Europe in the Sixteenth Century 1494-1598 Part 7

| Charles makes Peace of Noyon with Francis, Aug. 13, | 1516, which Maximilian accepts.

It was now the aim of Wolsey, who had gained his cardinal's hat in the previous year, to oppose the predominant power of France by an alliance between Charles, Maximilian, the Pope, and the Swiss. But Leo for the present preferred the French alliance, and Charles was not yet prepared for a struggle with Francis. His position was by no means secure; his succession in Spain was disliked by many of the Spaniards; the Netherlands lay exposed to the attacks of the Duke of Gueldres, and of Robert de la Marck, the Lord of Bouillon, both ever glad of a pretext for war. Finally, with all his t.i.tles, he was sadly in need of money. He was therefore in no position to contest the possession of Milan, and, following the advice of Chievres, he concluded the Peace of Noyon with the victor of Marignano (August 13, 1516). Charles was betrothed to Louise, the infant daughter of Francis; the French retained Milan, but surrendered all claims to Naples; Charles promised to restore Spanish Navarre to the line of Albret; Venice agreed to offer 200,000 ducats to Maximilian for Brescia and Verona, but in the event of his refusing, the two Kings might adopt what policy they liked with regard to Venetian affairs.

| Henry VIII. makes Treaty of London, Oct. 1518. Europe | for the moment at Peace.

The Peace of Noyon was a blow to Wolsey. In vain did he try to form an alliance with Maximilian, the Venetians, and the Swiss. The Emperor was ever ready with fantastic projects calculated to deceive the simple Sir Robert Wingfield, Henry's representative at his court, who was an amba.s.sador of the old generation, and did not fathom the wiles of the new diplomacy. But Richard Pace, Wolsey's special agent, warned his master against the credulity of the good knight, whom he humorously describes as 'Summer will be green,' and against the shiftiness and money greed of Maximilian. Eventually, in December, Maximilian accepted the terms of the treaty of Noyon, and surrendered Brescia and Verona to Venice. Nor was Wolsey more successful with the Swiss. In November, in return for gold, they made a 'perpetual peace' with the French at Friburg. England seemed to be isolated once more. But the desire of Francis to recover Tournay, which had been seized by Henry VIII. in 1513, gave Wolsey an advantage, and by the Treaty of London (October, 1518), Henry surrendered that town. The alliance between the two countries was confirmed by the usual marriage arrangements. The English princess Mary, a child of two, was betrothed to the dauphin, who was not yet one year old. Thus England had at least saved herself from isolation, and Europe was at peace.

The Pope, when he dissolved the Lateran Council in the March of the preceding year, had declared that schism had been ended, that the necessary reforms in the Church had been accomplished, and that he had good hopes that Europe, now at peace, might unite against the Turk. The powers of Europe openly professed their intention so to do; indulgences were promised, and papal collectors attempted to raise money. Yet Europe was on the threshold of a renewed struggle between the Houses of Hapsburg and of Valois, which was to last with some slight pauses for another eighty years; and already Luther had affixed his famous 'Theses' to the church door at Wittenberg, which were to lead to a schism such as Rome had never dreamt of.

| Effect of the Wars of the League of Cambray on the | decline of Venice.

| Real causes of the decline of Venice.

| The old routes of commerce altered by discovery of | route round the Cape.

The series of treaties just mentioned may be said to have closed the desultory war which had commenced with the League of Cambray.

It is often said that the League ruined Venice, yet we find that she still retained almost all her dominions on the mainland, with the exception of the Apulian towns and a few districts surrendered to the Pope, and that the Adda still remained her boundary on the west. The long war had no doubt severely strained her resources and her exhausted finances, but these might have been restored. We must therefore look elsewhere for the causes of the decline of Venice. In the first place, the condition of politics had changed. The great monarchical states of Europe, more especially France and Spain, had become consolidated. Venice could no longer hope to compete with them; her resources on the mainland were not sufficient to cope with the armies which these powerful nations could put into the field; and in any case she must have contented herself with a subordinate position.

We must also remember the strain of the Turkish wars. Europe, ever ready to accuse Venice of treachery to the cause of Christendom, turned deaf ears to her earnest entreaties for a.s.sistance. Thus Venice was left almost alone to face the Turk. During the struggle, which continued with some few intermissions throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Venice slowly lost ground. She had to surrender Cyprus in 1571, and Candia in 1669, after a desperate defence of four-and-twenty years. The expenses of these wars, added to those she had just incurred, would have been difficult to meet, even if her trade had been left to her. But even this was slipping away. Her wealth had depended chiefly on her commerce with the East and on her carrying-trade between East and West. The old routes of Eastern commerce had been mainly three. First, from Central Asia to the Black Sea, and thence to the Mediterranean; secondly, by the Persian Gulf and the Euphrates Valley, to the Levant; and lastly, to Cairo and Alexandria from the Red Sea. Thence goods were shipped in Venetian galleys to Venice, and were sent over the Alps, generally by the Brenner Pa.s.s, to the Inn, the Danube, the Maine, and the Rhine, and thence to Bruges, or were conveyed round by sea in the 'Flanders galleys.' But at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Eastern routes to Venice became closed. The Turks, after their conquest of Constantinople, in 1453, cut off her trade with the Levant, while the advance of the Portuguese on India destroyed the trade through Egypt.

| Discoveries of the Portuguese.

The Genoese had been the pioneers of exploration on the western coast of Africa. They had rediscovered the Canaries and the island of Madeira, which had been known to the Carthaginians. But their attention had been directed to the Mediterranean, their strength exhausted in struggles with their Venetian rivals, and in the fourteenth century the Portuguese had reoccupied these islands. The great period of Portuguese discovery dates from the time of Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460). This son of John I. of Portugal built an observatory at Sagres, on Cape St. Vincent, the extreme south-west promontory of Europe, and devoted himself to the scientific study of geography, and to the encouragement of discovery. Other motives were not wanting; the desire to avenge himself on the Moors, the hereditary foes of his country, and greed for gold dust, and the profits of the slave-trade, in which the Prince was the first to engage. In one expedition no less than two hundred and sixteen negro slaves were brought to Portugal, of whom one-fifth were a.s.signed to Henry as his share; 'of which,' says the chronicler, 'he had great joy because of their salvation, who otherwise would have been destined to perdition.'

Under his influence, the Portuguese planted colonies at Porto Santo and Madeira, discovered the Azores, and the Cape de Verde Islands, and began to creep down the western coast of Africa. In 1442, Prince Henry obtained from Pope Martin V. a grant of all kingdoms and lordships from Cape Bojador to India. The hopes of reaching India spurred him on. In 1479, Ferdinand of Spain, still occupied at home with the Moors of Granada, agreed not to interfere with the exclusive right of the Portuguese to traffic and discovery on the western coast of Africa, while claiming the Canary Islands. The agreement was confirmed by the bull of Alexander VI., which gave to Portugal all newly found lands east of a line one hundred--subsequently, in 1494, extended by treaty to three hundred and seventy--leagues west of the Cape de Verde Islands.

| Defeat of Egyptian fleet by Portuguese at Diu. Feb.

| 1509.

Eight years before this bull, Bartholomew Diaz rounded the Cape, to which he gave the name of Stormy, but which his more sanguine sovereign, John II. of Portugal, called the Cape of Good Hope. In 1498, Vasco da Gama, again sailing round the Cape, crossed the Eastern Ocean, and set foot on the Malabar coast at Calicut. Shortly after, Emmanuel, King of Portugal (1495-1521), a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of 'Lord of the navigation, conquest, and commerce of aethiopia, Persia, Arabia, and India,' and sent Almeyda to India with the t.i.tle of viceroy, although he did not yet possess a foot of territory there.

The Portuguese now pushed steadily up the western coast of India, defeated the princes who opposed them, and began to monopolise the trade. In 1505, the first Portuguese ships appeared at Antwerp, offering eastern wares at a cheaper rate than they could be got at Bruges, the market for the goods which came overland from Venice. This advance seriously threatened the Venetian trade through Egypt, then chiefly in the hands of Arabian and Moorish merchants. Accordingly, in 1509, the Sultan of Cairo, in answer to an appeal from some of the petty princes of the Malabar coast, despatched an expedition from Suez against the Portuguese, which the Venetians, conscious that their interests were involved, a.s.sisted. But in February 1509, three months before the battle of Agnadello, the expedition was defeated by Almeyda in the harbour of Diu. His successor Albuquerque fixed the centre of the Portuguese rule at Goa, and occupied Ormuz, an important port on the Persian Gulf. Henceforth the advance of the Portuguese was unchecked. By the close of the sixteenth century not only did they control the commerce of the coasts of Africa, Arabia, and the western coast of India, but they had planted themselves at Ceylon and in Bengal, had opened up a trade with China and j.a.pan, and, above all, had occupied the true 'Spice Islands' which cl.u.s.ter round Borneo and Celebes (1546).

Thus the same spring witnessed the fall of the Venetian military power in the battle of Agnadello, and the destruction of their trade with the East. The caravans no longer came to Cairo. The eastern goods were shipped round the Cape. The mediaeval trade-routes were revolutionised, and the carrying trade pa.s.sed from the Venetians to the Portuguese, shortly to be followed by the Dutch and English, while Antwerp took the place of Bruges as the 'entrepot' in the North.

Finally, the conquest of Egypt by Selim I. (1516) destroyed what remained of the Egyptian trade. This loss of commerce prevented Venice from recovering from her financial straits, and was the chief cause of her decline.

The effect on the internal politics of the city was also fatal. The n.o.bility, who had hitherto enriched themselves by trade, either took to banking, which could not last without the aliment of commerce, or invested their savings in land, and became an idle cla.s.s. Poverty increased, and the aristocracy of Venice was weakened by internal feuds. The rich monopolised the administration, while the less fortunate, with a majority in the Great Council, were ever attempting to overthrow their power by agitation, or by intrigues and plots, often with foreigners. Thus Venice, which had long been the admiration of Europe for the stability of her government, and the honour and patriotism of her n.o.bility, became the victim of selfishness, corruption, and conspiracy. It is this which explains the growing power of 'The Ten.' This executive committee, an excrescence on the original const.i.tution, first organised for temporary objects in 1310, a.s.sumed more and more the character of a committee of public safety, and with the three inquisitors, created in 1539 to deal more efficiently with treason, gave to the government a character of mystery, suspicion, and cruelty, hitherto unknown. A loss of moral tone accompanied this decline. As the wealth of the state decreased, the extravagance, both public and private, grew. At no date were the public pageants so magnificent, or the private luxury so unbridled. In more vital questions of morality, though Venice had never maintained a high standard, even for Italy, she now fell lower, and private crime went almost unpunished. It would be absurd to attribute this degradation entirely to the loss of her prestige and power, but that it was increased thereby no one can doubt. Yet Venice still survived. Protected by her impregnable position, and served by her clever diplomatists, who resided at every court and carefully steered the country through the mazes of European intrigue, she continued the Queen of the Lagoons, if no longer of the Mediterranean, 'The admiredst citie of the world' for her buildings, her blue lagoons, and azure skies.

In the domain of art she had something still to give the world.

The sixteenth century is the age of t.i.tian (1477-1576), Tintoret (1512-1594), and Paolo Veronese (1532-1588), in whose works painting reached its climax of technique, of elaborate and harmonious grouping, and of gorgeous, if somewhat sensuous, colour; while to the Aldine Press we owe some of the earliest triumphs of the art of printing.

In her struggle with the Papacy, in the later decades of the sixteenth and the first of the seventeenth centuries, Venice showed the world once more, as she had in days gone by, that though she accepted her religion from Rome, she was determined and powerful enough to maintain her independence in matters of church government.

Finally, in her long contests with the Turk, notably in the wars of Cyprus (1570-1571), and of Candia (1645-1669), she displayed a heroism which recalled the greatness of her past, and which, but for the abominable selfishness of Europe, might have checked the advance of that Power which could conquer, but knew not how to rule, or to develop the resources of subject lands.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Cf. Appendix i.

[3] 'If he knows these five Latin words, _Qui nescit dissimulare nescit regnare_, it will suffice,' Louis XI. had said of his son.

[4] Cf. Appendix iii.

[5] On this cf. p. 57.

[6] Cf. Appendix ii.

[7] Cf. Machiavelli, _Discorsi_, Book i. c. 12.

[8] Cf. Savonarola 'on the Contempt of the World,' given in Villari, _Life of Savonarola_, vol. ii. App. and his Sermons, _pa.s.sim_.

[9] For the question as to the true account of the interview, cf.

Creighton, _The Papacy_, Appendix vii.

[10] Savonarola, however, was no enemy to literature and art. Cf.

Villari ii. 133.

[11] The 'taille' was a tax levied on land and income. It was first imposed by the Estates of Orleans, 1439. The n.o.bles, clergy, the officials of the sovereign courts, and other royal officials were exempt. It therefore fell exclusively on the lower cla.s.ses.

Cf. Appendix I., p. 456.

[12] Three other sons of Galeazzo Sforza, one legitimate, the other two illegitimate, were also taken prisoners and died in captivity.

[13] For the fate of the other children of Federigo, cf. Sismondi, _Hist. des Rep. Italiennes_, ix. 295.

[14]

Ferdinand of Aragon = Isabella of Castile +1516 | +1504 | +---------------+------------------------+----------------+ | | | | John = Margaret | | | +1497 _d._ of | | | Maximilian | | | | | | Joanna = Archduke Philip | | +1555 | _s._ of Maximilian | | | +1506 | | | Mary = Emanuel | | of Portugal | | +1521 | | | Charles V. Catherine (1) betrothed to Prince Arthur.

(2) Married Henry VIII.

[15] For the position of these districts, see Map of Italy.

[16] Cf. especially, Le Combat singulier entre Bayard et Don Alonzo, and Le Combat des treize contre treize, _La tresjoyeuse Histoire des gestes du bon Chevalier_, c. xxii.-xxiii. Ed. Pet.i.tot, vol.

15.

[17] His son John d'Albret, king of Navarre in right of his wife, had allied himself with Ferdinand, fearing the claims on Navarre of the younger branch, then represented by Gaston de Foix, nephew of Louis XII.

[18] The most important of these petty states in Alexander's time were the Duchy of Ferrara in the hands of Ercole, Marquis of Este.

Bologna, Giovanni Bentivoglio.

Imola and Forli, Caterina Sforza, niece of Ludovico il Moro, and widow of Girolamo Riario, nephew of Sixtus IV.

Rimini, Pandolfo Malatesta.

Faenza, Astorre Manfredi.

Pesaro, Giovanni Sforza, distant cousin of Ludovico and first husband of Lucrezia Borgia.

Camerino, Giulio Caesare Varano.

Duchy of Urbino, Guidobaldo di Montefeltro.

Sinigaglia, Francesco Maria della Rovere, a boy.

A few such as Ancona were still republics, but were weak and obscure.

[19] The best account of Lucrezia Borgia is to be found in Gregorovius' _Caesar Borgia_, a work which has been translated into French.

[20] For a review of Caesar's character, and of Machiavelli's treatment of him, cf. Creighton, vol. iv. 64; Burd, _Machiavelli_, introduction, pp. 22, 28; Villari, _Machiavelli_, ii. 154; Symonds' _Age of the Despots_, p. 275.