The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy

The form assumed by the strong religious instinct which, notwithstanding all, survived in many natures, was Theism or Deism, as we may please to call it. The latter name may be applied to that mode of thought which simply wiped away the Christian element out of religion, without either seeking or finding any other substitute for the feelings to rest upon. Theism may be considered that definite heightened devotion to the one Supreme Being which the Middle Ages were not acquainted with. This mode of faith does not exclude Christianity, and can either ally itself with the Christian doctrines of sin, redemption, and immortality, or else exist and flourish without them.

Sometimes this belief presents itself with childish naïveté and even with a half-pagan air, God appearing as the almighty fulfiller of human wishes. Agnolo Pandolfini1289 tells us how, after his wedding, he shut himself in with his wife, and knelt down before the family altar with the picture of the Madonna, and prayed, not to her, but to God that he would vouchsafe to them the right use of their property, a long life in joy and unity with one another, and many male descendants: ‘for myself I prayed for wealth, honour, and friends, for her blamelessness, honesty, and that she might be a good housekeeper.’ When the language used has a strong antique flavour, it is not always easy to keep apart the pagan style and the theistic belief.1290

This temper sometimes manifests itself in times of misfortune with a striking sincerity. Some addresses to God are left us from the latter period of Firenzuola, when for years he lay ill of fever, in which, though he expressly declares himself a believing Christian, he shows that his religious consciousness is essentially theistic.1291 His sufferings seem to him neither as the punishment of sin, nor as preparation for a higher world; they are an affair between him and God only, who has put the strong love of life between man and his despair. ‘I curse, but only curse Nature, since thy greatness forbids me to utter thy name.... Give me death, Lord, I beseech thee, give it me now!’

In these utterances and the like, it would be vain to look for a conscious and consistent Theism; the speakers partly believed themselves to be still Christians, and for various other reasons respected the existing doctrines of the Church. But at the time of the Reformation, when men were driven to come to a distinct conclusion on such points, this mode of thought was accepted with a fuller consciousness; a number of the Italian Protestants came forward as Anti-Trinitarians and Socinians, and even as exiles in distant countries made the memorable attempt to found a church on these principles. From the foregoing exposition it will be clear that, apart from humanistic rationalism, other spirits were at work in this field.

One chief centre of theistic modes of thought lay in the Platonic Academy at Florence, and especially in Lorenzo Magnifico himself. The theoretical works and even the letters of these men show us only half their nature. It is true that Lorenzo, from his youth till he died, expressed himself dogmatically as a Christian,1292 and that Pico was drawn by Savonarola’s influence to accept the point of view of a monkish ascetic.1293 But in the hymns of Lorenzo,1294 which we are tempted to regard as the highest product of the spirit of this school, an unreserved Theism is set forth—a Theism which strives to treat the world as a great moral and physical Cosmos. While the men of the Middle Ages look on the world as a vale of tears, which Pope and Emperor are set to guard against the coming of Antichrist; while the fatalists of the Renaissance oscillate between seasons of overflowing energy and seasons of superstition or of stupid resignation, here, in this circle of chosen spirits,1295 the doctrine is upheld that the visible world was created by God in love, that it is the copy of a pattern pre-existing in Him, and that He will ever remain its eternal mover and restorer. The soul of man can by recognising God draw Him into its narrow boundaries, but also by love to Him itself expand into the Infinite—and this is blessedness on earth.

Echoes of mediæval mysticism here flow into one current with Platonic doctrines, and with a characteristically modern spirit. One of the most precious fruits of the knowledge of the world and of man here comes to maturity, on whose account alone the Italian Renaissance must be called the leader of modern ages.

THE END

1

History of Architecture, by Franz Kugler. (The first half of the fourth volume, containing the ‘Architecture and Decoration of the Italian Renaissance,’ is by the Author.)

2

Macchiavelli, Discorsi, 1. i. c. 12. ‘E la cagione, che la Italia non sia in quel medesimo termine, ne habbia anch’ ella ò una republica ò un prencipe che la governi, è solamente la Chiesa; perchè havendovi habitato e tenuto imperio temporale non è stata si potente ne di tal virtè, che l’habbia potuto occupare il restante d’Italia e farsene prencipe.’

3

The rulers and their dependents were together called ‘lo stato,’ and this name afterwards acquired the meaning of the collective existence of a territory.

4

C. Winckelmann, De Regni Siculi Administratione qualis fuerit regnante Friderico II., Berlin. 1859. A. del Vecchio, La legislazione di Federico II. imperatore. Turin, 1874. Frederick II. has been fully and thoroughly discussed by Winckelmann and Schirrmacher.

5

Baumann, Staatslehre des Thomas von Aquino. Leipzig, 1873, esp. pp. 136 sqq.

6

Cento Novelle Antiche, ed. 1525. For Frederick, Nov. 2, 21, 22, 23, 24, 30, 53, 59, 90, 100; for Ezzelino, Nov. 31, and esp. 84.

7

Scardeonius, De Urbis Patav. Antiqu. in Grævius, Thesaurus, vi. iii. p. 259.

8

Sismondi, Hist. de Rép. Italiennes, iv. p. 420; viii. pp. 1 sqq.

9

Franco Sacchetti, Novelle (61, 62).

10

Dante, it is true, is said to have lost the favour of this prince, which impostors knew how to keep. See the important account in Petrarch, De Rerum Memorandarum, lib. ii. 3, 46.

11

Petrarca, Epistolæ Seniles, lib. xiv. 1, to Francesco di Carrara (Nov. 28, 1373). The letter is sometimes printed separately with the title, ‘De Republica optime administranda,’ e.g. Bern, 1602.

12

It is not till a hundred years later that the princess is spoken of as the mother of the people. Comp. Hieron. Crivelli’s funeral oration on Bianca Maria Visconti, in Muratori, Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, xxv. col. 429. It was by way of parody of this phrase that a sister of Sixtus IV. is called in Jac Volateranus (Murat., xxiii. col. 109) ‘mater ecclesiæ.’

13

With the parenthetical request, in reference to a previous conversation, that the prince would again forbid the keeping of pigs in the streets of Padua, as the sight of them was unpleasing, especially for strangers, and apt to frighten the horses.

14

Petrarca, Rerum Memorandar., lib. iii. 2, 66.—Matteo I. Visconti and Guido della Torre, then ruling in Milan, are the persons referred to.

15

Matteo Villani, v. 81: the secret murder of Matteo II. (Maffiolo) Visconti by his brother.

16

Filippo Villani, Istorie, xi. 101. Petrarch speaks in the same tone of the tyrants dressed out ‘like altars at a festival.’—The triumphal procession of Castracane at Lucca is described minutely in his life by Tegrimo, in Murat., xi., col, 1340.

17

De Vulgari Eloqui, i. c. 12: … ‘qui non heroico more, sed plebeo sequuntur superbiam.’

18

This we find first in the fifteenth century, but their representations are certainly based on the beliefs of earlier times: L. B. Alberti, De re ædif., v. 3.—Franc. di Giorgio, ‘Trattato,’ in Della Valle, Lettere Sanesi, iii. 121.

19

Franco Sacchetti, Nov. 61.

20

Matteo Villani, vi. 1.

21

The Paduan passport office about the middle of the fourteenth century is referred to by Franco Sacchetti, Nov. 117, in the words, ‘quelli delle bullete.’ In the last ten years of the reign of Frederick II., when the strictest control was exercised on the personal conduct of his subjects, this system must have been very highly developed.

22

Corio, Storia di Milano, fol. 247 sqq. Recent Italian writers have observed that the Visconti have still to find a historian who, keeping the just mean between the exaggerated praises of contemporaries (e.g. Petrarch) and the violent denunciations of later political (Guelph) opponents, will pronounce a final judgment upon them.

23

E.g. of Paolo Giovio: Elogia Virorum bellicâ virtute illustrium, Basel, 1575, p. 85, in the life of Bernabò. Giangal. (Vita, pp. 86 sqq.) is for Giovio ‘post Theodoricum omnium præstantissimus.’ Comp. also Jovius, Vitæ xii. Vicecomitum Mediolani principum, Paris, 1549. pp. 165 sqq.

24

Corio, fol. 272, 285.

25

Cagnola, in the Archiv. Stor., iii. p. 23.

26

So Corio, fol. 286, and Poggio, Hist. Florent. iv. in Murat. xx. col 290.—Cagnola (loc. cit.) speaks of his designs on the imperial crown. See too the sonnet in Trucchi, Poesie Ital. ined., ii. p. 118:

“Stan le città lombarde con le chiaveIn man per darle a voi … etc.Roma vi chiamo: Cesar mio novelloIo sono ignuda, e l’anima pur vive:Or mi coprite col vostro mantello,” etc.

27

Corio, fol. 301 and sqq. Comp. Ammian. Marcellin., xxix. 3.

28

So Paul. Jovius, Elogia, pp. 88-92, Jo. Maria Philippus.

29

De Gingins, Dépêches des Ambassadeurs Milanais, Paris and Geneva 1858, ii. pp. 200 sqq. (N. 213). Comp. ii. 3 (N. 144) and ii. 212 sqq. (N. 218).

30

Paul. Jovius, Elogia, pp. 156 sqq. Carolus, Burg. dux.

31

This compound of force and intellect is called by Macchiavelli Virtù, and is quite compatible with scelleratezza. E.g. Discorsi, i. 10. in speaking of Sep. Severus.

32

On this point Franc. Vettori, Arch. Stor. vi. p. 29. 3 sqq.: ‘The investiture at the hands of a man who lives in Germany, and has nothing of the Roman Emperor about him but the empty name, cannot turn a scoundrel into the real lord of a city.’

33

M. Villani, iv. 38, 39, 44, 56, 74, 76, 92; v. 1, 2, 14-16, 21, 22, 36, 51, 54. It is only fair to consider that dislike of the Visconti may have led to worse representations than the facts justified. Charles IV. is once (iv. 74) highly praised by Villani.

34

It was an Italian, Fazio degli Uberti (Dittamondo, l. vi. cap. 5—about 1360) who recommended to Charles IV. a crusade to the Holy Land. The passage is one of the best in this poem, and in other respects characteristic. The poet is dismissed from the Holy Sepulchre by an insolent Turk:

‘Con passi lunghi e con la testa bassaOltre passai e dissi: ecco vergognaDel cristian che’l saracin qui lassa!Poscia al Pastor (the Pope) mi volsi far rampognaE tu ti stai, che sei vicar di Cristo,Co’ frati tuoi a ingrassar la carogna?Similimente dissi a quel sofisto (Charles IV.)Che sta in Buemme (Bohemia) a piantar vigne e fichiE che non cura di si caro acquisto:Che fai? Perchè non segui i primi antichiCesari de’ Romani, e che non segui,Dico, gli Otti, i Corradi, i Federichi?E che pur tieni questo imperio in tregui?E se non hai lo cuor d’esser Augusto,Che non rifiuti? o che non ti dilegui?’ etc.

Some eight years earlier, about 1352, Petrarch had written (to Charles IV., Epist. Fam., lib. xii. ep. 1, ed. Fracassetti, vol. ii. p. 160): ‘Simpliciter igitur et aperte … pro maturando negotio terræ sanctæ … oro tuo egentem auxilio quam primum invisere velis Ausoniam.’

35

See for details Vespasiano Fiorent. ed. Mai, Specilegium Romanum, vol. i. p. 54. Comp. 150 and Panormita, De Dictis et Factis Alfonsi, lib. iv. nro. 4.

36

Diario Ferrarese, in Murat. xxiv. col. 217 sqq.

37

‘Haveria voluto scortigare la brigata.’ Giov. Maria Filelfo, then staying at Bergamo, wrote a violent satire ‘in vulgus equitum auro notatorum.’ See his biography in Favre, Mélanges d’Histoire littéraire, 1856, i. p. 10.

38

Annales Estenses, in Murat. xx. col. 41.

39

Poggii, Hist. Florent. pop. l. vii. in Murat. col. 381. This view is in accordance with the anti-monarchical sentiments of many of the humanists of that day. Comp. the evidence given by Bezold, ‘Lehre von der Volkssouverainität während des Mittelalters,’ Hist. Ztschr. bd. 36, s. 365.

40

Some years later the Venetian Lionardo Giustiniani blames the word ‘imperator’ as unclassical and therefore unbecoming the German emperor, and calls the Germans barbarians, on account of their ignorance of the language and manners of antiquity. The cause of the Germans was defended by the humanist H. Bebel. See L. Geiger, in the Allgem. Deutsche Biogr. ii. 196.

41

Senarega, De reb. Genuens, in Murat. xxiv. col. 575.

42

Enumerated in the Diario Ferrarese, in Murat. xxiv. col. 203. Comp. Pic. ii. Comment. ii. p. 102, ed. Rome, 1584.

43

Marin Sanudo, Vita de’ Duchi di Venezia, in Murat. xxii. col. 1113.

44

Varchi, Stor. Fiorent. i. p. 8.

45

Soriano, Relazione di Roma, 1533, in Tommaso Gar. Relaz. della Corte di Roma, (in Alberi, Relaz. degli ambasc. Veneti, ii. ser. iii.).

46

For what follows, see Canestrini, in the Introduction to vol. xv. of the Archiv. Stor.

47

For him, see Shepherd-Tonelli, Vita di Piggio, App. pp. viii.-xvi.

48

Cagnola, Archiv. Stor. iii. p. 28: ‘Et (Filippo Maria) da lei (Beatr.) ebbe molto tesoro e dinari, e tutte le giente d’arme del dicto Facino, che obedivano a lei.’

49

Inpressura, in Eccard, Scriptores, ii. col. 1911. For the alternatives which Macchiavelli puts before the victorious Condottiere, see Discorsi, i. 30. After the victory he is either to hand over the army to his employer and wait quietly for his reward, or else to win the soldiers to his own side to occupy the fortresses and to punish the prince ‘di quella ingratitudine che esso gli userebbe.’

50

Comp. Barth. Facius, De Viv. Ill. p. 64, who tells us that C. commanded an army of 60,000 men. It is uncertain whether the Venetians did not poison Alviano in 1516, because he, as Prato says in Arch. Stor. iii. p. 348, aided the French too zealously in the battle of S. Donato. The Republic made itself Colleoni’s heir, and after his death in 1475 formally confiscated his property. Comp. Malipiero, Annali Veneti, in Arch. Stor. vii. i. 244. It was liked when the Condottieri invested their money in Venice, ibid. p. 351.

51

Cagnola, in Arch. Stor. iii. pp. 121 sqq.

52

At all events in Paul Jovius, Vita Magni Sfortiæ, Rom. 1539, (dedicated to the Cardinal Ascanio Sforza), one of the most attractive of his biographies.

53

Æn. Sylv. Comment. de Dictis et Factis Alfonsi, Opera, ed. 1538, p. 251: Novitate gaudens Italia nihil habet stabile, nullum in eâ vetus regnum, facile hic ex servis reges videmus.’

54

Pii, ii. Comment. i. 46; comp. 69.

55

Sismondi, x. 258; Corio. fol. 412, where Sforza is accused of complicity, as he feared danger to his own son from P.’s popularity. Storia Bresciana, in Murat. xxi. col. 209. How the Venetian Condottiere Colleoni was tempted in 1466, is told by Malipiero Annali Veneti, Arch. Stor. vii. i. p. 210. The Florentine exiles offered to make him Duke of Milan if he would expel from Florence their enemy, Piero de’ Medici.

56

Allegretti, Diari Sanesi, in Murat. xxiii. p. 811.

57

Orationes Philelphi, ed. Venet. 1492, fol. 9, in the funeral oration on Francesco.

58

Marin Sanudo, Vita del Duchi di Venezia, in Murat. xxii. col. 1241. See Reumont, Lorenzo von Medici (Lpz. 1874), ii. pp. 324-7, and the authorities there quoted.

59

Malipiero, Ann. Venet., Arch. Stor. vii. i. p. 407.

60

Chron. Eugubinum, in Murat. xxi. col. 972.

61

Vespas. Fiorent. p. 148.

62

Archiv. Stor. xvi., parte i. et ii., ed. Bonaini, Fabretti, Polidori.

63

Julius II. conquered Perugia with ease in 1506, and compelled Gianpaolo Baglione to submit. The latter, as Macchiavelli (Discorsi, i. c. 27) tells us, missed the chance of immortality by not murdering the Pope.

64

Varelin Stor. Fiorent. i. pp. 242 sqq.

65

Comp. (inter. al.) Jovian. Pontan. De Immanitate, cap. 17.

66

Malipiero, Ann. Venet., Archiv. Stor. vii. i. pp. 498 sqq. After vainly searching for his beloved, whose father had shut her up in a monastery he threatened the father, burnt the monastery and other buildings, and committed many acts of violence.

67

Lil. Greg. Giraldus, De Sepulchris ac vario Sepeliendi Ritu. Opera ed. Bas. 1580, i. pp. 640 sqq. Later edition by J. Faes, Helmstädt, 1676 Dedication and postscript of Gir. ‘ad Carolum Miltz Germanum,’ in these editions without date; neither contains the passage given in the text.—In 1470 a catastrophe in miniature had already occurred in the same family (Galeotto had had his brother Antonio Maria thrown into prison). Comp. Diario Ferrarese, in Murat. xxiv. col. 225.

68

Jovian. Pontan. Opp. ed. Basileæ, 1538, t. i. De Liberalitate, cap. 19, 29, and De Obedientia, l. 4. Comp. Sismondi, x. p. 78, and Panormita, De Dictis et Factis Alphonsi, lib. i. nro. 61, iv. nro. 42.

69

Tristano Caracciolo. ‘De Fernando qui postea rex Aragonum fuit, ejusque posteris,’ in Muratori XXII.; Jovian Pontanus, De Prudentia, l. iv.; De Magnanimitate, l. i.; De Liberalitate, cap. 29, 36; De Immanitate, cap. 8. Cam. Porzio, Congiura dei Baroni del Regno de Napoli contro il re Ferdinando I., Pisa, 1818, cap. 29, 36, new edition, Naples, 1859, passim; Comines, Charles VIII., with the general characteristics of the Arragonese. See for further information as to Ferrante’s works for his people, the Regis Ferdinandi primi Instructionum liber, 1486-87, edited by Scipione Vopicella, which would dispose us to moderate to some extent the harsh judgment which has been passed upon him.

70

Paul. Jovius. Histor. i. p. 14. in the speech of a Milanese ambassador; Diario Ferrarese, in Muratori, xxiv. col. 294.

71

He lived in the closest intimacy with Jews, e.g. Isaac Abranavel, who fled with him to Messina. Comp. Zunz, Zur. Gesch. und Lit. (Berlin, 1845) s. 529.

72

Petri Candidi Decembrii Vita Phil. Mariæ Vicecomitis, in Murat. xx., of which however Jovius (Vitæ xii. Vicecomitum p. 186) says not without reason: ‘Quum omissis laudibus quæ in Philippo celebrandæ fuerant, vitia, notaret.’ Guarino praises this prince highly. Rosmino Guarini, ii. p. 75. Jovius, in the above-mentioned work (p. 186), and Jov. Pontanus, De Liberalitate, ii. cap. 28 and 31, take special notice of his generous conduct to the captive Alfonso.

73

Were the fourteen marble statues of the saints in the Citadel of Milan executed by him? See History of the Frundsbergs, fol. 27.

74

It troubled him: quod aliquando ‘non esse’ necesse esset.

75

Corio, fol. 400; Cagnola, in Archiv. Stor. iii. p. 125.

76

Pii II. Comment. iii. p. 130. Comp. ii. 87. 106. Another and rather darker estimate of Sforza’s fortune is given by Caracciolo, De Varietate Fortunæ, in Murat. xxii. col. 74. See for the opposite view the praises of Sforza’s luck in the Oratio parentalis de divi Francesci Sphortiæ felicitate, by Filelfo (the ready eulogist of any master who paid him), who sung, without publishing, the exploits of Francesco in the Sforziad. Even Decembrio, the moral and literary opponent of Filelfo, celebrates Sforza’s fortune in his biography (Vita Franc. Sphortiæ, in Murat. xx.). The astrologers said: ‘Francesco Sforza’s star brings good luck to a man, but ruin to his descendants.’ Arluni, De Bello Veneto, libri vi. in Grævius, Thes. Antiqu. et Hist. Italicæ, v. pars iii. Comp. also Barth. Facius, De Vir. III. p. 67.

77

Malipiero, Ann. Veneti, Archiv. Stor. vii. i. pp. 216 sqq. 221-4.

78

Important documents as to the murder of Galeazzo Maria Sforza are published by G. D’Adda in the Archivio Storico Lombardo Giornale della Società Lombarda, vol. ii. (1875), pp. 284-94. 1. A Latin epitaph on the murderer Lampugnano, who lost his life in the attempt, and whom the writer represents as saying: ‘Hic lubens quiesco, æternum inquam facinus monumentumque ducibus, principibus, regibus, qui modo sunt quique mox futura trahantur ne quid adversus justitiam faciant dicantve; 2. A Latin letter of Domenico de’ Belli, who, when eleven years old, was present at the murder; 3. The ‘lamento’ of Galeazzo Maria, in which, after calling upon the Virgin Mary and relating the outrage committed upon him, he summons his wife and children, his servants and the Italian cities which obeyed him, to bewail his fate, and sends forth his entreaty to all the nations of the earth, to the nine muses and the gods of antiquity, to set up a universal cry of grief.

79

Chron. Venetum, in Murat. xxiv. col. 65.

80

Malipiero, Ann. Veneti, Archiv. Stor. vii. i. p. 492. Comp. 482, 562.

81

His last words to the same man, Bernardino da Corte, are to be found, certainty with oratorical decorations, but perhaps agreeing in the main with the thoughts of the Moor, in Senarega, Murat. xxiv. col. 567.

82

Diario Ferrarese, in Murat. xxiv. col. 336, 367, 369. The people believed he was forming a treasure.

83

Corio, fol. 448. The after effects of this state of things are clearly recognisable in those of the novels and introductions of Bandello which relate to Milan.

84

Amoretti, Memorie Storiche sulla Vita Ecc. di Lionardo da Vinci, pp. 35 sqq., pp. 83 sqq. Here we may also mention the Moor’s efforts for the improvement of the university of Pavia.

85

See his sonnets in Trucchi, Poesie inedite.

86

Prato, in the Arch. Stor. iii. 298. Comp. 302.

87

Born 1466, betrothed to Isabella, herself six years of age, in 1480, suc. 1484; m. 1490, d. 1519. Isabella’s death, 1539. Her sons, Federigo (1519-1540), made Duke in 1530, and the famous Ferrante Gonzaga. What follows is taken from the correspondence of Isabella, with Appendices, Archiv. Stor., append., tom. ii. communicated by d’Arco. See the same writer, Delle Arti e degli Artifici di Mantova, Mant. 1857-59, 2 vols. The catalogue of the collection has been repeatedly printed. Portrait and biography of Isabella in Didot, Alde Manuce, Paris, 1875, pp. lxi-lxviii. See also below, part ii. chapter 2.