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$Title{History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Part XIII}
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$Author{Hallam, Henry}
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$Subject{duke
florence
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milan
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albizi}
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Title:       History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Book:        Book III: The History Of Italy
Author:      Hallam, Henry

Part XIII

     In the first year of Alfonso's Neapolitan war he was defeated and taken
prisoner by a fleet of the Genoese, who, as constant enemies of the Catalans
in all the naval warfare of the Mediterranean, had willingly lent their aid to
the Angevin party.  Genoa was at this time subject to Filippo Maria, Duke of
Milan, and her royal captive was transmitted to his court. But here the
brilliant graces of Alfonso's character won over his conqueror, who had no
reason to consider the war as his own concern.  The king persuaded him, on the
contrary, that a strict alliance with an Aragonese dynasty in Naples against
the pretensions of any French claimant would be the true policy and best
security of Milan.  That city, which he had entered as a prisoner, he left as
a friend and ally.  From this time Filippo Maria Visconti and Alfonso were
firmly united in their Italian politics, and formed one weight of the balance
which the republics of Venice and Florence kept in equipoise.  After the
succession of Sforza to the duchy of Milan the same alliance was generally
preserved.  Sforza had still more powerful reasons than his predecessor for
excluding the French from Italy, his own title being contested by the Duke of
Orleans, who derived a claim from his mother Valentine, a daughter of Gian
Galeazzo Visconti.  But the two republics were no longer disposed towards war.
Florence had spent a great deal without any advantage in her contest with
Filippo Maria; ^a and the new Duke of Milan had been the constant personal
friend of Cosmo de' Medici, who altogether influenced that republic.  At
Venice, indeed, he had been regarded with very different sentiments; the
senate had prolonged their war against Milan with redoubled animosity after
his elevation, deeming him a not less ambitious and formidable neighbor than
the Visconti.  But they were deceived in the character of Sforza. Conscious
that he had reached an eminence beyond his early hopes, he had no care but to
secure for his family the possession of Milan, without disturbing the balance
of Lombardy.  No one better knew than Sforza the faithless temper and
destructive politics of the condottieri, whose interest was placed in the
oscillations of interminable war, and whose defection might shake the
stability of any government.  Without peace it was impossible to break that
ruinous system, and accustom states to rely upon their natural resources.
Venice had little reason to expect further conquests in Lombardy; and if her
ambition had aspired the hope of them, she was summoned by a stronger call,
that of self-preservation, to defend her numerous and dispersed possessions in
the Levant against the arms of Mahomet II.  All Italy, indeed, felt the peril
that impended from that side; and these various motions occasioned a quadruple
league in 1455, between the King of Naples, the Duke of Milan, and the two
republics, for the preservation of peace in Italy.  One object of this
alliance, and the prevailing object with Alfonso, was the implied guarantee of
his succession in the kingdom of Naples to his illegitimate son Ferdinand.  He
had no lawful issue; and there seemed no reason why an acquisition of his own
valor should pass against his will to collateral heirs.  The pope, as feudal
superior of the kingdom, and the Neapolitan parliament, the sole competent
tribunal, confirmed the inheritance of Ferdinand. ^b Whatever may be thought
of the claims subsisting in the house of Anjou, there can be no question that
the reigning family of Aragon were legitimately excluded from the throne of
Naples, though force and treachery enabled them ultimately to obtain it.

[Footnote a: The war ending with the peace of Ferrara, in 1428, is said to
have cost the republic of Florence 3,500,000 florins.  Ammirato, p. 1043.]

[Footnote b: Giannone, l. xxvi. c. 2.]

     Alfonso, surnamed the Magnanimous, was by far the most accomplished
sovereign whom the fifteenth century produced.  The virtues of chivalry were
combined in him with the patronage of letters, and with more than their
patronage, a real enthusiasm for learning, seldom found in a king, and
especially in one so active and ambitious. ^c This devotion to literature was,
among the Italians of that age, almost as sure a passport to general
admiration as his more chivalrous perfection.  Magnificence in architecture
and the pageantry of a splendid court gave fresh lustre to his reign.  The
Neapolitans perceived with grateful pride that he lived almost entirely among
them, in preference to his patrimonial kingdom, and forgave the heavy taxes
which faults nearly allied to his virtues, profuseness and ambition, compelled
him to impose. ^d But they remarked a very different character in his son.
Ferdinand was as dark and vindictive as his father was affable and generous.
The barons, who had many opportunities of ascertaining his disposition, began,
immediately upon Alfonso's death, to cabal against his succession, turning
their eyes first to the legitimate branch of the family, and, on finding that
prospect not favorable, to John, titular Duke of Calabria, son of Regnier of
Anjou, who survived to protest against the revolution that had dethroned him.
[A.D. 1461.] John was easily prevailed upon to undertake an invasion of
Naples.  Notwithstanding the treaty concluded in 1455, Florence assisted him
with money, and Venice at least with her wishes; but Sforza remained unshaken
in that alliance with Ferdinand which his clear-sighted policy discerned to be
the best safeguard for his own dynasty.  A large proportion of the Neapolitan
nobility, including Orsini, Prince of Tarento, the most powerful vassal of the
crown, raised the banner of Anjou, which was sustained also by the youngest
Piccinino, the last of the great condottieri, under whose command the veterans
of former warfare rejoiced to serve.  But John underwent the fate that had
always attended his family in their long competition for that throne.  After
some brilliant successes, his want of resources, aggravated by the defection
of Genoa, on whose ancient enmity to the house of Aragon he had relied, was
perceived by the barons of his party, who, according to the practice of their
ancestors, returned one by one to the allegiance of Ferdinand.  [A.D. 1464.]

[Footnote c: A story is told, true or false, that his delight in hearing
Quintus Curtius read, without any other medicine, cured the king of an
illness.  See other proofs of his love of letters in Tiraboschi, t. vi. p.
40.]

[Footnote d: Giannone, l. xxvi.]

     The peace of Italy was little disturbed, except by a few domestic
revolutions, for several years after this Neapolitan war. ^e Even the most
short-sighted politicians were sometimes withdrawn from selfish objects by the
appalling progress of the Turks, though there was not energy enough in their
councils to form any concerted plans for their own security.  Venice
maintained a long but ultimately an unsuccessful contest with Mahomet II. for
her maritime acquisitions in Greece and Albania; and it was not till after his
death [A.D. 1481] relieved Italy from its immediate terror that the ambitious
republic endeavored to extend its territories by encroaching on the house of
Este.  Nor had Milan shown much disposition towards aggrandizement.  Francesco
Sforza had been succeeded, such is the condition of despotic governments, by
his son Galeazzo, a tyrant more execrable than the worst of the Visconti.  His
extreme cruelties, and the insolence of a debauchery that gloried in the
public dishonor of families, excited a few daring spirits to assassinate him.
[A.D. 1476.] The Milanese profited by a tyrannicide the perpetrators of which
they had not courage or gratitude to protect.  The regency of Bonne of Savoy,
mother of the infant Duke Gian Galeazzo, deserved the praise of wisdom and
moderation.  But it was overthrown in a few years by Ludovico Sforza, surnamed
the Moor, her husband's brother; who, while he proclaimed his nephew's
majority and affected to treat him as a sovereign, hardly disguised in his
conduct towards foreign states that he had usurped for himself the sole
direction of government.  [A.D. 1480.]

[Footnote e: The following distribution of a tax of 458,000 florins, imposed,
or rather proposed, in 1464, to defray the expense of a general war against
the Turks, will give a notion of the relative wealth and resources of the
Italian powers; but it is probable that the pope rated himself above his fair
contingent.  He was to pay 100,000 florins; the Venetians 100,000; Ferdinand
of Naples 80,000; the Duke of Milan 70,000; Florence 50,000; the Duke of
Modena 20,000; Siena 15,000; the Marquis of Mantua 10,000; Lucca 8,000; the
Marquis of Montferrat 5,000.  Sismondi, t.x. p. 229.  A similar assessment
occurs (p. 307) where the proportions are not quite the same.

     Perhaps it may be worth while to extract an estimate of the force of all
Christian powers, written about 1454, from Sanulto's Lives of the Doges of
Venice, p. 963.  Some parts, however, appear very questionable.  The King of
France, it is said, can raise 30,000 men-at-arms; but for any foreign
enterprise only 15,000.  The King of England can do the same. These powers are
exactly equal; otherwise one of the two would be destroyed.  The King of
Scotland "ch' e signore di grandi paesi e popoli con grande poverta," can
raise 10,000 men-at-arms: the King of Norway the same; the King of Spain
(Castile) 80,000; the King of Portugal 6,000; the Duke of Savoy 8,000; the
Duke of Milan 10,000.  The republic of Venice can pay from her revenues
10,000; that of Florence 4,000; the Pope 6,000.  The Emperor and Empire can
raise 60,000; the King of Hungary 80,000 (not men-at-arms, certainly).

     The King of France, in 1414, had 2,000,000 ducats of revenue; but now
only half.  The King of England had then as much; now only 700,000.  The King
of Spain's revenue also is reduced by the wars from 3,000,000 to 800,000.  The
Duke of Burgundy had 3,000,000; now 900,000.  The Duke of Milan had sunk from
1,000,000 to 500,000; Venice from 1,100,000, which she possessed in 1423, to
800,000; Florence from 400,000 to 200,000.

     These statistical calculations, which are not quite accurate as to
Venice, and probably much less so as to some other states, are chiefly
remarkable as they manifest that comprehensive spirit of treating all the
powers of Europe as parts of a common system which began to actuate the
Italians of the fifteenth century.  Of these enlarged views of policy the
writings of Aeneas Sylvius afford an eminent instance.  Besides the more
general and insensible causes, the increase of navigation and revival of
literature, this may be ascribed to the continual danger from the progress of
the Ottoman arms, which led the politicians of that part of Europe most
exposed to them into more extensive views as to the resources and dispositions
of Christian states.]

     The annals of one of the few surviving republics, that of Genoa, present
to us, during the fifteenth as well as the preceding century, an unceasing
series of revolutions, the shortest enumeration of which would occupy several
pages.  Torn by the factions of Adorni and Fregosi, equal and eternal rivals,
to whom the whole patrician families of Doria and Fieschi were content to
become secondary, sometimes sinking from weariness of civil tumult into the
grasp of Milan or France, and again, from impatience of foreign subjection,
starting back from servitude to anarchy, the Genoa of those ages exhibits a
singular contrast to the calm and regular aristocracy of the next three
centuries.  The latest revolution within the compass of this work was in 1488,
when the Duke of Milan became sovereign, and Adorno holding the office of doge
as his lieutenant.

     Florence, the most illustrious and fortunate of Italian republics, was
now rapidly descending from her rank among free commonwealths, though
surrounded with more than usual lustre in the eyes of Europe.  We must take up
the story of that city from the revolution of 1382, which restored the ancient
Guelf aristocracy, or party of the Albizi, to the ascendency of which a
popular insurrection had stripped them.  Fifty years elapsed during which this
party retained the government in its own hands with few attempts at
disturbance.  Their principal adversaries had been exiled, according to the
invariable and perhaps necessary custom of a republic; the populace and
inferior artisans were dispirited by their ill success.  Compared with the
leaders of other factions, Maso degl' Albizi, and Nicola di Uzzano, who
succeeded him in the management of his party, were attached to a
constitutional liberty.  Yet so difficult is it for any government which does
not rest on a broad basis of public consent to avoid injustice, that they
twice deemed it necessary to violate the ancient constitution.  In 1393, after
a partial movement in behalf of the vanquished faction, they assembled a
parliament, and established what was technically called at Florence a balia.
^f This was a temporary delegation of sovereignty to a number, generally a
considerable number, of citizens, who during the period of their dictatorship
named the magistrates, instead of drawing them by lot, and banished suspected
individuals.  A precedent so dangerous was eventually fatal to themselves and
to the freedom of their country. Besides this temporary balia, the regular
scrutinies periodically made in order to replenish the bags out of which the
names of all magistrates were drawn by lot, according to the constitution
established in 1328, were so managed as to exclude all persons disaffected to
the dominant faction. But, for still greater security, a council of two
hundred was formed in 1411, out of those alone who had enjoyed some of the
higher offices within the last thirty years, the period of the aristocratical
ascendency, through which every proposition was to pass before it could be
submitted to the two legislative councils. ^g These precautions indicate a
government conscious of public enmity; and if the Albizi had continued to sway
the republic of Florence, their jealousy of the people would have suggested
still more innovations, till the constitution had acquired, in legal form as
well as substance, an absolutely aristocratical character.

[Footnote f: Ammirato, p. 840.]

[Footnote g: Ib. p. 961.]

     But, while crushing with deliberate severity their avowed adversaries,
the ruling party had left one family whose prudence gave no reasonable excuse
for persecuting them, and whose popularity as well as wealth rendered the
experiment hazardous.  The Medici were among the most considerable of the new
or plebeian nobility.  From the first years of the fourteenth century their
name not very unfrequently occurs in the domestic and military annals of
Florence. ^h Salvestro de' Medici, who had been partially implicated in the
democratical revolution that lasted from 1378 to 1382, escaped proscription on
the revival of the Guelf party, though some of his family were afterwards
banished.  Throughout the long depression of the popular faction the house of
Medici was always regarded as their consolation and their hope.  That house
was now represented by Giovanni, ^i whose immense wealth, honorably acquired
by commercial dealings, which had already rendered the name celebrated in
Europe, was expended with liberality and magnificence.  Of a mild temper, and
averse to cabals, Giovanni de' Medici did not attempt to set up a party, and
contented himself with repressing some fresh encroachments on the popular part
of the constitution which the Albizi were disposed to make. ^j They, in their
turn, freely admitted him to that share in public councils to which he was
entitled by his eminence and virtues; a proof that the spirit of their
administration was not illiberally exclusive.  But, on the death of Giovanni,
his son Cosmo de' Medici, inheriting his father's riches and estimation, with
more talents and more ambition, thought it time to avail himself of the
popularity belonging to his name.  By extensive connections with the most
eminent men in Italy, especially with Sforza, he came to be considered as the
first citizen of Florence.  The oligarchy were more than ever unpopular.
Their administration since 1382 had indeed been in general eminently
successful; the acquisition of Pisa and of other Tuscan cities had aggrandized
the republic, while from the port of Leghorn her ships had begun to trade with
Alexandria, and sometimes to contend with the Genoese. ^k But an unprosperous
war with Lucca diminished a reputation which was never sustained by public
affection.  Cosmo and his friends aggravated the errors of the government,
which, having lost its wise and temperate leader Nicola di Uzzano, had fallen
into the rasher hands of Rinaldo degl' Albizi. He incurred the blame of being
the first aggressor in a struggle which had become inevitable.  Cosmo was
arrested by command of a gonfalonier devoted to the Albizi, and condemned to
banishment.  [A.D. 1433.] But the oligarchy had done too much or too little.
The city was full of his friends; the honors conferred upon him in his exile
attested the sentiments of Italy. Next year he was recalled in triumph to
Florence, and the Albizi were completely overthrown.

[Footnote h: The Medici are enumerated by Villani among the chiefs of the
Black faction in 1304, l. viii. c. 71.  One of that family was beheaded by
order of the Duke of Athens in 1343, l. xii. c. 2.  It is singular that Mr.
Roscoe should refer their first appearance in history, as he seems to do, to
the siege of Scarperia in 1351.]

[Footnote i: Giovanni was not nearly related to Salvestro de' Medici. Their
families are said per lungo tratto allontanarsi.  Ammirato, p. 992.
Nevertheless his being drawn gonfalonier in 1421 created a great sensation in
the city, and prepared the way to the subsequent revolution, Ibid.
Machiavelli, l. iv.]

[Footnote j: Machiavelli, Istoria Fiorent. l. iv.]

[Footnote k: The Florentines sent their first merchant-ship to Alexandria in
1422, with great and anxious hopes.  Prayers were ordered for the success of
the republic by sea, and an embassy despatched with presents to conciliate the
Sultan of Babylon, that is, of Grand Cairo.  Ammirato, p. 997.  Florence had
never before been so wealthy.  The circulating money was reckoned (perhaps
extravagantly) at 4,000,000 florins.  The manufactures of silk and cloth of
gold had never flourished so much.  Architecture shone under Brunelleschi;
literature under Leonard Aretin and Filelfo: p. 977. There is some truth in M.
Sismondi's remark, that the Medici have derived part of their glory from their
predecessors in government, whom they subverted, and whom they have rendered
obscure.  But the Milanese war, breaking out in 1423, tended a good deal to
impoverish the city.]

     It is vain to expect that a victorious faction will scruple to retaliate
upon its enemies a still greater measure of injustice than it experienced at
their hands.  The vanquished have no rights in the eyes of a conqueror.  The
sword of returning exiles, flushed by victory and incensed by suffering, falls
successively upon their enemies, upon those whom they suspect of being
enemies, upon those who may hereafter become such.  The Albizi had in general
respected the legal forms of their free republic, which good citizens, and
perhaps themselves, might hope one day to see more effective.  The Medici made
all their government conducive to hereditary monarchy.  A multitude of noble
citizens were driven from their country; some were even put to death.  A balia
was appointed for ten years to exclude all the Albizi from magistracy, and,
for the sake of this security to the ruling faction, to supersede the
legitimate institutions of the republic.  After the expiration of this period
the dictatorial power was renewed on pretence of fresh danger, and this was
repeated six times in twenty-one years. ^l In 1455 the constitutional mode of
drawing magistrates was permitted to revive, against the wishes of some of the
leading party. They had good reason to be jealous of a liberty which was
incompatible with their usurpation.  The gonfaloniers, drawn at random from
among respectable citizens, began to act with an independence to which the new
oligarchy was little accustomed.  Cosmo, indeed, the acknowledged chief of the
party, perceiving that some who had acted in subordination to him were looking
forward to the opportunity of becoming themselves its leaders, was not
unwilling to throw upon them the unpopularity attached to an usurpation by
which he had maintained his influence.  Without his apparent participation,
though not against his will, the free constitution was again suspended by a
balia appointed for the nomination of magistrates; and the regular drawing of
names by lot seems never to have been restored. ^* Cosmo died at an advanced
age in 1464.  His son, Piero de' Medici, though not deficient in either
virtues or abilities, seemed too infirm in health for the administration of
public affairs.  At least, he could only be chosen by a sort of hereditary
title which the party above mentioned, some from patriotic, more from selfish
motives, were reluctant to admit.  A strong opposition was raised to the
family pretensions of the Medici.  Like all Florentine factions, it trusted to
violence; and the chance of arms was not in its favor.  From this revolution
in 1466, when some of the most considerable citizens were banished, we may
date an acknowledged supremacy in the house of Medici, the chief of which
nominated the regular magistrates, and drew to himself the whole conduct of
the republic. ^*

[Footnote l: Machiavelli, l. v.; Ammirato.]

[Footnote *: Ammirato, t. ii. pp. 82-87.]

[Footnote *: Ammirato, p. 93; Roscoe's Lorenzo de'Medici, ch. 2; Machiavelli;
Sismondi.  The two latter are perpetual references in this part of history,
where no other is made.]