbert was fifty-Six years Old when he died.

H is naturally austere, though ki nd face, aged beforeits time, was beaming with pride and happiness thatvery day as he watched the gay contests of strength.

A first attack aiming to take the king’s li fe was madeat Naples by Passanante , a wretched scullery boy, whenthe king and queen were making their presentationjourney through Italy be fore they came to the throne .In 1897 the scoundrel Ascianto, an Ital ian anarchist,made a second attempt while the king was driving oneday on the Corso . Humbert was a fatal ist

,however,

and took no precaution to protect his l i fe, and was evenlenient towards the anarchists . H is fri ends urged himto guard himsel f from madmen and fanatics, but afterthe attempt in Rome he said : T hese are the uncertainties of my position ;

” and he Often remarked atMonza that he was destined to die l ike Alexander ofRussia . He was much annoyed when the Carbinieri

tried to protect him , and scorned a coat of mail overthe breast he had exposed so bravely against the bulletsof the Austrians at Custoz a .

T he principal organ Of the Italian press wrote thefollowing day : It i s a solace in such painful circumstances to note the love of the whole pe0p1e for theirmartyred sovereign

,and to see the government pass

from the dead ruler’s hand with such tranquill ity. Eventhose cities which seemed the least devoted to the Statehave manifested in a touching manner sorrow at thegreat loss. T his terrible blow unites more closely allhearts. It centers all Italians around the White Cross

288 I taly : Her People and T he ir S tory

wards he Showed so much sympathy with his pe0p1ein all their misfortunes that he was known by them asthe "comforting king. A few years after his ac

cession there was an earthquake at Ischia,where he

consoled the suff erers ; and when an epidemic o fcholera broke out in 1884, there were gaye ties going onat Pordenone in which Humbert was about to j oin .

Without hesitation, howeve r, he said to his minister,Depretis : T hey are making merry at Pordenone

,at

Naples they are dying . I am going to Naples .” T hesewords (a Pordenone s i fa festa, a Napoli simuo, Iovado a Napoli) were written as an inscription on a

monument erected in Naples in commemoration o fthis visit. At the time of this cholera panic, when allwere paralyzed with fear and a lmost everybody deserted the affl icted, the king

’s sympathetic conduct inmingl ing so freely with and giving consolation to the

patients,especial ly at Busca and Naples, attracted the

notice of the world .

A picture by Nero Carnivale, representing KingHumbert be fore the Hospice O f Conocchi grasping thehand of a poor cholera- stricken lad, was presented toQueen Margheri ta in 1888 by the city of Naples .

T he king was accustomed to speak of his people ashis Ital ian family, and, in order to se rve them better hesacrificed his love for his country home at Monza andhis rural sports, and carried on the duties of his ofli ce

with punctil ious exactness at Rome from Novemberunti l late spring. T he queen proved hersel f his noblecompanion in all the ir duties , being found whereverany good deed could be accomplished, and leading in

all charitable and educational movements .King Humbert tried to rel ieve the bad condit ions of

the laboring class by putting into execution the pro

I taly at the Present Day 289

gressive movements of the day. After the swamps inthe delta of the T iber were drained , and some of theworkmen desired -to occupy this drier locality asfarmers

,the king did all he could to help along the

agricu ltural colony composing it,interesting himself

in all the circumstances of their lives . T hese goodRomagnola people, who have prospered ever Since,speak of him with great pride and gratitude as theirfriend and benefactor. Notwithstanding all his eff orts

as a representative of a government which for yearshad kept the masses in poverty and ignorance

,King

Humbert was Often blamed for the insuffi cient progress with regard to the low social condit ions ; fors ince the landed property is stil l in the hands of thefew, to the detriment of the many, the l ittle plot ofground which every poor man covets for a home is noto ften a real ity in Italy ; and this i s the reason of thegreat emigrat ion annually . In addition to these grievances, the taxes to support royalty and to sustain thearmy are SO exorb itant, that the question o f amelioration dr ives the patriots to despair and the fanatics tosocialism and anarchy.

After the funeral Obsequies the queen retired toT urin . It was finally decided

,howeve r , by the court ,

that since in history Margherita will always be the firstQueen of Italy, in the hearts of the Italians the motherof the people

,and in the thoughts of the Vatican a

symbol of piety and rel igion , i t was best for her to takeup her residence in Rome.After much discussion the Palace Piombino , a splendid modern building well adapted for a court , waspurchased and fitted up for her use ; and dur ing theChri stmas season o f 1900 She was welcomed back bya great ovation from the pe0p1e and cordial demon


stration from the sorrowing court. Although a fiercestormraged , the streets and balconies from the stationto the Piomb ino Palace were decorated with flags andcrowded with the populace . When Queen Margheritaappeared on the balcony with her son and Queen

Helene, to salute the people , they were answered withthe cry of “ Viva il Re"Viva Savoia" meant to bea greeting to the new king as well as to the sorrowingqueen returning home to her people .T he Prince of Naples succeeded his father as VictorEmanuel III . T he young king was born the 1 1th ofNovember, 1869, and for many years held his courtin the Imper ial Palace at Naples, whi le he at the sametime kept up apartments in the resident portion of thePitti Palace in Florence . He was called Victor Emanuel from his paternal grandfather, Gennaro from the

Protector of Naples , and Fe rdinand after his maternalgrandfather, the brave Duke of Genoa . In honor of

the city where he first saw the light , and as an exponent o f Ital ian unity, he received the title Of Prince

of Naple s .T he first teacher of the Prince of Naples was hi smother, and his tutor was Colonel Egi dio Ossio, whoalso taught him military tactics . He learned the modernlanguages from other instructors

,and is able, at the

present time , to Speak French, German and Englishfluently . Although the young prince was humored byhis father and grandfather, Queen Margherita broughthim up under strict régime. From the age of ten

Pr ince Victor was made to rise at daybreak, and aftera cold bath and a cup of broth he commenced his tasks.If he lingered in bed he was deprived of his bouillonuntil after his first lesson . H is mo rning instructionbe ing completed, he rode for an hour in all kinds of


weather. In fact the whole day was spent in study andexercise. Being an only child and without compau

ions, he was rather a lonely l ittle fellow ; and for enterta inment he used to drive with his English governessin the Borghese Park and on Mount Pincio, where hewould wave his tiny hand in answer to the greet ingsof the multitude. Another amusement was buildingfortifications in the Quir inal grounds, and collectingmedals , shell s and flowers ; and he also took greatpleasure in amateur photography.

H is Maj esty’s mil ita ry educat ion was as near perfectas possible

,he having been dr illed in all the grades

from corporal to colonel ; and, although he has neverexperienced war, he has on several occas ions exhibitedgreat physical courage.On the 24th of October, 1896, Victor Emanuel III.

married the Pr incess Helene , daughter of the King ofMontenegro . She was a fa ir, pale - faced princess witha melancholy and Oriental beauty, and was born atCettinge

,Montenegro

, on the 8th ofJanuary, 1873 . It

was a love-match, the couple having met the summerbe fore at Venice, at the Exposition of Fine Arts . Be

fore the marriage the princess transferred her membership from the Greek to the Roman Catholic Church ,this ceremony taking place at the Basil ica Palatina atBari . T he young people l ived at Naples until KingHumbert’s death .

T he substant ial qualities and wonderful culture ofVictor Emanuel III . are very marked ; and he hasalready dist inguished himself as an able diplomatist.Unt il recently he has been considered somewhat exe lusive ; but travel and experience in the world havemade him more frank and free than in his youth. He

is a friend of all scientists and literary men and is


much interested in everything that pe rtains to elec

tricity, being one of the first experimenters with the

X-rays . H is knowledge of geography and hi story

is so extens ive that when j ourneying in South Afri cahe acted as an encyclopedia for h is whole ret inue . An

anecdote i s told of how, when examined in histo ry,in the presence of the king and queen and eminent

pro fessors,he selected for his theme the revolutionary

movement of the first fifty years of the nineteenth

centu ry,amusing all by his frankness in deal ing with

the virtues and defects of his ancestors , his greatgrandfather, Charles Albert and others . Nothi ng de

l ighted him so much for a present when a small boy

as an old out-of-date coin ; and he now has in his col

lection eighteen thousand ; yet this i s a thousand lessin variety than we re turned out of the mint at the

time the kingdom was divided into so many pettysovereignties .

T he king has already shown himsel f worthy of theOffi ce to which he has been called, and ever sees clearlythe duty which first l ies before him . From Monza he

delivered a proclamation exhibit ing a sorrowing Soul ,and at the same t ime the spir it of one who refuses to

be cast down . He said : I wish to express how sureI feel that the institu tions sacred to me

,on account o f

the tradit ions of our house, and on account of the fer

vent love of Italy for them , will secure the prosper ityand greatness of our country .

”In his own handwr it ing

were added these words : My God so help me , andthe love o f my people so com fort me , that I may beable to consecrate all my powers as king to the protection of l iberty and the monarchy and to the bestinterests of the country .

”

In December,after the burial of King Humbert in

294 I taly : H er People and T he ir S tory

an amnesty in favor of off enders of the press andduelists . In due time the baby was bapt ized in theballroom of the Quirinal , in the presence of the court.Publ ic attention was centered in this tiny bit of royaltyat a very early period of her existence , even Meneliksending four elephants ’ tusks , of unusual s ize andbeauty, from far away South Africa , to serve as supports for the royal cradle .In September, 1901 , Victor Emanuel III. and Queen

Helene left Iolande in the care of her nurse and maidsat Raconigi , one of their country seats, the old ca stleof Charles Albert, forty miles from T urin , and set outon their presentation j ourney among the diff erentcities o f Italy. T hroughout the tour the character ofthe queen appeared in a most charming light and thato f the king strong and sturdy.

At Milan the king visited his old tutor, GeneralOss io, whom he had just made a count and who thenlay dying ; and together the sovereigns sought out

Verdi ’s grave . Part icular attention was paid by H isMaj esty to the electrica l plant at Vizzola, one of thelargest in the world . T o furnish hydraulic force for

the almost universal use of ele ctr icity in Italy much

of the water supply formerly used in irrigation is nowturned into water- falls ,

“White Coal ,” as they are

called . It i s estimated that this supply affords a potency of about five million horsepower.

T he enthusiasm and spontaneity of the greetings extended to the sovereign s in 1901 in the metropo lis,where three years before it was necessary to raise barri

cades,was an event o f real importance .

Nothing could be more solemn than the struggle ofFrancesco Cr ispi against death . H is nature was l ike

that of the tough oaks of Albania, whence his ancestors


and after much thought, in order to heal the breachbetween the Quirinal and Vatican , and s ilence partystri fe in many directions, he received the title of Princeof Piedmont, rather than that of Prince of Rome, aswas at first discussed . T o celebrate the birth of theprincely baby the king granted amnesty to all de

serters, and, besides this, shortened the term of manyprisoners .T he delay of a prince has not been unprecedentedin Ital ian history. Victor Amadeus, the first king of

the House of Savoy, waited fourteen years for an heir,during which t ime there had been four princesses . Butin the destiny of royal families and the polit ics ofnations, princesses also have a place , and the women ofSavoy have always proved worthy of the dynasty.

T he sovereigns lead a very secluded life in their ownapartments in the Quirinal

,which on account of their

s implicity many a Milanese cit izen would not tolerate.Even the ladies-in-waiting seldom penetrate as far as

Queen Helene’s rooms, and the royal couple dine alonewithout a court .Among many modern improvements now constantly

going on in Rome, a tunnel under the Quirinal wascompleted October 26, 1902 . T he appearance of theQu i rinal H i ll is unchanged ; but the citizens of Romeare saved much time and strength by this short cutbetween the Via Naziona le and the Piazza di Spagna .

An electric road is a thing in anticipation fromRome to Naples through the Pont ine Marshes . T hisroute will require only three hours instead of five , asformerly . It i s almost identical with the ancient high

way of the time of Horace and Maecenas .On the other hand , it i s sad to notice that here and

there all over the peninsula old familiar landmarks are


going to decay . Venice on account of her substructurei s particularly susceptible to such changes . It i s saidthat the old Doge s ’ Palace i s crumb ling, while hersplendid Campanile, founded in 888 A.D.

,succumbed to

the ravages of t ime and fell on the 14th of July, 1902 ,

greatly marring the historic and beauti ful St . Mark’s

Square . A new structure, which wil l be an exact copyof the old Campanile , was begun in 1903 and will soonrise on the same spot.During the excavations , in 1903 , some tombs werediscove red under the Roman Forum between theT emple of Romulus and that of Antoninus and Faustina , indicating that a cemetery, over which the Romansbuilt their temples

,formerly existed beneath the leve l

of the Via Sacra . T his is supposed to be a burial place

of the ancient Latins , antedating Romulus’ and Remus ’

time . It i s thought that the excavat ions still going on

in 1905 will throw new light on the legendary period ,confirming traditions which have been too readily cast

aside .T he completion of the work of piercing the Simplon

T unnel which conne cts Italy with Switzerland wassignaled on February 25 , 1905 , by the ringing ofchurch bells and firing of cannon. T his tunnel istwelve miles long and has proved to be one of thegreate st engineering achievements of the age . Immense difficulties were encountered during the process ,hot springs sometimes raising the temperature to 13 1

°

Fahrenhe it ; and shi fting material often blocked theway. T his vast enterprise has been under way fornearly ten years . It was opened regularly to trafficApril 2, amid the cries of Long live Switzerland"Long l ive Italy"Giuseppi Zanardelli, several times president of the


Chamber of Deputies, died at Maderno near Brescia,on December 26, 1903 , at the age of seventy-seven .

He had held the office of premier without interruptionsince 1901 . In April, 1903, he became seriously ill,but in June was able to reconstruct the cabinet . In

the following August his illness assumed such proport ions that his physicians counseled complete rest ; buthe continued as head of the ministry until the 20th ofOctober, 1903 , when he resigned, and Giolitte, firstmade president of the Chamber of Deputies at the

time of the Abyssinian War, and a close adherent ofthe Zanardelli po l icy, was charged with forming a newministry. He assumed the office of premier on November 3 , 1903 .

T he King and Queen of Ita ly’s visit to Paris themiddle o f October, 1903, together with their j ourneyto England a month later , was considered an event ofmarked pol itical s ignificance, many thinking that it wasabout to modify the long-es tabl i shed T riple Alliance ,while others prophesied that the drawing together ofthese nations would result in the unity of all the great

powers on a firmer foundat ion of peace.T he first friendly demonstrat ions on the part ofFrance, after the coolness existing so long, was in 1899,when the French squadron vis ited King Humbert in

Sardinian waters . T he Festival at T oulon in April ,1901 , was the counterpart of the courtesies exchangedat Calieri in 1899. On the occasion of the fetes atT oulon King Victor Emanuel III . sent PresidentLoubet, who was himsel f present , an autograph letter,together with the Collar of the Annunziata , which initsel f is an undeniable seal of int imacy and always con

sidered a ta l isman against antagonisms resulting in

war.


Fatherland, wrought out by the bravery of her sons,

and we feel that Ita ly, by developing all her latentforces

,will ga in that glori ous posit ion which is sure

finally to distinguish her among the nations .”

T he feeling exhibited in this document, which dem

onstrated both the fidelity of the nation to the kingand their enduring faith in the institut ions of the

State , found a mani fest response in the festivities ofParis and London .

T he popularity of these youthful sovereigns was nodoubt intens ified by the wisdom of the king and thedignity of Queen Helene , developed by the tragedy atMonza . T he discretion evinced by both from the t imeof that overwhelming calamity made a great impress ion not only on their own people, but on foreign nations all over the world .

H is great kindness of heart and rea l loyalty to hi ssubj ects was shown by King Victor Emanuel III . atthe time of the great earthquake in Sicily and on theadj acent coast during the last days of December

,1908,

when several hundred thousand pe0p1e lost their l ivesand thousands were left crazed, homeless, and destitute. T he king and queen encountered at this time

every peril and endured great hardship in order to bewith and comfort their distressed people .

It has been said that the great capital o f Italy atits origin was thus named because the word Romasignified strength ; but what spirit of augury found inprophets’ or soothsayers’ breasts could have foretold

an endurance l ike that of the Eternal City"She s itsas of old on her Seven H il ls ; and, though she nolonger from her “ throne of beauty rules the world,stil l the little hamlet Romulus first espied from his tiny


cradle-bark never gave up its ground. T ough as thegnarled oak and strong as iron sinews , when con

quered she rose again in renewed magnificence . Romethen was Ita ly, the Hesper ia of ancient days . Formany centur ies , however, Italy has swallowed upRome ; and in doing this she has kept within hersel fall the buoyancy of her gay capital . T hus

,in view of

her elast ic ity, spirit of emulation and great fortitude,i t i s easy for any modern seer to predict that beforemany centuries shall have passed the “ Land of Art

and Song ” will again become a gigantic force in the

world ; for enlightenment and freedom and,above

all , education , added to instinct ive culture, are sure to

reanimate her fl ickering embers and make of Italy a

nation fit to lead the world.

304 Index

becomes anti-Pope, resignsagain, 132Amadeus, son of VictorEmanuel II., 241 ; death,25 1

Amalfi, independence of, 17 ;

crippled, 20; attacked byPisa, 24Amari, historic writer, 276Arnba, Alagi, 268d’

Amicis, Edmondo, 278 ;

fame of , 279Anagni

,Boniface VI II ., im

prisoned at, 45

Anconian repub lic, 153Andrea Doria, 121

Andrea, nephew of Dante,49

Andrew, 58

Anjou, Charles of , Senatorin Rome, 37 ; King of

T wo Sicilies, 38 ; retiresfromSici ly, 44Aniel lo

,Tomaso ( see Ma

saniello), 135Annambaldi , 44Anne

,sister of Gian Gastone,

I 37

d’

Annunz io, Gabriele, 278Antologia Archivio StoricoIta liano, 276Antonio, assassin of Lo

renzo di Medici, 88Antonio di Venassio of Si

ena , 105

Apulian Duchy, formationof , 19

Aquilea , retained by Austria,

Aquitania, divided betweensons of Charles Martel, 10

Arabbiati, 97, 102

Aracoeli, Church of, 35

Arch of Triumph in Paris,150

Arch, triumphal, in M ilan,150

Arco la , Battle of, 151Arcos, Duke of, 136

Arduin, Magnus, of Ivrea,18

Argentine Republic, Ital ianColony in

,26 1

Arimondi , General, 269Ariosto, 1 12Arlotti, Jacob, captain, inRome, 56

Armillini, 188

Army,modern Ital ian, 257

Arnol d da Brescia, 24

Burned a l ive, 26

Arnulf,12

Assab Bay, 265Asti, destroyed by Barbarossa

,25

Austerlitz, Battle of, 159

Austria, at war w ith Napoleon Bonaparte, 147-166 ;

takes possession of all con

stitu tional cities in Italy,173 ; takes Sardinia, 181 ;

forced to retreat, 182 ; vic

torious, 188 ; takes Venice,191 ; arraigned at ParisCongress

,197 defeated,

203 ; again at war withIta ly, 224 ; defeated by

Prussians, 225Aust rian Succession, War

of, 140

Avellinon pe0p1e of, demand

Constitution, 172

Index

Avignon, Babylonian Capt ivity at, 53

Babylonian Captivity, 53

length of, 75

Baglione, Ma latesta, 123

Bagl ione o f Perugia,105

Balbo, author, 276Ba ldissera, Genera l, 269Ba l ia, the first, 80Ba l lot,modern Ita lian, 263Bamberga, Castle of

,14

Bandini, Bernardo, assassin,

88

Baratieri , General, 268 ;

court-martialed, 269

Barbarossa, Frederick, cal ledinto Ita ly, 25 ; destructionof Mi lan

, 26 ; beaten at

Legnano, 27 ; drowned, 29Barbiano, Count o f, 74Bartollini

,Lorenzo, sculptor,

Battista, Giovanni, assassin,88

Beatrice,mother of CountessMathilda, 2 1Beatrice

, w ife of Charles ofAnjou

, 37

Beatrice, Dante’s ideal , 46Beatrice

, wife of Charles of

Sicily, 13 1Beatrice, daughter o f Hercules III .

,145

Belisarius, 5Bel lini, themusician, 280, 281Bembo , Pietro, author

,1 12

Benedict XII ., 58

Benedict XIII., Anti-Pope,76

305

Bentivegna , Baron Francesco, 198

Bentivoglio of Bologna, 105 ;

w ife of, rebuked by Sav

onarola, 96

Berchet, Giovanni , a poet,274

Berengarius I . , 12

Berengarius II., 13

Bergamo, Garibal di enters,203

Berlin Congress, 242Bernabo Visconti, 70; murder of

, 72

Bertani, Agostino, 207B igi

, the, 103

B ismarck, favors al liancew ith Ita ly, 224

Eixo, Nino, General, 207,

229

Black Band, 1 18Boccaccio, Giovanni, 63 , 64Bocca degl i Abati betraysFlorence, 36Boethius, the philosopher, 4Boito, Arrigo, themusician,282

Bologna, conspicuous as a

city, 23Bomba ( see Ferdinand II . ofT wo Sicilies)Bombino ( see Francis II. ofT wo Sicilies)Bona of Savoy, 90Bonaparte, NapoleonNapoleon)Bonaparte, Paul ine, 164Bonaparte, Young, 176

Bonaparte, Jerome, in Italy,228

Boniface VIII ., Pope, 44 ;

306

makes 1300 Jubilee year,45, 57

Bon i face IX ., 74

Bonn ivard, 132

Bonni vet, Guil laume de, 1 18 ;

s lain,1 19

Borges , Don Jose, 2 15Borghese

,Count, 164

Borghese Vil la, 164

Borgia , Rodrigo (see Alexander VI .)Borgia, Cesare, 94 ad

vancement of, 103 massacres the Orsini, 105

legend in connect ion with,106

Borgia, Lucretia, 94 ;acter of, 106

Boso o f Provence, 13 1

Bosphorus, sea-fight on the,

7S

Botta, the historian, exiled,156

Bourbons, expulsion of,159

Bovines, Batt le of, 3 1

Bracciano, Castle o f, 56

Braccio da Montone,method of warfare, 83Bramanti, 109

Branca leone of Andolo, 34 ;

char

77 ;

Senator at Rome , 35 ;

death, 37

Brescia, Charles Albert defends

,187

Brigandage in Ita ly, 215Buondelmonti, 30Cabinet , modern Ita l ian, 255

Cadorna, General , 229Ca labria , part of T wo Sicilies, 20

Index

Ca labria,Duke of, 58

Ca lvin , 1 16

Calycadmus, 29Cambray

,Peace of, 122

Campaldino, Battle o f, 46

Campanile, fa l l of, at Venice,Campo Formio, Peace of,

153

CanGrande del la Scala, 47.49Canosa

,174

Canossa, 21Canova

,Antonio, 279

Cantu, 276Capocci, Angelo, Capta in of

Roman repub lic, 38Capponi Neri , 96 ; Piero,99 ; patriotic writer, 276

Capponi N icolo, Gonfalo

niere of Florence, 122

Caprera, Gariba l di retires to,2 12 ; death of Garibal di at,

Capri, annexed to Naples,160

Caprona, Dante at , 46Capua, fortress of, taken byIta l ians, 2 12

Carbin ieri, 255

Carbonari, 171Carducci, Giosue, 277Caroccio

,origin of, 18

Caroline, Queen ,

157 ; implot es intercession of Cz ar,158 ; incites Revo lution,161 ; banished by English,164

Carraresi, despots in Padua,55

Casa le, ceded to Vi ctorAmadeus II .,

136

308 Index

freedomof Ita ly, 185 ; de

feat, 185 ; continues to

fight, 188 ; abdicates, 188

Charles Fel ix,

173 ; death,176

Cheva lier Bayard, 1 18

Chinaglia, President of

Chamber, 271Chioggia

,Nava l Battle at,

78

Chivasso, 131Church and State, 230; re

lation of Leo XIII. to,

246 ; possible effect of

election of Pius X .,249,

250 ; greater friendlinessof, 259

Christian II . of Denmark,

1 16

Christina, wife o f FrancescoSforza

,1 16

Christina,w ife of Victor

Amadeus I . ,135

Cia l dini, Genera l, 203 ; sentagainst Garibaldi

,210

Cimabue, 63Ciprian, brigand, 216

Circe, 219Cisa lpine republ ic, 153 ; t e

established, 158

Cispadane republ ic, 151

Cities,R ise of

,17

Civita Vecchia, 192

Civite l la,Battle o f , 19

Clarendon , Lord, 198

Clarence , Duke of, 71

Clement IV. , Pope, 38

Clement V. , Pope, commences Babylonian Capt ivity , 53

Clement VI., Pope, 58 ; aids

Joanna ,

'

59 ; uphol ds Rienz i, 65Clement VII.

,Anti-Pope, 76

Clement VII ., Pope , 120 ;

capture of, 122 ; Florenceprey of, 123 ; death of ,

124

Clement XIV. hurls bul lagainst Jesuits, 127, 144

Clement XII . gives permission to destroy San Ma

rino, 169

Clothil de, daughter of Vic

tor Emanuel II., 199

Clovis, the Frank, 4Cluny

,regime

, 22

Coatit, 268Colonna, family of

, 44 ; Sci

arra , 44 , 55 ; arms of, 55 ,

56 ; R ienz i at war w ith,65 ; Stephen,

65 ; Otto , 78

Co lonna, Fabriccio, 108

Colonna , Prospero, takenprisoner, 1 14 ; overcomesFrench

,1 18

Co lonna , Stephen , 123

Columbus,104

Comagnola, Francesco, 82Commune, 23Company of St. George, 61Conclave of Cardinals, to

elect Leo XIII .,240; to

elect Pius X ., 247

Concordat of Worms, 23Congress of Paris

,197

Conrad II 18

Conrad III . , 24

Conrad IV., 34

Conradin, 38

Constance, 29Constance, counci l at, 77

Index

Coreggi , despots at Cremona,74

Corneto, siege of, 37Corte Nuova, defeat of Milanese at

, 33, 69

Corrente, author, 276

Counci l of T en,Decemvirs,

48

Crescentius, ruler in Rome,15

Crimean War, Piedmont in,I97

Crispi, Francesco,hopes of

Ita l ian freedomof, 178°

encourages Garibal di, 207

as primeminister, 266 ; as

a journal ist and statesman,267 ; failure and resignation

,269 ; death of, 295

Croce, Church of Santa, inFlorence, 52

Custoz a , first defeat at, 184 ;

second defea t at, 225

Cz arnowsky, 188

Dabormida, Genera l , 269Dante, reference to, 36 ; conversion oi , 45 ; love for

Beatrice, 46 ; exile of, 47

wanderings of, 48 ; D ivinaCommedia of , 49 ; per

sona l appearance of, 5 1 ;

death of, 52

Del la Sca la, family, 73Del la Torre, Napoleone Pagano , 69

Depretis, 237 ; death of, 266

Dervishes, 268Desaix

,General , 158

Desiderius, 7 ; overcome byCharlemagne, 10

309

d’

Este, family, 73D ivina Commedia , 49Dominicans, 3 1Donati Corso, 45 ; father-inlaw of Dante, 47 ; kil led,48

Don Henry, senator of

Rome, 38Don iz etti, 280 ; style of

,281

Doria , despots in Genoa, 55 ;Luciano

, 78

Dunbowski , scientist, 283Duraz za, Charles, 59

Education in Ita ly, modern,262

Edward IlI .

’s tr00ps in

Ita ly, 75Eight o f War, 79

Eleanor, Queen of Henry

III . of England, 13 1E liz a, sister of NapoleonBonaparte, 161Emanuele, Duke of Aosta,25 1

Emigration fromItaly, 260England takes a stand for

Ita ly, 214 ; royal couplevisit

, 299

Enz io, 34

Erythrea , African colony of,

261 , 266

Estensi, despots in Ferrara,55

Etruria, kingdomof, 158, 161

Eugene IV.,Pope, 78

Eugene Beauharnais, 159

obl iged to surrender, 167

Eugene of Savoy,Prince,

I 37

310 Index

Exarchs, 6Ez zel ino da Romano, 32 ;

death of, 34

Facino Cane, 74Farnese, fami ly, 124 ; Elizabeth

,137

Farini,statesman, 221

Fedrigo,Duke o f Urbino, 90

Fedrigo, Confa loniere, 174

Felix V. , Anti-Pope ( seeAmadeus VII .)Ferdinand I . , of Naples, 90;death of, 99

Ferdinand II .

,of Naples ;

flight of,101 ; death, 102

Ferdinand the Catholic, of

Spain ,104 ; joins League

o f Cambray, 107 ; joinsHoly League

,108 ; death,

1 15

Ferdinand o f Germany,Duke, 1 18

Ferdinand II ., of Spain, 125

Ferdinand VI ., of Spain,

I39

Ferdinand IV. , of Naples,139, 145 ; defies Napoleon,155 ; retires to Sicily, 156 ;

raises insurrect ion,158 ;

exiled,160 ; abdicates, 164 ;

recommences rule asFerdinand I .

, of T wo Sicil ies , 170; grants Constitution, 172 ; reinstated, 173 ;

death of, 174

Ferdinand of Austria,

142,

I4S

Ferdinand III .,Grand Duke

of Tuscany, 169

Ferdinand II . , of T wo Sicil ies, 174 ; promises Con

st itu tion,181 ; retires from

a l liance with Charles Al

bert, 185 victorious, 186 ;

defeated at Pa lestrina,192 ; oppression of, 198 ;

death of, 206

Ferdinand I ., of Austria, 179

Ferdinand, Duke of Genoa,I97

Fernando da Gonzaga, 125

Fieschi, Conspiracy of the,

I3S

Fi libert, Emanuel, Duke o f

Savoy, 130 ; achievementso f

,133

Filippo Maria Visconti, 74Fiorentino

,Castle of, 34

Florence, as a republ ic, 24

Guelphs and Ghibe l linesin

, 30; barely escapes destruction, 36 Constitutionof, 40; oppression of, 58

°

rise of the Medici , 79

rule of the Magnifico in,

89 ; under power o f Savonarola, 96 ; expels Mediciand receives French

,100

°

aga in in hands of, 108

renewed struggles w ith the

Medici in, 122 ; republicanspirit crushed out in,

124 ;

capita l of Italy, 223Fontainebleau, Pius VII . imprisoned at, 161

Formusus, Pope, 13

Foscolo, Ugo, author,272

Fra I lario, 50Fra Monrea le

,61 ; under

R ienzi, 67

31 2 Index

Goito, Bridge of Victory at,

184 ; Victor Emanuel , 120

Gonsalvo da Cordova, 104 ;

treachery of,106

Gonz ago, tyrants in Mantua,73

Graf, Arthur, 278Grandella, Battle of, 38

Gravina Pa lace,105

Great Company, 62Great Constable (Charles of

Bourbon), 1 17 ; victorious,1 19 ; kil led, 120

Gregory III ., the Great, 7 ;piety of

, 9

Gregory V 15

Gregory VII ., 21, 22

Gregory IX., 32

Gregory X ., 39

Gregory XL, 75Gregory XII ., 76

Gregory XIII 127

Gregory XVI .,176

Grenoble, Fortress of, 122Grimoald

, 7

Grisons, 134Grossi, Tomaso, 275Guelphs and Ghibe l lines, 25 ;confusion of, 3 1, 54

Gueraz z i , Menco, 275

Guibert, Archbishop of Ra

venna, 22Guicciardini, 1 13

Guido da Polenta, 5 1

Gui l laume di Bonn ivet, 1 18Guise, Duke of, 134

Hadrian IV. , 26

Hadrian VI ., 117

Hadrumentum,273

Hamilton, Lady, 156

I l lyria , 378

I l lyrian War, 1 18 ;

war with, 181

colonies,

Hautevil le, 20, 60Hawkwood, Sir John, 62

assists Florence, 79

Hayez , 280

Haynau, 191

Helene, Queen of Italy, 291Henry II ., o f Bavaria

,18

Henry III ., 19

Henry IV., 21 ; dea th of,23

Henry V., 23

Henry VI . , 29

Henry VII ., crosses intoItaly, 53 ; death, 54Henry VIII ., of England,108

Henry of Navarre, IV.,of

France, 134

Hercules III., Duke of Modena, 145

Heribert, 18Hildebrand ( see Gregory

20

Holy League, 119, 121

Holy See , 20Honorius III . , Pope, 3 1Hugh of Provence, 13Huguenots, 134

Humbert of the WhiteHand, 13 1

Humbert I ., 240; early l ifeof, 241 ; assassination o f,

285 ; mourning for, 287 ;

kindness of, 288 ; memorials to

,293

Humbert, Prince of Piedmont, 296Huss

,John , 78

Index

Induno, Domenico Girolamo,artist, 280

Innocent III ., Pope, 29Innocent VI .

, 67

Innocent VIII . , 90; death of,

94

Inquisition,126

Iolanda, w ife of FrederickII ., 32

Iolanda , Princess, 293Ionian Islands, 129Ippolito, 122Iron Crown of Lombardy,25, 226

Isabel , wi fe o f Gian Ga

leaz z o Visconti, 71Isabe lla of Spain, 1 15

Ischia, Island o f, 101Ita lian republic , 158

Ivrea, Margraf of, 131

Ivry, Battle of, 134

James of Aragon, 59Jean d’Arc, 32Jesuits

,126 ; repressed, 144 ;

t e-estab l ished, 168

Joanna , 58

Joanna II .

,60

Joanna, mother of CharlesV. , 1 15

John XII ., Pope, 14

John X ., 15

John of Brienne, 32John of Procida , 43

John XXII . , 55

John XXIII ., 77

John,Negus of Abyssinia,

265

Joseph of Austria , death of,

I37

Joseph II.

, of Austria, 144

313

Joseph, King of Naples, of

Spain, 60

Josephine, 159Jul ius II Pope, 106 ; formsHoly League

, 108 ; deathof, 109

Julius III .

,Pope, 125

Justin II . , 6

Justinian, 4 ; death of, 6

Kassala, 268Khartoum, 265Kdn iggratz , Prussian successat 225

Kun imund, 7Ladislaus, 59 ;

power of, 77Lafala, brigand, 216La Marmora ( see Alphonsola Marmora)

La Farina, Giuseppe, 207

Lamoriciere, capitulation of,

2 10

Lambert, 12Landi, General , 208Lando, Count, 61Lanz a

,221

Latini Brunetto, 46Laura , 63League of Cambray

,

broken up, 108

Leghorn, 152

Legnano, Battle at, 27

Leo III. , Pope, 10Leo IX .

,19, 26

Leo X ., Giovanni di Medici,109 ; Golden Age of, 1 12 ;

death,1 16

Leo XII ., opens Holy Door,244

height of

107 ;

3 14

Leo XIII ., appointed Pope,240; opens Holy Door,244 ; twenty-fifth ann iver

sary of, 245 ; death of,

245 ; ceremonies attendingfuneral of, 246Leonardo da Vinci, 1 1 1

Leonine City,230

Leonora, 1 13

Leopardi, Giacomo,273

Leopol d of Austria, 136

Leopold II . , 141 ; promisesConstitution, 181

Lepanto, Battle of, 128

Leyback, Alliance at, 172

Ligurian republ ic, 153

Lissa , defeat at, 225Liutprand, 7

Loches,Castle of, 103

Lodi, 25 ; Peace of,

Battle of , 150Loeben, 152

Lombard League, 27Lombards, 6, 17Lombardy, 145

Lothair,1 1

Lothair II ., 13

Lou is the Pious, 1 1Louis II ., 1 1

Louis IX., of France, 37Louis IV., of Bavaria, 57Louis of Taranta, 59Louis of Hungary, 59Louis, Duke of Anjou, 59Louis III ., 59

Lou is XL, 90Louis XII .,

103 ; in Milan,104 ; death of, 1 14

Louis of Savoy, son of

Amadeus VIII ., 132

Louis XIII.,134

86 ;

Index

Louis XIV. , 135

Louis XV .

,139

Louis Philippe, 175Louise of Savoy

,1 17

Loyo la , Ignatius, 126

Lucca ,169

Luigi, Duke o f Abruzzi ( seeAbruz z i)Lunevi l le, Treaty of, 158

Machiavel li, 1 13

Mafal da , Princess, 295Mafia

,27 1

Magenta , Battle of,

Humbert I . at, 241

Magione,D iet of, 105

Makaleh, 268

Malaspina, Dante visits, 49historians, 63Ma latesta, despots at R imini,55 ; at Brescia , 74Mameli

,Goffredo, poet, 193

Manfred, 36, 37Manfredi

,despots

enz a , 55

Manin,Daniele, 182 ; dies in

exile, 191Manini, Luigi, 152

Manno, author, 276Manzoni, Alexander, 273

Marconi, 283Mareb-Belesse,269Marengo

,Battle of, 158

Margaret, w ife of Ottaviano,125

Margaret, w ife of Louis IX.

of France, 131Margaret, w ife of EmanuelFilibert, 133 ; and daughterof Francis I .

,134

203 ;

in Fa

Muna Line,

3 16

Melegnano, Battle at, 203Meloria, Counci l at, 33 ; battle of, 42Menelik, king of Shoa, 265 ;

l ife of,267 ; presents gift

to Princess Io lande, 294Menott i, Ciro, 175Metternich, 179 ; flees

,181

M ichaelangelo, 1 10; ass istsFloren ce, 122

Michael of Constantinople,43

M ichele di Lando, 80M i lan, V isconti, in, 55, 79 ;

a republ ic, 83 ; Capita l ofCisalpine repub lic, 154 ;

Austrians enter,167 ; riot

and freedomfor, 182 ;

Charles Albert’s entranceinto, 185 ; riots in , 270;

representative feeling in,

M ilazzo, battle at, 208Minghetti, 221Modena, Duchy of, 145, 15 1,

169

Mohammed,86

Monaco, given to France,2 14

Montanelli , 188Monte Aperto, Battle of, 36Montebel lo, Battle of

,203

Monte Mario,14

Monte Rotondo, victory at,

Montferrat, Marquis of,25,

74 ; overcome by Amadeus VIII . , 13 1 ; given toFrance, 135

Monti, Vincenzo,

272

author,

Index

Morals in Italy of to-day,

More l l i, artist, 280Moroello Malaspina, 48Morosini, Venetian genera l,129

Mortara, defeat at, 188

Murat, in Naples, 158 ; Kingof Naples, 160; disloya l toFrance, 166 ; execution of,

171

Mustapha, 128

Naples, Independence of, 17 ;

capita l of T wo Sicilies , 20plagu e, 64 ; Uprising in.

135 ; becomes part of Austria, 137 ; Gariba l di enters,207 ; desti tution in, 285

Napoleon Bonaparte, takescommand of the French,148 ; Emperor o f France,159 ; downfa l l of, 166 ;

offered crown of Italy,165 ; at E lba

,170

Napoleon III . , an a l ly,199

unites w ith Victor Emanuel II . , 203 ; makes peacewith Austria, 204

Napoleon, Louis, 164

Narses, 5 ; rules as Exarch,6

Navy, 256Nelson, 155 ; cruel ty of, 156

Niccolini , Giovani Battista,275

Nicholas I Pope, 15 ; pa

tron o f Orsini, 57N icho las II .

,20

N icholas III . , 39

N icholas V., 78 ; ru le of, 85

Index

Niveo, Ippol ito, author,277

N imwegen, Treaty of, 136

Nogari , W i l liam, 44Nota Bartolo, 271Novara , Battle at, 188 ;

Peace of, 195

Novi, Battle of, 157

Octavian, Pope John XII.,

I4

Oregl ia , Cardinal , 2, 46Orsini, 44 ; history of, 56,66 ; plots against, 105

Orsini, Felici, 199

Osman D igma, 268Otto II ., 14

Otto III ., 14, 15

Otto IV., 30

Otto'

of Brunswick, 59Ottaviano, 125

Ottaviano Fregoso, 114Oudinot, Genera l, 192

Padua, 24Pa lazzo, Deputy, 271Palermo

,expels Bourbons,

172 ; taken by Garibal di ,208

Pa lmerston , Lord , 2 14

Paolo the Handsome, 55Papal States, nucleus of, 1 1 ;

Investiture,20

,23 ; States

occupied by Napoleon,161 ; government, declineof

,2 17 ; tempora l power,

fa l l of, 229Parini, Giuseppe, 271

Parma, Duke of,

compromises w ith Napoleon, 15 1 ;

king o f Etruria ,158

3 17

Parthenopian republ ic, 155

Parthians, annihilation of, 5

Parties of R ight and Left,237

Pasque Veronese, 152

Passarow itz , Peace of, 129

Paul III .

,124

Paul IV., 126

Pavia, 7, 25 ; court of Ga

leaz z o Visconti at, 7 1 ;

Certosa di, 72Pazzi, Jacopo de

’

, Francescode’

,conspiracy of

,88 ;mas

sacre, 89Pecci

,Cardinal Gioachino

( see Leo XIII.)Pel lico, Si lvio, 274Pel lou, 270Pepe, General, 172

Pepin the Short, 10Persano

,225

Perugia, republic, 23 ; oc

cupied by Italian soldiers,210

Pescara, Marquis of,

1 10,

1 18 ; betrays Holy League,1 19

Peschiera, fortress of, 184

Peter, King of Aragon, 43Petrarch, 63Phil ip the Bol d, 44Phi lip the Fair, 45Phil ip of Austria, 1 15Philip II . of Spain, 125, 133Phi lip IV., 134

Philip of Anjou, Phi lip V.

of Spain, 13 1Piagnoni , 102

Piazza del Popolo, 26Piazzi , 283Piccinini, N icholas, 83

3 18

Piedmont, important, 13 ;

annexed to France,

156 ;

demands Constitution, 172 ;

and Prussia, 224

Pietro Luigi, 125

Pisa,independence of ,

beauties o f, 20; competi

tion o f, 24 ; on side of

Ghibel l ines, 38 defeat byGenoa, 42 ; loss by plague,64 ; Archbishop o f

, 87 ; in

power of Florence, 107

Pisani, Vittorio, 78Pitti , Luca, 87 ; Pa lace, 86Pius II .

, 86

Pius V., 127

Pius VI .,144 ;

France, 154 ;

Door, 244

Pius VII ., 157 ; imprisoned,161 ; returned, 167

Pius IX ., 179 ; retires fromcontest

,185 ; flee s from

Naples, 194 ; imprisons himself in Vatican

,229 ; gen

erous concessions to, 231 ;

refuses audience to king,234 ; death o f, 239

Pius X .

,elected, 248 ; history

o f, 249

Piz z ighitone Castle, 1 19

Polenta Family, 55Polish Succession

,War of,

139

Pol itical differences,in Italy,

264

Ponchiel li, 282

Ponzo di San Martino, 259Popo lani Grossi , 58Portinari , Beatrice, 46Posta l facil ities, 263

17 ;

fa lse to

Opens Holy

Index

Potenza,in revolt, 209

Prati, Giovanni, 277Prague, 67 ; Peace of, 2 5

Presentation journey, 294

Presburg, Treaty of, 160

Prince o f Naples, 251Prince of Orange

,

death , 123

Private life of sovereigns,296

Prussia aids Ita ly successfully, 224, 225Puccini ,mus ician, 282Pyrenees, Treaty of the , 135

Quirina l , Napoleon restoresPalace, 163 ; Palace, V ictorEmanuel II . in, 234

Raconigi , royal fami ly at,

Radetsky, 182 ; surrender o f

Pope to , 181 ; V ictorEmanuel II. treats with,190

Raphae l, 1 11

Rapisardi, 278

Ras Mangascia, 268

Rata z z i , Urbino, 196 ; blamedfor cowardice

,222 ; death

of, 237

Ravenna, Dante in, 50Raymond di Cordona , 108Reformation, 1 16

Renaissance, 94, 99Réné , adopted heir of Jo

anna , 60

Republ ics, c i ti es as independent

,23

Riario , 87 ; Cardinal , 90R icasoli, 221

320 Index

Sforza , Attendolo, 77 ; cap

tain,83

Sforz a, Francesco, commences career, 82 ; Dukeof Milan, 84 ; checks ad

vance of Amadeus VIII .,

132

Sforza , Galeazzo, succeedsFrancesco, 84

Sforza , Gian Ga leazzo, son

of Ga lea z z o,

superseded,90, 98 ; death of, 104

Sforza, Ludovico, 90, 98

death at Loches, 103

Sforza, Giovanni, of Pesaro,106

Sforza, Maximilian, son of

Ludovico, 108 ; flight o f,

1 14 ; death of,1 16

Sforza, Francesco Maria,younger son o f Ludovico,1 16

Siccardi Law, 196

Sicilian Expedition, 207Sicil ian Vespers, 43Sicily

,rebels against Bour

bons, 163, 164 ; revolt in,181

Siena, a republ ic, 23Sigismund, 77Silvat i, 172

Simeone di Bardi, 47Simplon, road over, 64

opening of tunnel through,

Sistine Chapel, 90Six tus IV. , 87, 90

Soc ialist, 270Soderin i, 79

Sol ferino, 204Soncino, Battle at, 82

impris

Sophia, 6Soudan, 265Southern Regno

, 7

Southern Italy, destitutionin, 260

Spain, disputes with Savoy,I34, 135

Spanish Succession, War of,

136

Spielberg, Pell ico,oned at, 274

Spinola, despots in Genoa,

55

Spoleto, Duke of, 10Spo leto, 56Stanislaus Lesz cynski , 139

Staufen, Mount, 25

Stefano, 88Stephen, Pope, 10Stephanie, w ife of Crescentius

,15

St. Elmo,Castle of

, 136

St. Quentin, Battle of, 133Suello, Monte, Ga ribal di defeated at, 225

Superga Heights, 189Sylvester II ., 15

Symmachus, 4Tagl iacozzo

,Battle of, 38

Tagl iamento, Battle of, 152Tasso

, 1 12

T chernaya, 197

T heodolinda , 9

Theodora, 13

Theodore, 265Theodoric, 3Theophania, 14

T he Thousand,208

Thomas, Francis, 173Thorwa ldsen, 280

Index 32 1

Tiberine republic, 155

Tintoretto,1 12

Titian , 1 12Tommaseo, Nicolo, 276Tortona, 25Tours, Battle of

,10

Tosel li, Major, 268Trebbia, Battle o f, 157Tregua Dei

,22

Treviso, 24

Triple All iance, 242Troya , 276Tun is

,25

Turin, treaty of, 79 ; capita lremoved from, 223 ; ex

position at,270

Turks, 86 ; Venice threatened by , 128

T wo Sicilies, brief summary '

of history of, 20, 60

Uberti , 30

Uguccione, 48 ; Paradiso

dedicated to, 49

Umberto, Count of Salemi,25 1

United Italy as planned byNapoleon,

162

Urban II . , 20

Urban IV., 37

Urban V., 75

Urban VI ., 59, 76

Ursus, 56

Utrecht,Peace of, 137

Valentina, 103

Valtel lina ,134

Vanda ls, disappearance of, 6

Vanucci , 276

Varese, 72Vaucluse, 63

Vela , Vincenz a, 280Vel letri, 56Venice, 17, 20, 24 ; government o f, 41 ; contest w ithGenoa, 74 ; at height of

her power, 78 ; leagueaga inst, 107 ; decline of

,

128 ; Napoleon takes, 152 ;

again procla imed a t e

public, 182 ; oppressed byAustria

,191 ; deserted by

France, 204 ; given up to

Italy,225

Vercel li,13 1

Verdi, 280 ; life of,

28 1 ;

death of, 282

Verdun, treaty of, 1 1Verga

,dramatist, 282

Verona ,battle of, 157

Veronese,Paolo

,1 12

Via Sacra , 297Victor, Count of Turin, 25 1

Victor Amadeus I .

,135

Victor Amadeus II ., 136

support s Phil ip V. 137 ;

abdicates, 138 ; imprisoned, 139

Victor Amadeus III . , 145 ;makes terms with Napo

leon, 156

Victor Emanuel I 156 ;

receives back P i edmontand Savoy, 167 ; abdicates,173

Victor Emanue l II ., 189

compromise w ith Austria,190 ; commences reform,195 ; patriotic speech of,

201 ; takes stand againsttempora l power of Pope,2 10; recogn iz ed by powers

322 Index

as King of Ita ly, 212 ; t e

sides in Quirina l , 234 ;

dea th, 238 ; mourning for,239

Victor Emanuel III., b irthof, 242 ; succeeds Humbe rt , 290; early trainingand education, 291, 292 ;

ab i l ity of, 293

Vienna, Treaty of, 139 ;

congress at, 167

Viesseux , Gian Pietro, 276

Vi l lafranca , Peace of, 206

Villani, Matteo,Fi lippo, 64

Violante, 7 1Visconti in Mi lan, 55 ; Mat

teo, 57, 69

Visconti, Galeazzo, 57 ; Ottothe Archbishop, 69

Visconti Azzo , 69 ; Luc

chino,69

Visconti, Archbishop Gio

vanni, 70

Visconti, Stephano, 70; Matteo, 7o

Visconti, Ga leazzo, 70 in

Pavia, 71 ; Bernabo, 70 ;

in Milan, 71 ; Gian Galeazzo

, 71 ; abi lity of, 72 ;

Giovann i Maria, 74 ; Filippo Maria, 74 ; fai lingpower of, 82 ;

to Piedmont, 13 1

Vittoria Colonna , 1

yiel d land

10

Volta Alessandro,

Wagram, Batt le of, 161Wa ib ling, 25Wal denses, 127Wal do

,Peter

,127

Wa lter of Brienne, 58Warsaw,

Council at, 214Waterloo, 170

Wel f of Bavaria,2

Werner, Duke, 61Wencelaus, 73

5

White Company, 62Wil liamthe Norman, 26Wi l liam11

,29

Wireless telegraphy, 283

Young Italy, 177

Zanardelli, 270;

Zeno, 3

Z ichy, Genera l, 182Zwingli, 1 16

death of,