Europe in the Sixteenth Century 1494-1598 Part 2

The success of the French had been so extraordinary, that Alfonso might well feel dismay. He knew that his subjects hated him with a deadly hatred, and, with the cowardice so common to cruel men, he now became a victim of superst.i.tious terror. Declaring that 'the very stones and trees cried France,' he resigned his crown to his son and fled to Sicily (February 3, 1495).

| Charles enters Naples. Feb. 23, 1495.

His son, Ferrante II., showed more spirit and joined his army at San Germano. Here a mountain pa.s.s and the river Garigliano offered a favourable opportunity for defence; but the news of the savage conduct of the French at the storming of Monte San Giovanni spread terror among his troops, and they fell back on Capua. A revolt at Naples recalled Ferrante, to find that his general, Trivulzio, had made terms with Charles. Naples now rose again, and the luckless King, declaring that he suffered for the sins of his fathers, not his own, and promising to come to the aid of his faithless subjects, should the barbarity of the French cause them to wish for his return, sailed for Sicily (February 21). On the following day Charles entered Naples, and within a few weeks all the country, with the exception of one or two fortresses, was in his hands.

| Reaction against the French.

'The success of Charles,' says Commines, 'must be considered the work of Providence.' Almost without breaking a lance, he had traversed the length of Italy and won a kingdom. It seemed as if his boast, that he would lead a crusade against the Turks and conquer Constantinople, would be fulfilled. But his triumph was short-lived, and 'his fortunes changed as suddenly as the day rises in Norway.' The French, puffed up by their success, 'scarce considered the Italians to be men,' and alienated them by their cruelties and licence. Charles took no steps to secure his conquest, but betook himself to his pleasures. No pains were taken to conciliate the Neapolitan n.o.bles; all offices were conferred on Frenchmen, and the promised remission of taxes was never fulfilled.

| The League of Venice. March 31, 1495.

Meanwhile a storm was gathering in the North. Ludovico had long repented of his rashness in inviting the French, and feared that Louis of Orleans might lay claim to Milan; the Pope dreaded a General Council, and was only too glad to raise up enemies against the King; Venice, which had at first laughed at the expedition, became seriously alarmed; Ferdinand the Catholic had already remonstrated with Charles, and began to apprehend an attack on Sicily; the dignity of Maximilian was ruffled by the preponderance of the House of Valois. Negotiations between these powers had long been going on at Venice. The conquest of Naples brought matters to a climax, and on March 31, they formed the League of Venice, ostensibly to defend their territories and to prepare for war against the Turks. Guicciardini a.s.serts that they secretly engaged to drive the French from Italy. Their object was more probably to protect themselves against further French aggression.

Florence alone refused to break faith with the French, hoping to regain Pisa through their help.

| Charles retreats.

With incredible folly, Charles delayed till May, in the vain hopes of receiving the papal invest.i.ture of Naples. Then hastily receiving the crown at the hands of the Archbishop of Naples, he began his retreat with scarce 10,000 men (May 20). The Count of Montpensier, 'a good soldier,' says Commines, 'but with little wisdom, and so indolent that he did not rise till mid-day,' was left as viceroy. Stephen de Vers, now Duke of Nola, was made governor of Gaeta and controller of the finances, and Stuart d'Aubigny, the best soldier of them all, governor of Calabria. As Charles approached Rome, Alexander fled to Orvieto; and thence to Perugia. Arrived in Tuscany, Charles found all in confusion. Siena, Lucca, and Pisa had formed a league against Florence, and pleaded for French a.s.sistance. The Florentines, who had reformed their government after the advice of Savonarola, demanded the rest.i.tution of the cities temporarily ceded to the King. Charles, incapable of decision, put them off with negotiations, and leaving French garrisons in the ceded towns, crossed the Apennines, June 23.

| The Battle of Fornovo. July 6, 1495.

But the French were not to escape from Italy without a battle. Their fleet on the west coast protected them from the attack of Venetian or Spanish ships, but on the mainland the forces of Milan and of Venice under the Marquis of Mantua met them at Fornovo on the Taro.

The army of the League had the advantage of numbers and position, and had they shown determination, might have inflicted a decisive defeat. But the Italians were little eager to bring the French to bay, and Charles, wisely wishing to pursue his march, pushed on his vanguard. It was met by the Milanese troops under the Count Cajazzo, but the attack was feeble and easily repulsed. This, according to Guicciardini, was due to Ludovico. Fearing that too complete a victory might place him in the power of the Venetian troops, which were far more numerous than his own, and that too crushing a defeat might draw on him the vengeance of the French, he had ordered his captain not to press the French too closely. Meanwhile the a.s.sault on the centre and rearguard was far more vigorous, and Charles was in momentary danger.

He was, however, saved by the enemies' want of discipline; many of the Italians turned to plunder his camp, the reserves did not attack, and the French king, with loss of baggage but not of prestige, was able to pursue his way.

| Treaty of Vercelli. Oct. 10, 1495.

At Asti, Charles was delayed by the question of Novara. Louis of Orleans had occupied that town in June, only to be besieged by Ludovico. In vain, Louis begged for instant aid. Charles would not stir till reinforcements came, and meanwhile solaced himself with amorous intrigues. Fortunately Ludovico was anxious to get the French out of Italy, and in October came to terms. Louis surrendered the town, but Ludovico, breaking with the League, promised to give free pa.s.sage to the French, and even to a.s.sist them whenever they might march against Naples. This, however, seemed unlikely for the present.

| Charles leaves Italy and his conquests melt away.

No sooner had Charles turned his back on Naples than his conquests began to melt away. The Neapolitans, according to Guicciardini, were the most inconstant people of Italy, and the follies of the French reminded them of Ferrante's words. Ferrante accordingly returned at the end of May, aided by troops sent by Ferdinand the Catholic under Gonzalvo de Cordova, the most brilliant of the Spanish generals.

Defeated by Stuart d'Aubigny at Seminara, and driven to Messina, he directed a second attack on Naples. The city rose, the gates were opened, and Montpensier took refuge in the castle (July 7), which he was forced to evacuate shortly after. The Venetians, in return for money, were allowed to occupy Monopoli, Otranto, Brindisi, and Trani. Montpensier struggled on for some time longer, hoping for reinforcements from France. But Charles was immersed in pleasure; Louis of Orleans, who was heir-presumptive to the throne, refused to leave France, and finally Montpensier capitulated at Atella (July 21, 1496). D'Aubigny, though sick with fever, held out a little longer, but by the close of the year 1496, all was lost to France. Ferrante did not live to see the end. He died in September, and his uncle Federigo quietly succeeded him. Thus five kings had sat on the throne of Naples within three years.

Of Charles' acquisitions, the only traces which remained were the cities ceded to him by Florence. These should have been restored on his retreat, but in hopes of return, Charles had evaded his promise, and the officers he had left in command proceeded to violate it entirely. Leghorn was indeed surrendered in September, but Sarzana was sold to the Genoese, Pietra-Santa to Lucca, and the citadel of Pisa to the Pisans. Of these Pisa was only regained in 1509, after a prolonged struggle which exhausted the republic and contributed materially to its fall, Pietra-Santa not till the Medici had been restored in 1513, and Sarzana not at all. Thus the ally of France was the one to suffer most.

| Death of Charles VIII. April 7, 1498.

Charles VIII. survived the Italian expedition scarce three years.

Always indulging in dreams of a renewed attack on Naples, he was at first too much engrossed in his pleasures to carry them into effect.

During the last few months of his life he had, according to Commines, 'resolved within himself to live a more strict and religious life.'

If so, death antic.i.p.ated him. While staying at the castle of Amboise, which was being embellished by Neapolitan artists, he struck his head against the lintel of a door, and died at the age of twenty-seven of a fit of apoplexy which resulted from it (April 1498).

Contemptible in mind, though with great bodily strength, inspired with chivalrous ideas which he had not the capacity to execute, a victim to profligacy, it is strange that he should have played such a leading part in history, and yet it does not seem altogether unfit that those Italian wars, which caused such infinite misery in Italy, and were so disastrous to the best interests of France, should be a.s.sociated with his name. His children had all died in infancy, and the crown accordingly pa.s.sed to his cousin and brother-in-law, Louis, Duke of Orleans, then a man of the age of thirty-six.

-- 2. _Savonarola and Florence._

A month after the death of Charles VIII., the Friar Savonarola, who had done so much to give an air of mystery to the Italian expedition, fell a victim to his enemies.

| Savonarola, Prior of San Marco, 1491.

This remarkable man was born at Ferrara in 1452. Having gradually won a reputation as a preacher of wonderful power and zeal, he was in the year 1491, elected Prior of the Dominican Convent of San Marco in Florence. In spite of the independent att.i.tude which he here a.s.sumed, Lorenzo showed him no ill favour, and even summoned the friar to his deathbed to ask a blessing.[9] In all probability, however, Savonarola would have remained a great revivalist preacher and nothing more, had it not been for the expedition of Charles VIII. The constant theme of his sermons had been that the scourge of G.o.d should visit Italy to punish her for her sins and purify her by fire. The French invasion, and the rapid success of Charles were looked upon as the fulfilment of his prophecy, and Savonarola became one of the leading men in Florence.

| Savonarola and the revolution of 1494.

In the overthrow of the Medici he did not take an active part, but on Piero's flight (November 1494) he was sucked into the politics of the city. Supported by his powerful advocacy from the pulpit in the Duomo, and guided by his advice, the popular party, to which he naturally belonged, was able to introduce and carry a reform of the Const.i.tution. By the decree of December 23, the government was to be as follows:--

A permanent Great Council (_Consiglio Maggiore_) was to be composed of all eligible 'citizens,' that is, of all citizens of the age of thirty whose father, grandfather, or great-grandfather had been elected to the greater offices of state. This Council, numbering some 3000, was to elect out of its own members a 'senate' (_Consiglio degli ottanta_), holding office for six months, and forming with the Consiglio Maggiore the legislative body of the city. Further, the Great Council was to nominate the Signory and other magistrates out of a list presented by a body of nominators, themselves elected in the Council, and to hear appeals on criminal cases. The Signory remained as it was before, composed of the Gonfalonier and the eight priors: it was to be elected every two months, while the Ten of Liberty and Peace (_Dieci di Liberta e Pace_), in whose hands lay the conduct of foreign affairs, were to hold office for six months.

The const.i.tution can scarcely be called a democratic one, for at least 7000 citizens were disenfranchised. In common with most theorists of his day, Savonarola admired the stability of Venice, and vainly thought to secure this for his native city by establishing a closed and permanent electoral and legislative body, the Consiglio Maggiore, after the Venetian type. Nevertheless, the government was preferable to the old system, by which the city, a republic in name, had fallen into the control of a single family and their clique.

Savonarola did not content himself with this. From his pulpit he insisted on moral reformation as the necessary basis of true liberty, and pressed for a general amnesty which might allay the dangers of party strife. In thus becoming a politician, Savonarola protested that he acted unwillingly. In his sermon of December 21, 1494, he declared that he had pleaded with G.o.d to be excused from meddling with the government, but had been bidden to go on and establish a holy city, which favoured virtue and looked to Christ as its master.

| Savonarola becomes a.s.sociated with a political party | and arouses enmity at home and abroad.

That Savonarola was sincere we may well believe. None the less the interference in politics was a fatal error. Thereby he became closely a.s.sociated with a party, responsible for its faults, and dependent on its success. This weakened his position as a reformer, while his adherents had henceforth to count as enemies all those who disliked his attempts at a reform of morals. A serious opposition was thus aroused. The Bigi (the Greys) worked for the restoration of the Medici; the Arrabiati (the enraged), while casting off the Medici, objected to the changes in the Const.i.tution; the Compagnacci (companions) disliked the preacher's interference with their pleasures. These three groups, working at first with very different aims, were eventually united together in common opposition to the Piagnoni (weepers), the followers of the friar. But if Savonarola's interference in the politics of the city weakened his position in Florence, the att.i.tude of his party drew down upon him the enmity of foreign statesmen. The desire to regain Pisa was an overmastering pa.s.sion at Florence, and there was nothing she would not suffer to attain that end. She had refused to join the League of Venice, in the hopes of regaining Pisa from the hands of Charles. These hopes had been disappointed. Still the adherents of the friar headed by Francesco Valori, clung fondly to the dream that Charles would once more enter Italy, and at last fulfil his promise. In these expectations they were supported by the preaching of Savonarola, who announced that Italy must yet suffer much, but that eventually Florence should after much tribulation be saved by G.o.d. By thus refusing to join the League, Florence drew down upon her the enmity of Ludovico, of Maximilian, of Venice, and of the Pope. The three first in turn supported the Pisans with arms, and, in October 1496, Maximilian himself came to Italy. But mutual jealousies prevented united action, and the expedition of Maximilian ended in a fiasco.

| Alexander VI. interferes. Sept. 1495.

The opposition of the Pope was to prove more serious. Alexander VI.

cared but little for the denunciation of the reformer against the vices of the times, but his interference with politics he would not brook. Accordingly, in September 1495, he had suspended him from preaching. Savonarola at first obeyed, and was silent during the following Advent. But, in the Lent of 1496, the Signory, then composed of the friar's partisans, ordered him to resume his preaching. He complied, and in the Carnival of 1496, the enthusiasm of the Piagnoni broke forth in religious processions. The children swept the streets in thick array, bearing olive-branches in their hands and chanting hymns. This disobedience Savonarola justified, by declaring that no papal prohibitions should move him from his duty, and that if they contradicted the Law of Love set forth in the Gospel, they must be withstood, since 'a Pope that errs does not represent the Church,' of which he claimed to be a loyal son. Even this bold conduct did not immediately rouse Alexander--nay, some would fix this as the date when he tried to win the friar by the offer of a cardinal's hat. If so, Savonarola contemptuously rejected the offer, and the Pope was driven to take further measures.

| Reaction against Savonarola.

The Tuscan congregation of the Dominican order had, at Savonarola's request, been separated from that of Lombardy. This had given him a position of exceptional independence, which aroused the jealousy of many of his order. Alexander now united the convent of San Marco with a new formed Tusco-Roman congregation (Nov. 7, 1496). This was clearly within the competence of the Pope, it was popular with the order generally, and the Pope hoped to strike at the friar through a superior of his own brotherhood. Savonarola, however, refused to obey, and was supported by some 250 of his brethren of San Marco. The Carnival of 1497 followed. Here the enthusiasm of the Piagnoni reached its highest pitch. The children going from house to house begged for 'vanities.' Cards, trinkets, immodest books, pictures, works of art, were handed up, and these, heaped promiscuously in one common pyre, were solemnly burned in the Piazza. These and other extravagances, which unfortunately cannot be denied,[10] disgusted many, and added to the number of the friar's enemies. The reaction was seen in the election of Bernardo del Nero, a secret adherent of the Medici, to the office of Gonfalonier, March 1497; in the unsuccessful attempt of Piero to regain Florence in April, and in a riot in the Duomo, raised by the Compagnacci, while Savonarola preached, on Ascension Day, May 4.

| The Pope excommunicates him. May 1497.

Influenced, perhaps, by the knowledge that Savonarola was losing ground, Alexander now decided to strike. After a vain appeal to the Florentines, in which he even promised to regain Pisa for them if they would join the League, a promise which they prudently distrusted, he declared that they were being misled by the prophecies of a chattering friar, and proceeded to excommunicate him, May 1497. The Signory meanwhile had attempted to stay the excitement in Florence by forbidding all preaching either from Savonarola or his opponents, and things remained more quiet for a time.

| The Piagnoni regain power.

The elections of July, however, again gave the Piagnoni a majority in the Signory; and in August, the city was startled by the news that five of the leading citizens stood accused of complicity with the Medicean plot of the preceding April. On condemnation, they were refused their right of appeal to the Great Council, contrary to the express provision of the new Const.i.tution, and executed. The condemned belonged to Savonarola's opponents, and some of them, notably Bernardo del Nero, had lately held office. Their execution therefore, for a time, materially strengthened Savonarola's position, and from this date until the ensuing March the Signory was filled with Piagnoni.

Accordingly, on Christmas Day, Savonarola celebrated the Ma.s.s in San Marco. In the Carnival another pyre of vanities was burnt; and on invitation by the Signory to resume his preaching, the friar mounted the pulpit of the Duomo with Consecrated Host in hand, called on G.o.d to strike him dead if he deserved excommunication, and declared that if the instrument by which G.o.d ruled the world withdrew himself from G.o.d, he was but broken iron, and need not be obeyed.

| Final reaction against Savonarola.

But Savonarola had at last miscalculated his strength. Religious enthusiasm is avowedly subject to relapses, and such a relapse now came on Florence. The extravagances of his followers, and his own, had swelled the number of his enemies. Many originally well disposed towards him were shocked at his open defiance of the Pope, and at his daring to administer the sacrament when excommunicated. The Franciscan order, always jealous of the Dominicans, now redoubled their attacks, led by Savonarola's old rival Fra Mariano de Genazzano. Even the majority of the Dominicans outside San Marco declared against him.

Of this reaction his enemies were quick enough to take advantage.

Accordingly the Signory of March, 1498, only counted three of his adherents among its members. Still many of the Dieci, who having been elected for six months did not leave office, were in his favour. When therefore Alexander threatened the city with an interdict, unless Savonarola ceased preaching and came to Rome for absolution, the Government adopted a middle course; they persuaded the friar to cease preaching, yet would not force him to leave for Rome.

| The ordeal by fire.

It is doubtful whether in any case Alexander would now have stayed his hand, for Savonarola had begun to speak of a General Council, and it was known that Charles VIII. was likely to support the cry, while the opponents of Savonarola, more especially the Franciscans of Santa Croce, were open-mouthed for his destruction. In any case the fatal suggestion of the ordeal by fire precipitated the crisis. This, whether first suggested by the Franciscans or no, was eagerly taken up by them. 'I believe I shall be burned,' said the Franciscan, Francesco da Puglia, 'but I am ready to die to free this people. If Savonarola does not burn, you may hold him to be a true prophet.'

Savonarola himself declined to thus tempt G.o.d, but Fra Domenico da Pescia, his most faithful follower, declared his willingness to stand his champion. Savonarola could scarcely refuse; the Signory after much debate consented; and on April 7, an eager crowd a.s.sembled on the Piazza to witness the ordeal. It may be questioned whether either party expected that the ordeal would really be essayed; in any case it was the Franciscans who raised objections. Declaring that they feared magic on Savonarola's part, they first demanded that his champion should lay aside his chasuble and his vestments; they then objected to his bearing the crucifix, and finally insisted that he should not carry the Host into the fire. Here at last Savonarola refused compliance. Meanwhile the day wore on. It began to rain, and finally the Signory postponed the trial. The mob was now mad with disappointment, and next day the Compagnacci seized the opportunity to attack San Marco (April 8). Francesco Valori, the firmest supporter of Savonarola, who had often held office as Gonfalonier, was slain among others. The brethren, however, stood firm at San Marco until the Signory intervened and arrested Savonarola and his two chief supporters, Fra Domenico and Fra Silvestro.

| Execution of the Friar. May 23, 1498.