A Short History of Italy Part 8

CHAPTER XIX

THE INTELLECTUAL DAWN AFTER THE MIDDLE AGES (1260-1336)

Though the beginning of the Modern World manifested itself in every department of life, political, social, and intellectual, it is best known to us through the arts, because in them it embodied itself in permanent forms. Italy suddenly leaped forward, as if she had drained a beaker of champagne. To explain and ill.u.s.trate this burst of pa.s.sion, the books generally use such phrases as emphasis upon individuality, imitation of the cla.s.sic, observation of nature, wider range of interest, the awakening of spiritual energy, etc. No doubt the phrases are just, but one must remember that underneath these manifestations of an eager interest in life, there actually was a larger, happier life, due in great measure to security, ease, and the acc.u.mulation of property, which set men free from the bondage of continuous daily labour to satisfy corporal needs. Of that happier life, with its gayety and luxury, Villani, the historian of Florence, has given us a description.

He himself was a boy at the time. "In the year of Our Lord 1283 the city of Florence, chiefly on account of the Guelfs who were in power, was prosperous and at peace, and in a state of great tranquillity, which was very advantageous to the merchants and artisans. In June, at the Feast of St. John, in the quarter across the Arno, where the Rossi and their neighbours were the princ.i.p.al people, the n.o.bility and the rich organized themselves into a company, and adopted a dress all white, and chose a master called the Lord of Love. The object of the company was to have feasts, games, and dances for the ladies and gentlemen of the city, and other persons of quality. They used to parade the town with trumpets and other musical instruments, and had great dinners and suppers and all kinds of jollity. The festivities lasted nearly two months, and were the finest and most celebrated that were ever held in Florence or all Tuscany. Gentlemen and troubadours came from far and near, and all were received and entertained with distinction. And it is worth remembering that the city and its citizens were better off then than they had ever been, and this prosperity continued till the division into Burghers and _Grandi_. There were then in Florence three hundred knights, and there were many companies of gentlemen and ladies, who morning and evening kept open table richly spread, and had buffoons in attendance, so that from Lombardy and all Italy jesters, players, and jugglers came to Florence, and all were welcome; and whenever a stranger of distinction pa.s.sed through the city there was rivalry between the companies to get him as their guest, and then he was accompanied, on foot or on horseback, all through the city and the country round, most politely."

This was the light and careless side of the general awakening of interest in life, which showed itself in so many n.o.bler forms.

In literature Dante (1265-1321) is the first great figure. But, owing to his disproportional importance, we are liable to forget that he has his orderly place in the revival of poetry and literature which began in the brilliant court of Frederick II in Sicily. On the destruction of the Hohenstaufens, the poetic primacy pa.s.sed to Bologna, where Guido Guinicelli and others composed poetry in a somewhat learned fashion, as befitted a university town, and then pa.s.sed on to Tuscany, and in particular to Florence, where Dante was preceded by his friend Guido Cavalcanti. Dante, although distinctly medival by his theology, his appeals to the authority of Virgil and Aristotle, and by his political views, has the characteristics of the new spiritual energy. He lays immense stress on individuality, and delineates real life with wonderful vividness. These traits mark him as belonging to the new world coming in rather than to the old world going out.

From the point of view of history, Dante's most marked achievement, perhaps, was to raise the Tuscan (or more strictly speaking the Florentine) idiom, from among many compet.i.tors, to the dignity of being the Italian language. This was the consequence of writing the "Divine Comedy" in Tuscan, instead of in Latin. Dante's Tuscan verses were recited in the tavern and on the _piazza_, and were greeted with loud applause by apprentices and artisans, shopmen and tavern-keepers. He excited the enthusiasm of both educated and ignorant. At that time the spoken dialects were very numerous. A friend remonstrating with Dante for writing in an Italian dialect instead of in Latin, said that there were a thousand. Dante himself in his treatise "On the Vernacular Speech" enumerates Sicilian, Calabrian, Apulian, Roman, Tuscan, Genoese, Sardinian, Romagnol, Lombard, Venetian, and others. These dialects of the provinces were further subdivided among themselves. In Tuscany the people of Siena spoke one idiom, those of Arezzo another. In Lombardy the citizens of Ferrara spoke in one way, the citizens of Piacenza in another. Even in one city, as in Bologna, the dwellers in St. Felix Street and those in Greater Street did not speak alike. Besides the difficulties of many dialects, besides the immense prestige of Latin as the language of learning, of law, of the Church, French appeared as a possible literary language for Italy. Authors in Florence, Venice, Siena, and Pisa wrote books in French, "because the French language goes over the world, and is more delectable to read and to hear than any other." But Dante made the Florentine tongue immortal, and not only wrote the "Divine Comedy" in Florentine, but also "The New Life" and "The Banquet." Prior to his time the divers idioms had stood on an equality; after his time Tuscan became the language of polite speech and of literature, the real Italian language, and the others were degraded to the position of mere dialects. Petrarch and Boccaccio, both Florentines, also deserve their share of praise. Petrarch's sonnets and Boccaccio's stories firmly established the primacy to which Dante had raised the Tuscan idiom.

The revival of sculpture also began before the middle of the thirteenth century. Here the great leader is Niccol Pisano (1206-78?). There has been a dispute as to his birthplace. Some say he came from Southern Italy and learned his art there. If this theory is true, Frederick's kingdom has the honour of having revived sculpture as well as literature; but it is more likely that Niccol came from some village in Tuscany, and early went to Pisa, where he got his designation _Pisano_.

The first certain record of his work is an inscription on the pulpit in the Baptistery at Pisa, which states that he completed the pulpit in 1260. Pisa was then at the height of her glory, in the happy years before her fatal conflict with Genoa; she had built the Cathedral, the Leaning Tower, and the Baptistery, and now wished to beautify them within. Niccol's pulpit shows both imitation of the cla.s.sic and observation of nature. He had before him bits of ancient sarcophagi, which had been built into the wall of the Cathedral: his Madonna bears traces of the Phdra of the sarcophagus, one of his three Wise Men resembles a young Greek, and his modelling in general has a touch of cla.s.sic freedom, dignity, and repose. In his conception of the scenes Niccol adhered to ecclesiastical tradition, just as Dante did to ecclesiastical theology, but in his figures, in the drapery and various details, his faithfulness to reality is striking, at least when compared with the Byzantine style theretofore prevailing. The success of this pulpit was so great that a few years later he was asked to carve another for the cathedral in Siena. An envoy came on purpose, and in the Baptistery of Pisa a contract was drawn up in which it was agreed that Niccol should go to Siena and stay till the work was done, taking three a.s.sistants, and also his young son Giovanni, at half pay, if he wished.

This contract was made in 1265, the year of Dante's birth. Niccol also worked at Bologna, Perugia, Pistoia, probably at Lucca and almost certainly in many other places. This was the period of the free development of the communes after the death of Frederick II, and Niccol's popularity is proof of widespread prosperity and interest in art. Niccol's son Giovanni (1250-1328?) inherited his father's genius; and his work, especially his masterpiece, a pulpit at Pistoia, shows how fast art was developing. Giovanni, in his eagerness to express the animation and pa.s.sion of life, neglected the cla.s.sic and went directly to nature, at least in desire if not in execution. This pa.s.sionate interest in life is the very quality that gives Dante's "Inferno" its intense vividness. These two Pisani founded the great Tuscan school of sculpture, and influenced both painting and architecture as well.

Italian architecture at this time does not show one great figure like Niccol Pisano, nor does it show a definite beginning of a new period.

On the contrary, throughout the Middle Ages building held its own surprisingly well in comparison with the other arts. In the days of Theodoric the Ostrogoth, it carried on the Byzantine tradition at Ravenna, and for centuries the churches in Rome were built on the old basilican principle. Over a hundred years before Dante was born, and before Niccol carved his pulpit, the Lombard style flourished in Lombardy, Tuscan Romanesque in Tuscany, and Norman Sicilian in Sicily.

Before the Empire had received its _coup de grce_ the Gothic style came down from the North, and its struggle with the Romanesque seemed to typify the conflict between the German Empire and the Italian people.

Nevertheless, if we confine ourselves to Tuscany, as perhaps is fair in view of the very great influence of Tuscany on all the arts, there is one man who stands out conspicuous. Arnolfo di Cambio (1232-1300?) began life as one of Niccol's a.s.sistants at Pisa, and did so well that he was included by name in the contract for the pulpit at Siena. In Florence he built the church of Santa Croce for the Franciscans, designed the Palazzo Vecchio, and made the first plans for the Duomo; and so left a deep impress on Florence and through Florence on the world.

In painting, more than in any other art or department of life, perhaps, authority had reigned supreme throughout the Middle Ages. The decadent Greek painters of Constantinople had made a series of rules, which were as autocratic as the edicts of the Emperors. Every Madonna was painted in one att.i.tude, with her eyes opening wide in the same way, arms, legs, and body in the same constrained position, with the same wooden child in her wooden lap, and the same wooden saints about her. But gradually, side by side with the art of authority, another style, at first very simple and primitive, developed. The older style dominated mosaic work, and as mosaics were most intimately a.s.sociated with the symbolic representation of sacred things, it was strongly intrenched behind all the beliefs and prejudices of the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, the revolutionary spirit in Tuscany, for the leaders of the revolution which threw off the authority of the Middle Ages came from among the free men of Tuscany, prevailed in painting as well as elsewhere. The last of the masters who employed the Byzantine manner was Cimabue (1240-1302); yet Cimabue had a sense of the coming change, and showed a desire to break through the enveloping sh.e.l.l of Byzantine authority and portray the grace and beauty of living human beings. However medival his manner seems to us, his contemporaries, eager as the Athenians for new things, perceived the novelty in it. When he was painting a Madonna for the Dominican monks in Florence, Charles of Anjou, fresh from his triumph over Manfred, visited his studio for the honour of a first view, and crowds pressed about hoping to get a glimpse of the picture. When the picture was carried through the streets to its destination in the church of Santa Maria Novella, a great procession followed, as if it were a hero returned from the wars. Poor Cimabue, however, is seldom mentioned except as a dull background against which the conquering Giotto stands in brilliant relief.

Giotto (1267?-1336) is the master revolutionist of painting. He was a contemporary of Dante, a few years younger, born at the time when Niccol and Giovanni were working at the pulpit in Siena, and Charles of Anjou was posing as an admirer of the fine arts in Cimabue's studio.

He painted Dante in a fresco on the wall of the Bargello (a palace in Florence), at least so tradition says; and Dante in the "Divine Comedy"

speaks of him as outstripping the once renowned Cimabue. Giotto was an ugly little man, of great character and quick wit. Various stories are told of his repartees. Once, when he was painting for the King of Naples and working with great diligence, the king, who used to watch him, said, "Giotto, if I were you, I should not work so hard." "I shouldn't,--if I were you," retorted Giotto. He studied under Giovanni Pisano, and learned so much that it has been said that "Giotto is the greatest work of the Pisani." Giotto was also the successor to Arnolfo as the leading architect in Florence, and built the Campanile of the Duomo, and, being likewise a sculptor, modelled some of the bas-reliefs that ornament the panels of the base. His great art was painting, and especially the painting of figures. Giotto was in demand to paint frescoes on the walls of churches and chapels at Florence, Arezzo, a.s.sisi, Padua, Ravenna, Rome, and Naples; and other painters came from far and near to study under him. He dominated Italian painting, and his school was the only school for a hundred years. After the world had adopted Raphael's frescoes as the type of excellence his fame was dimmed for a time, but since Mr. Ruskin's enthusiastic admiration it has regained its ancient l.u.s.tre.

These instances of revolution in the arts show that a new intellectual life had begun, that the Middle Ages had really ended. In fact, the pa.s.sing away of the Holy Roman Empire and of the European suzerainty of the Papacy was merely an episode in the general intellectual revolution.

CHAPTER XX

THE DESPOTISMS (1250-1350)

Perhaps the quality which strikes us most in this dawn of our Modern World is its suddenness; Niccol Pisano gets up, as it were, out of the ground, Giotto follows Cimabue, Dante is born while Guido Guinicelli is still a young man. We are amazed and bewildered, and it is not in the arts alone that the change is so startling. The political structure shifts with equal quickness, and while we are trying to connect and cordinate this outburst of art with the democratic triumph of the communes, the democratic communes disappear under our eyes. At first as we look we are a little puzzled, for the outward form of the commune remains unchanged; the _podest_ is still there, the Great Council and the inner council are still there, the committees and the sub-committees superintending and directing the affairs of the commonwealth; but further observation discloses a lack of spontaneity. The motive power does not seem the resultant of the debate and argument of numerous discordant wills, but to proceed from some one definite inner source.

More careful observation shows that these outward committees are but registering boards that record an inner will, that their members go to one particular palace to have their minds made up, at first privily, but soon openly, and at last confessedly and ostentatiously. This is the regular course. The commune is, as it were, a political chrysalis out of which a full-blown tyrant bursts. The tyrants were men of capacity, who gathered the various functions of the government into their own hands, and by a course of adroitness and fraud, or by a _coup d'tat_, reduced the city to obedience, and then, after having exercised sovereign rights during their lives, bequeathed the princ.i.p.ality to their heirs. The reason of their success is plain. It was impossible for trade to flourish, for property to collect its income, for luxury to enjoy itself, under the political confusion that attended the democratic endeavours for self-government. The uncertainty in government, law, and trade, was too high a price to pay for liberty. Men of property, men of business, men of pleasure, preferred the comparative stability of a tyranny.

Before we look at this process in individual states we must eliminate the exceptions. The kingdom of Sicily under the House of Aragon, and that of Naples under the House of Anjou, had become, in great measure, absolute monarchies, for the gifted Emperor Frederick, who was no lover of democracy, had crushed or circ.u.mvented the communal spirit in his kingdom. The suppression of popular liberties did not result in the strict enforcement of order in either kingdom, particularly not in Sicily where feudal anarchy was rampant; but we must leave those Southerners to their oranges and lemons, to their flowers and azure skies, to their churches and cloisters, where Romanesque, Byzantine, and Arab influences met and combined in arch and dome and sculptured tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, and go northward to find the main historical current of the century.

Florence, too, we must except from the tyrannic system, for a democratic government prevailed there for many years to come, and also Rome, where the Papacy prevented Colonna and Orsini from establishing a despotism.

Verona shall serve as the paradigm for the despotic form of government.

In this ancient city on the banks of the Adige, where the amphitheatre of Augustus still stood though the churches built by Theodoric the Ostrogoth had crumbled away, the spirit of material and intellectual activity had been busily at work. The stately church of San Zeno (eleventh century), most beautiful of Romanesque churches, coloured with the hues of early dawn and rich with bronze doors and sculptured front, stood proudly apart outside the walls; but within, the cathedral had been begun, and the great Ghibelline tower already lifted its crenellated top high over the market-place. Rushing through the city the headlong Adige turned innumerable mill-wheels, and Veronese girls washed the clothes of the Capulets and Montagues in its waters. Altogether the city was a very desirable signory. This fact had been discovered in Frederick's time, and Ezzelino da Romano, one of the Ghibelline n.o.bles of the North, had made good his power there and distinguished himself by his cruelty, for which he is still remembered. On his most satisfactory death, not long after Frederick's, the Scaligers succeeded to the dominion of the city (1259). These Scaligers were of the best type of tyrant, especially Can Grande (1311-1329), the fifth in possession of the signory, who presents the type in its n.o.blest and most attractive form. Nevertheless, despite his brilliance, his success and magnificence, his chief renown is as host to the exiled Dante, who in grat.i.tude for "my first refuge and first hostelry" dedicated the "Paradiso" to him, and celebrated his carelessness of hardship and of gold, and his doughty deeds from which even enemies could not withhold their praise.

Can Grande, like other despots, had two objects,--to make his signory secure, and to enlarge it. As he was secure of Verona, he cast his covetous glances abroad and fixed them on Vicenza, a little town some thirty miles to the northeast. Vicenza was, so to speak, no longer in the market, as she had been snapped up by her neighbour, Padua, which had had the advantage of being less than twenty miles away. But Can Grande played his cards well, and by help of the Emperor Henry VII, who appointed him Imperial vicar, got possession of the prize. Padua, a rich and prosperous Guelf city, with subject towns round about, and a famous university within, refused to acquiesce in a surrender of Vicenza to a Ghibelline lord. A long war ensued. The fair fields in the forty miles between Verona and Padua were laid waste, the poor peasants were dragged to one city or the other and held for ransom, and the Guelfs in Verona and the Ghibellines in Padua were persecuted, imprisoned, and tortured.

At last Padua, her signory over, her neighbours lost, her population fallen away, her citizens fighting among themselves, her n.o.bles destroying one another in the hope of becoming lords of the city, gave way and surrendered to Can Grande. Other cities shared Padua's fate, and Can Grande, by virtue of his conquests as well as of his character, became one of the chief powers in Italy. Can Grande was brave even to recklessness, covetous of dominion, steadfast in his political aims, true to his promises, generous to his enemies. On his death he bequeathed his signory to his nephew; and his body was buried in the churchyard of a little Gothic chapel, where stone effigies of armoured Scaligers on caparisoned steeds surmount Gothic tombs, and the pride of life and conquest strives to overcrow death.

The story of the Scaligers must be continued somewhat further, for they exhibit the phenomenon, so frequent in Northern Italy at this time, of a despotism that begins in vigour, continues in energy and success, and then dies down under degenerate heirs to go out at last like a candle.

Can Grande's nephew, Mastino (1329-51),--the family had a fondness for canine appellations. Great Dog and Mastiff,--began his career with ability and courage; he conquered Brescia to the west, halfway to Milan, and Parma, which lies beyond Mantua. These particular acts of aggression helped his ruin, for Milan and Mantua took alarm and joined a league against him. But that was not till later. In the days of his prosperity Mastino was very magnificent. Soldiers, horse and foot, attended him; his palace was thronged with lords, gentlemen, and buffoons; his stables were full of chargers and palfreys, his bird-sheds of falcons. At his court there were innumerable fashionable devices for driving care away, dancing, singing, jousting; everything was luxurious; men and furniture were decked with embroidery, cloth of gold, cloth from France, and cloth from Tartary. When Mastino rode forth all Verona rushed to the windows; when he was angry all Verona trembled. He was a dark-skinned, bearded man, with heavy features and a great belly; in later life he ate grossly, and sank into dissipation. Seldom on a Friday or Sat.u.r.day, or even in Lent, would he refrain from meat; and he did not care a rap for excommunication. He became arrogant and vainglorious. His dissipation and lack of piety, however, were less direct causes of his fall than his ambition; he coveted, rumour said, a kingdom of Lombardy or even of all Italy. But at last he overreached himself in dealing with the Florentines. They wished to get possession of Lucca, and he undertook to buy it for them,--it was a fourteenth-century custom to sell a city,--but when he got possession of Lucca he kept it for himself. The Florentines declared war, and induced all his rival despots, the Visconti of Milan, the Gonzaga of Mantua, the Estensi of Ferrara, to join a league against him. Venice also joined, being indignant with the Scaligers for levying tolls upon merchandise that went up the Po, and for interference with the Venetian monopoly of salt. The league was victorious and forced the Scaligers to hard terms. Venice took the towns near her, thus acquiring her first territory on the Italian mainland; the great Paduan family, the Carrara, took back Padua; the Visconti of Milan took Brescia (1338). The Scaligers were shorn of their power, and from this time on the house dwindled; a.s.sa.s.sinations of brother by brother darkened its close, and at the end of the century it lost Verona and all.

What the Scaligers did at Verona other great families were doing elsewhere. The Gonzaga established themselves in Mantua, the Estensi in Ferrara, the Bentivogli in Bologna, the da Polenta in Ravenna, the Malatesta in Rimini, the Montefeltri in Urbino, the Baglioni in Perugia, and greatest of all the Visconti in Milan. The city of Milan has so important a place in the history of Italy, that we must pause over the Visconti. This family succeeded in dispossessing its rivals and in becoming masters of the city in 1295, about the time that the oligarchy was clinching its hold on Venice, and the democracy becoming all powerful in Florence. In fact, one may accept this date as the point at which Florence, Venice, and Milan start on their upward careers towards becoming three of the six chief divisions of Italy. Convenience has its rights, and it is eminently convenient to start the Renaissance, politically as well as intellectually, in this eager, pa.s.sionate last quarter of the thirteenth century.

The Visconti, however, were not firm in their seats till the gallant Henry VII, Dante's hope, came down into Italy to revive the Empire. We have seen that Henry did not revive the Empire, but he did strengthen Can Grande, his loyal lieutenant in Verona, and also the Visconti, his loyal friends in Milan. It is pathetic, even now, to think of that high-aspiring Henry, with his n.o.ble, old-fashioned ideas concerning the Roman Empire and universal brotherhood under the shelter of the Roman eagle, and of the great Dante fastening all his hopes on those same old-fashioned ideas, while the crafty lords of Milan and Verona, laughing in their sleeves, professed the most devout Imperial creed and feathered their own nests. On the Emperor's death (1313) the Visconti were firmly seated. The signory descended from one generation to the next. Their sway was extended over the cities round about, until it included most of Lombardy. Ambition, growing by what it fed on, aimed at the cities of Pisa, Bologna, and Genoa. Such plans aroused both jealousy and fear. The ambition of the Visconti to take Pisa alarmed Florence, who had marked Pisa as her own; that to take Bologna stirred the absentee Popes, who went through the old forms of excommunication, interdict, and crusade; but Genoa, crippled by her wars with Venice, rent asunder by internal factions, wearily gave herself to Milan, in the vain hope of winning peace and security. In spite of checks here and there, the state of Milan became more and more powerful, and the signory of the Visconti by far the greatest of the tyrannies in Italy.

There were, of course, many men who attempted to become despots and failed; and others who succeeded for their lifetimes, but were not able to make their signories so strong as to become family possessions to be enjoyed by their heirs after them. Of the latter kind one must be mentioned. In Lucca Castruccio Castracane (died 1328), a very brilliant politician and soldier, became so powerful that he reduced to subjection much of the country round and nearly succeeded in conquering Florence, with whom he was long at war. Like other successful tyrants he called himself a Ghibelline, and drew what advantage he could from his profession of faith, but really only aimed to acquire a princ.i.p.ality for himself. He died in the prime of life (to the great relief of the Florentines), and left so brilliant a reputation for the qualities which achieve success by fair means or foul, that two centuries later Machiavelli held him up as an example for princes to follow.

CHAPTER XXI

THE CLa.s.sICAL REVIVAL (1350)

We are now well started on the fourteenth century, and it will be well to glance at the chief Italian states in order to get our bearings.

Sicily was in a state of hopeless despondency. The island was nominally subject to the House of Aragon, but its kings were not men of sufficient character to impose their authority, and the unfortunate kingdom was beginning to go down hill. The Kingdom of Naples was, for the time being, much better off, for its king, Robert, grandson of Charles of Anjou, was a man of unusual gifts and capacity, but he was succeeded by a foolish, frivolous, light-minded, light-mannered granddaughter, Joan (1343-81), who brought forty years of trouble to her kingdom, and under her Naples started rolling down that same incline on which Sicily was rolling somewhat ahead of her. The failure of Sicily and Naples to take part in the great career in matters intellectual now opening before Northern Italy is partly due to the race that populated them, a miscellaneous mixture of bloods (at least it is customary to explain unknown causes of success and failure by saying good blood and bad blood), and partly to the autocratic will of the brilliant Frederick II, who crushed out independence in his kingdom, and so deprived it of that communal life which is the only obvious factor, except "good blood," in the intellectual success of Northern Italy.

The whole pontifical state, from the fortresses of the Colonna on the Tiber to the strongholds of the Malatesta in Rimini, was in the vortex of confusion.

Florence was well off, for though the foreigners whom she had invited to be protectors against Castruccio Castracane and others were rather detrimental than useful, and though there were signs of a new struggle between the _Grandi_ and the Burghers, her commerce prospered, her dominion spread over the towns round about, and her luxury grew so fast that the troubled elders pa.s.sed all sorts of sumptuary laws to prescribe what should be worn and what not, by both fashionable and simple.

In the northwest, now Piedmont, there were, besides the Counts of Savoy, several struggling claimants who severally a.s.serted t.i.tles to their own and other strips of territory. In the northeast, Venice, which had acquired a footing on the mainland destined to grow into the province of Venetia, was prosperous. And between Piedmont and Venice the successful Visconti of Milan, soon to receive the keys of Genoa, were likewise well satisfied. The political situation may now be dismissed, and we may turn to the distinguishing mark of the century, the cla.s.sical revival.

The distinction which Italy enjoys as the most famous country in Europe is due to three ages,--first, the ancient epoch of Augustus Csar and Trajan, when the Roman Empire imposed the _pax romana_ on a grateful world; second, the medival epoch of Hildebrand and Innocent III, when the Papacy, following its great prototype with unequal steps, imposed its _pax romana_ on both troubled souls and angry hands; and third, the epoch of the Renaissance, when Italy took the lead in the intellectual development of modern Europe. It would be as absurd to subordinate intellectual life to politics in the period of the Renaissance as it would be to subordinate the religion of the era of Hildebrand to its art, or the politics of the Augustan age to its religion. The highest life of Italy, the life which gives importance to the history of this coming period, is its intellectual life, and, though we must not forget politics entirely, we should lay the chief stress on intellectual rather than on political matters.

Since the date of the Pisan pulpit, prosperity had increased fast, and curiosity, the desire to investigate, the wish to know, had grown l.u.s.tily. There were still the same two stores of knowledge,--nature and the cla.s.sics,--but the first, for many reasons, seemed vague, intangible, when compared to the second, in which the demi-G.o.ds (so they appeared then) of the ancient world had garnered the rich harvest of their thoughts. The cla.s.sical heritage, the record of a higher civilization, seemed a lay Bible, the revelation of truth, the means of salvation; and the young generation emerging in the dawn of intellectual light turned thirstily to this newly found inheritance. The leader of this pilgrimage to the land flowing with intellectual milk and honey was Francis Petrarch (1304-74).

Petrarch was a Florentine, but he lived in exile. His father had been banished at the same time with Dante, and after a few wandering years had settled at Avignon. Petrarch studied law at the University of Bologna and became a confirmed Ghibelline. This item of biography is important, because it reminds us that Petrarch's pa.s.sion for the cla.s.sic world, though it had its roots in the traditional admiration for Rome, received strength and justification not only from Latin literature, but also from the Civil law. Men who grasped the complexity and richness of the Roman law necessarily admired Roman civilization, and inferred that all other manifestations of that civilization must be as admirable as the law, and perhaps less dry. Petrarch found the law dry, but he left Bologna with a pa.s.sion for the cla.s.sic world; and when he went back to Avignon he met all the most cultivated men of Europe. Learning still attended the papal court, and Avignon served to make this charming young scholar of genius known to the world. He flung up the law and devoted himself to literature. Cicero was his hero. Petrarch was the first of the humanists, the herald of the Renaissance, and, if we look farther forward still, the harbinger of the Reformation. Petrarch's importance was very great because he was not too far ahead of his generation. He shouted aloud the glory of Rome, of Roman literature and Roman thought, and the echo resounded throughout Europe. In the year 1341, in Rome, upon the Capitoline Hill, Petrarch received the crown of laurel, as scholar and poet, from the Senate and People of Rome. The King of Naples was his sponsor, and the tyrants of the North applauded. This ceremony was the conspicuous recognition that a new period was opening before Italy; and Petrarch's laurel crown may be put beside the Imperial wreath of Augustus and the tiara of Hildebrand, as the starting-point of Italy's third great period of triumph.

After his coronation, Petrarch went about Italy spreading the seeds of the new enthusiasm. He lived or made visits at Parma, Bologna, Verona, Florence, Arezzo, Naples, Rome, Milan, Padua, and Venice. He became tremendously fashionable. The Pope invited him to be papal secretary, the King of France extended the hospitality of Paris to him, the Emperor bade him to Prague, the Visconti wanted him at Milan, the Scaligers at Verona, the Cararresi at Padua, the lord high Seneschal at Naples; the Florentines asked him to accept a chair in their new university, the Venetians offered him a house. All this honour ostensibly shown to Petrarch was really the salutation to the new dawn.

The strength of this cla.s.sic revival, though most effective in literature and the arts, is perhaps still more noticeable in the political career of another young man of genius who had as pa.s.sionate a love of cla.s.sic Rome as Petrarch himself. Cola di Rienzo (1314-54) was an imaginative, poetical dreamer, who fed his youth on Livy, Cicero, Seneca, and delighted to muse on the glories of Julius Csar and to study the antique monuments of Rome. His public career began as envoy on one of the unsuccessful emba.s.sies which used to entreat the Popes to return to the deserted city. Cola was handsome, eloquent, ardent, a sort of Don Quixote, and roused the Roman populace to share his dreams and to believe in the possible restoration of the Senate and People of Rome to their ancient grandeur. He led the people against the n.o.bility, forced the riotous barons to submit to his rule as tribune of the people, and established a government of law in the city; but his ambition flew far beyond the city walls. He dreamed of the confederation of all Italy under the lead of Rome. He would have smiled at limiting imitation of the great days of old to the arts or to literature; he intended to restore the Roman Republic as it had been in its high and palmy days.

His wild aspirations throw a backward light over the history of the city of Rome throughout the Middle Ages, and over that republicanism which played so important a part in the struggle between Empire and Papacy, and light up the old theories under which the Roman people claimed the right to elect both Emperor and Pope; just as Boniface's bulls portray the outworn papal theories, and Dante's "De Monarchia" the dead Imperial beliefs.

Cola's first step was to invite all the princes and communes of Italy to attend a general meeting in Rome; and as all Italy had responded to Petrarch's appeal in behalf of the cla.s.sic past, so did she, for the moment, respond to Cola's appeal. Milan, Genoa, Lucca, Florence, Siena, and the smaller cities nearer by, answered with apparent sympathy.

Petrarch was mad with delight, and hailed Cola as Camillus, Brutus, Romulus. For the moment, such was the strength of cla.s.sical illusion, the dream seemed to be real. Cola wrote to the Florentines (September, 1347), "We have made all citizens of the states of Holy Italy Roman citizens, and we admit them to the right of election. The affairs of Empire have naturally devolved upon the Holy Roman People. We desire to renew and strengthen the old union with all the princ.i.p.alities and states of Holy Italy, and to deliver Holy Italy itself from its condition of abject subjection and to restore it to its old state and to its ancient glory. We mean to exalt to the position of Emperor some Italian whom zeal for the union of his race shall stir to high efforts for Italy."[15]

Cola's great idea was destined to wait five hundred years for fulfilment. The time was not ripe, and he himself not a suitable instrument. His career was brief. He became not only vainglorious but also very cruel. He grew fat, and lost the charm of youth and novelty.

The n.o.bles and the upper cla.s.ses of Rome hated him; and when, in need of money, he increased the taxes, the Roman populace turned upon him, stormed the Capitol, captured him as he tried to slink away in disguise, and murdered him on the steps leading down from the palace. His head was cut off, his body was dragged through the streets and burned, and the ashes scattered to the winds.

The mad dream had been, in its nature, evanescent. The cla.s.sical heritage was too purely intellectual, too remote from existing needs, to be able to shape politics. But that fourteen hundred years after the death of Julius Csar, Cola should have been able to establish himself as Roman tribune on the Capitoline Hill, and to act as if the Republic of the days of the Gracchi had been but temporarily superseded, shows the immense influence of Rome over the medival imagination, and helps us to understand the autocratic power of the cla.s.sical heritage in shaping and directing the intellectual revolution in Italy.

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