The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0087/00870.txt

Text File | 1992-08-07 | 32KB | 481 lines

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$Title{History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Part IX}
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$Author{Hallam, Henry}
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$Subject{pisa
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Title:       History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Book:        Book III: The History Of Italy
Author:      Hallam, Henry

Part IX

     It is sufficiently manifest, from this sketch of the domestic history of
Florence, how far that famous republic was from affording a perfect security
for civil rights or general tranquility.  They who hate the name of free
constitutions may exult in her internal dissensions, as in those of Athens or
Rome.  But the calm philosopher will not take his standard of comparison from
ideal excellence, nor even from that practical good which has been reached in
our own unequalled constitution, and in some of the republics of modern
Europe.  The men and the institutions of the fourteenth century are to be
measured by their contemporaries.  Who would not rather have been a citizen of
Florence than a subject of the Visconti?  In a superficial review of history
we are sometimes apt to exaggerate the vices of free states, and to lose sight
of those inherent in tyrannical power. The bold censoriousness of republican
historians, and the cautious servility of writers under an absolute monarchy,
conspire to mislead us as to the relative prosperity of nations.  Acts of
outrage and tumultuous excesses in a free state are blazoned in minute detail,
and descend to posterity; the deeds of tyranny are studiously and perpetually
suppressed. Even those historians who have no particular motives for
concealment turn away from the monotonous and disgusting crimes of tyrants.
"Deeds of cruelty," it is well observed by Matteo Villani, after relating an
action of Bernabo Visconti, "are little worthy of remembrance; yet let me be
excused for having recounted one out of many, as an example of the peril to
which men are exposed under the yoke of an unbounded tyranny." ^z The reign of
Bernabo afforded abundant instances of a like kind.  Second only to Eccelin
among the tyrants of Italy, he rested the security of his dominion upon
tortures and death, and his laws themselves enact the protraction of capital
punishment through forty days of suffering. ^a His nephew, Giovanni Maria, is
said, with a madness like that of Nero or Commodus, to have coursed the
streets of Milan by night with blood-hounds, ready to chase and tear any
unlucky passenger. ^b Nor were other Italian principalities free from similar
tyrants, though none, perhaps, upon the whole, so odious as the Visconti.  The
private history of many families, such, for instance, as the Scala and the
Gonzaga, is but a series of assassinations.  The ordinary vices of mankind
assumed a tint of portentous guilt in the palaces of Italian princes.  Their
revenge was fratricide, and their lust was incest.

[Footnote z: P. 434.]

[Footnote a: Sismondi, t. vi. p. 316; Corio, Ist. di Milano, p. 486.]

[Footnote b: Corio, p. 595.]

     Though fertile and populous, the proper district of Florence was by no
means extensive.  An independent nobility occupied the Tuscan Appennines with
their castles.  Of these the most conspicuous were the counts of Guidi, a
numerous and powerful family, who possessed a material influence in the
affairs of Florence and of all Tuscany till the middle of the fourteenth
century, and some of whom preserved their independence much longer. ^c To the
south, the republics of Arezzo, Perugia, and Siena; to the west, those of
Volterra, Pisa, and Lucca; Prato and Pistoja to the north, limited the
Florentine territory.  It was late before these boundaries were removed.
During the usurpations of Uguccione at Pisa, and of Castruccio at Lucca, the
republic of Florence was always unsuccessful in the field.  After the death of
Castruccio she began to act more vigorously, and engaged in several
confederacies with the powers of Lombardy, especially in a league with Venice
against Mastino della Scala.  But the republic made no acquisition of
territory till 1351, when she annexed the small city of Prato, not ten miles
from her walls. ^d Pistoja, though still nominally independent, received a
Florentine garrison about the same time. Several additions were made to the
district by fair purchase from the nobility of the Apennines, and a few by
main force.  The territory was still very little proportioned to the fame and
power of Florence.  The latter was founded upon her vast commercial opulence.
Every Italian state employed mercenary troops, and the richest was, of course,
the most powerful.  In the war against Mastino della Scala in 1336 the
revenues of Florence are reckoned by Villani at three hundred thousand
florins, which, as he observes, is more than the king of Naples or of Aragon
possesses. ^e The expenditure went at that time very much beyond the receipt,
and was defrayed by loans from the principal mercantile firms, which were
secured by public funds, the earliest instance, I believe, of that financial
resource. ^f Her population was computed at ninety thousand souls.  Villani
reckons the district at eighty thousand men, I suppose those only of military
age; but this calculation must have been too large, even though he included,
as we may presume, the city in his estimate. ^g Tuscany, though well
cultivated and flourishing, does not contain by any means so great a number of
inhabitants in that space at present.

[Footnote c: G. Villani, l. v. c. 37, 41, et alibi.  The last of the counts
Guidi, having unwisely embarked in a confederacy against Florence, was obliged
to give up his ancient patrimony in 1440.]

[Footnote d: M. Villani, p. 72.  This was rather a measure of usurpation; but
the republic had some reason to apprehend that Prato might fall into the hands
of the Visconti.  Their conduct towards Pistoja was influenced by the same
motive; but it was still further removed from absolute justice; p. 91.]

[Footnote e: G. Villani, l. ix. c. 90-93.  These chapters contain a very full
and interesting statement of the revenues, expenses, population, and internal
condition of Florence at that time.  Part of them is extracted by M. Sismondi,
t. v. p. 365.  The gold florin was worth about ten shillings of our money.
The district of Florence was not then much larger than Middlesex.]

[Footnote f: G. Villani, l. xi. c. 49.]

[Footnote g: C. 93.  Troviamo diligentemente, che in questi tempi avea in
Firenze circa a 25 mila uomini da portare arme da 15 in 70 anni - Stimavasi
avere in Firenze da 90 mila bocche tra uomini e femine e fanciulli, per l'
avviso del pane bisognava al continuo alla citta.  These proportions of 25,000
men between fifteen and seventy, and of 90,000 souls, are as nearly as
possible consonant to modern calculation, of which Villani knew nothing, which
confirms his accuracy; though M. Sismondi asserts, p. 369, that the city
contained 150,000 inhabitants, on no better authority, as far as appears, than
that of Boccaccio, who says that 100,000 perished in the great plague of 1348,
which was generally supposed to destroy two out of three.  But surely two
vague suppositions are not to be combined, in order to overthrow such
testimony as that of Villani, who seems to have consulted all registers and
other authentic documents in his reach.

     What Villani says of the population of the district may lead us to reckon
it, perhaps, at about 180,000 souls, allowing the baptisms to be one in thirty
of the population.  Ragionavasi in questi tempi avere nel contado e distretto
di Firenze de 80 mila uomini.  Troviamo del piovano, che battezzava i
fanciulli, imperoche per ogni maschio, che battezzava in San Giovanni, per
avere il novero, metea una fava nera, e per ogni femina una bianca, trovo, ch'
erano l' anno in questi tempi dalle 5,800 in sei mila, avanzando le piu volte
il sesso masculino da 300 in 500 per anno.  Baptisms could only be performed
in one public font, at Florence, Pisa, and some other cities.