The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy

About 1460 the Patriarch of Aquileia, Ludovico Patavino, with 200,000 ducats, was called ‘perhaps the richest of all Italians.’ (Gasp. Veroneus Vita Pauli II., in Murat. iii. ii. col. 1027.) Elsewhere fabulous statements.

Antonio Grimani paid 30,000 ducats for his son’s election as Cardinal. His ready money alone was put at 100,000 ducats. (Chron. Venetum, Murat. xxiv. col. 125.)

For notices as to the grain in commerce and on the market at Venice, see in particular Malipiero, l. c. vii. ii. p. 709 sqq. Date 1498.

In 1522 it is no longer Venice, but Genoa, next to Rome, which ranks as the richest city in Italy (only credible on the authority of Francesco. Vettori. See his history in the Archiv. Stor. Append. tom. vi. p. 343). Bandello, parte ii. novello 34 and 42, names as the richest Genoese merchant of his time Ansaldo Grimaldi.

Between 1400 and 1580 Franc. Sansovino assumes a depreciation of 50 per cent. in the value of money. (Venezia, fol. 151 bis.)

In Lombardy it is believed that the relation between the price of corn about the middle of the fifteenth and that at the middle of the present century is as 3 to 8. (Sacco di Piacenza, in Archiv. Stor. Append. tom. v. Note of editor Scarabelli.)

At Ferrara there were people at the time of Duke Borso with 50,000 to 60,000 ducats (Diario Ferrarese, Murat. xxiv. col. 207, 214, 218; an extravagant statement, col. 187). In Florence the data are exceptional and do not justify a conclusion as to averages. Of this kind are the loans to foreign princes, in which the names of one or two houses only appear, but which were in fact the work of great companies. So too the enormous fines levied on defeated parties; we read, e.g. that from 1430 to 1453 seventy-seven families paid 4,875,000 gold florins (Varchi, iii. p. 115 sqq.), and that Giannozzo Mannetti alone, of whom we shall have occasion to speak hereafter, was forced to pay a sum of 135,000 gold florins, and was reduced thereby to beggary (Reumont, i. 157).

The fortune of Giovanni Medici amounted at his death (1428) to 179,221 gold florins, but the latter alone of his two sons Cosimo and Lorenzo left at his death (1440) as much as 235,137 (Fabroni, Laur. Med. Adnot. 2). Cosimo’s son Piero left (1469) 237,982 scudi (Reumont, Lorenzo de’ Medici, i. 286).

It is a proof of the general activity of trade that the forty-four goldsmiths on the Ponte Vecchio paid in the fourteenth century a rent of 800 florins to the Government (Vasari, ii. 114, Vita di Taddeo Gaddi). The diary of Buonaccorso Pitti (in Delécluze, Florence et ses Vicissitudes, vol. ii.) is full of figures, which, however, only prove in general the high price of commodities and the low value of money.

For Rome, the income of the Curia, which was derived from all Europe, gives us no criterion; nor are statements about papal treasures and the fortunes of cardinals very trustworthy. The well-known banker Agostino Chigi left (1520) a fortune of in all 800,000 ducats (Lettere Pittoriche, i. Append. 48).

During the high prices of the year 1505 the value of the staro ferrarrese del grano, which commonly weighed from 68 to 70 pounds (German), rose to 1⅓ ducats. The semola or remolo was sold at venti soldi lo staro; in the following fruitful years the staro fetched six soldi. Bonaventura Pistofilo, p. 494. At Ferrara the rent of a house yearly in 1455 was 25 Lire; comp. Atti e memorie, Parma, vi. 250; see 265 sqq. for a documentary statement of the prices which were paid to artists and amanuenses.

From the inventory of the Medici (extracts in Muntz, Prècurseurs, 158 sqq.) it appears that the jewels were valued at 12,205 ducats; the rings at 1,792; the pearls (apparently distinguished from other jewels, S.G.C.M.) at 3,512; the medallions, cameos and mosaics at 2,579; the vases at 4,850; the reliquaries and the like at 3,600; the library at 2,700; the silver at 7,000. Giov. Rucellai reckons that in 1473(?) he has paid 60,000 gold florins in taxes, 10,000 for the dowries of his five daughters, 2,000 for the improvement of the church of Santa Maria Novella. In 1474 he lost 20,000 gold florins through the intrigues of an enemy. (Autografo dallo Tibaldone di G.R., Florence, 1872). The marriage of Barnardo Rucellai with Nannina, the sister of Lorenzo de’ Medici, cost 3,686 florins (Muntz, Précurseurs, 244, i).

173

So far as Cosimo (1433-1465) and his grandson Lorenzo Magnifico (d. 1492) are concerned, the author refrains from any criticism on their internal policy. The exaltation of both, particularly of Lorenzo, by William Roscoe (Life of Lorenzo de’ Medici, called the Magnificent, 1st ed. Liverpool, 1795; 10th ed. London, 1851), seems to have been a principal cause of the reaction of feeling against them. This reaction appeared first in Sismondi (Hist. des Rép. Italiennes, xi.), in reply to whose strictures, sometimes unreasonably severe, Roscoe again came forward (Illustrations, Historical and Critical, of the Life of Lor. d. Med., London, 1822); later in Gino Capponi (Archiv. Stor. Ital. i. (1842), pp. 315 sqq.), who afterwards (Storia della Rep. di Firenze, 2 vols. Florence, 1875) gave further proofs and explanations of his judgment. See also the work of Von Reumont (Lor. d. Med. il Magn.), 2 vols. Leipzig, 1874, distinguished no less by the judicial calmness of its views than by the mastery it displays of the extensive materials used. See also A. Castelman: Les Medicis, 2 vols. Paris, 1879. The subject here is only casually touched upon. Comp. two works of B. Buser (Leipzig, 1879) devoted to the home and foreign policy of the Medici. (1) Die Beziehungen der Medicus zu Frankreich. 1434-1494, &c. (2) Lorenzo de’ Medici als italienischen Staatsman, &c., 2nd ed., 1883.

174

Franc. Burlamacchi, father of the head of the Lucchese Protestants, Michele B. See Arch. Stor. Ital. ser. i. tom. x., pp. 435-599; Documenti, pp. 146 sqq.; further Carlo Minutoli, Storia di Fr. B., Lucca, 1844, and the important additions of Leone del Prete in the Giornale Storico degli Archiv. Toscani, iv. (1860), pp. 309 sqq. It is well known how Milan, by its hard treatment of the neighbouring cities from the eleventh to the thirteenth century, prepared the way for the foundation of a great despotic state. Even at the time of the extinction of the Visconti in 1447, Milan frustrated the deliverance of Upper Italy, principally through not accepting the plan of a confederation of equal cities. Comp. Corio, fol. 358 sqq.

175

On the third Sunday in Advent, 1494, Savonarola preached as follows on the method of bringing about a new constitution: The sixteen companies of the city were each to work out a plan, the Gonfalonieri to choose the four best of these, and the Signory to name the best of all on the reduced list. Things, however, took a different turn, under the influence indeed of the preacher himself. See P. Villari, Savonarola. Besides this sermon, S. had written a remarkable Trattato circa il regimento di Ferenze (reprinted at Lucca, 1817).

176

The latter first in 1527, after the expulsion of the Medici. See Varchi, i. 121, &c.

177

Macchiavelli, Storie Fior. l. iii. cap. 1: ‘Un Savio dator di leggi,’ could save Florence.

178

Varchi, Stor. Fior. i. p. 210.

179

‘Discorso sopra il riformar lo Stato di Firenze,’ in the Opere Minori, p. 207.

180

The same view, doubtless borrowed from here, occurs in Montesquieu.

181

Belonging to a rather later period (1532?). Compare the opinion of Guicciardini, terrible in its frankness, on the condition and inevitable organisation of the Medicean party. Lettere di Principi, iii. fol. 124, (ediz. Venez. 1577).

182

Æn. Sylvii, Apologia ad Martinum Mayer, p. 701. To the same effect Macchiavelli, Discorsi, i. 55, and elsewhere.

183

How strangely modern half-culture affected political life is shown by the party struggles of 1535. Della Valle, Lettere Sanesi, iii. p. 317. A number of small shopkeepers, excited by the study of Livy and of Macchiavelli’s Discorsi, call in all seriousness for tribunes of the people and other Roman magistrates against the misgovernment of the nobles and the official classes.

184

Piero Valeriano, De Infelicitate Literator., speaking of Bartolommeo della Rovere. (The work of P. V. written 1527 is quoted according to the edition by Menken, Analecta de Calamitate Literatorum, Leipz. 1707.) The passage here meant can only be that at p. 384, from which we cannot infer what is stated in the text, but in which we read that B. d. R. wished to make his son abandon a taste for study which he had conceived and put him into business.

185

Senarega, De reb. Genuens, in Murat. xxiv. col. 548. For the insecurity of the time see esp. col. 519, 525, 528, &c. For the frank language of the envoy on the occasion of the surrender of the state to Francesco Sforza (1464), when the envoy told him that Genoa surrendered in the hope of now living safely and comfortably, see Cagnola, Archiv. Stor. iii. p. 165 sqq. The figures of the Archbishop, Doge, Corsair, and (later) Cardinal Paolo Fregoso form a notable contrast to the general picture of the condition of Italy.

186

So Varchi, at a much later time. Stor. Fiorent. i. 57.

187

Galeazzo Maria Sforza, indeed, declared the contrary (1467) to the Venetian agent, namely, that Venetian subjects had offered to join him in making war on Venice; but this is only vapouring. Comp. Malipiero, Annali Veneti, Archiv. Stor. vii. i. p. 216 sqq. On every occasion cities and villages voluntarily surrendered to Venice, chiefly, it is true, those that escaped from the hands of some despot, while Florence had to keep down the neighbouring republics, which were used to independence, by force of arms, as Guicciardini (Ricordi, n. 29) observes.

188

Most strongly, perhaps, in an instruction to the ambassadors going to Charles VII. in the year 1452. (See Fabroni, Cosmus, Adnot. 107, fol. ii. pp. 200 sqq.) The Florentine envoys were instructed to remind the king of the centuries of friendly relations which had subsisted between France and their native city, and to recall to him that Charles the Great had delivered Florence and Italy from the barbarians (Lombards), and that Charles I. and the Romish Church were ‘fondatori della parte Guelfa. Il qual fundamento fa cagione della ruina della contraria parte e introdusse lo stato di felicità, in che noi siamo.’ When the young Lorenzo visited the Duke of Anjou, then staying at Florence, he put on a French dress. Fabroni, ii. p. 9.

189

Comines, Charles VIII. chap. x. The French were considered ‘comme saints.’ Comp. chap. 17; Chron. Venetum, in Murat. xxiv. col. 5, 10, 14, 15; Matarazzo, Cron. di Perugia, Arch. Stor. xvi. ii. p. 23, not to speak of countless other proofs. See especially the documents in Desjardins, op. cit. p. 127, note 1.

190

Pii II. Commentarii, x. p. 492.

191

Gingins, Dépêches des Ambassadeurs Milanais, etc. i. pp. 26, 153, 279, 283, 285, 327, 331, 345, 359; ii. pp. 29, 37, 101, 217, 306. Charles once spoke of giving Milan to the young Duke of Orleans.

192

Niccolò Valori, Vita di Lorenzo, Flor. 1568. Italian translation of the Latin original, first printed in 1749 (later in Galletti, Phil. Villani, Liber de Civit. Flor. famosis Civibus, Florence, 1847, pp. 161-183; passage here referred to p. 171). It must not, however, be forgotten that this earliest biography, written soon after the death of Lorenzo, is a flattering rather than a faithful portrait, and that the words here attributed to Lorenzo are not mentioned by the French reporter, and can, in fact, hardly have been uttered. Comines, who was commissioned by Louis XI. to go to Rome and Florence, says (Mémoires, l. vi. chap. 5): ‘I could not offer him an army, and had nothing with me but my suite.’ (Comp. Reumont, Lorenzo, i. p. 197, 429; ii. 598). In a letter from Florence to Louis XI. we read (Aug. 23, 1478: ‘Omnis spes nostra reposita est in favoribus suæ majestatis.’ A. Desjardins, Négociations Diplomatiques de la France avec la Toscane (Paris, 1859), i. p. 173. Similarly Lorenzo himself in Kervyn de Lettenhove, Lettres et Négotiations de Philippe de Comines, i. p. 190. Lorenzo, we see, is in fact the one who humbly begs for help, not who proudly declines it.

Dr. Geiger in his appendix maintains that Dr. Burchhardt’s view as to Lorenzo’s national Italian policy is not borne out by evidence. Into this discussion the translator cannot enter. It would need strong proof to convince him that the masterly historical perception of Dr. Burchhardt was in error as to a subject which he has studied with minute care. In an age when diplomatic lying and political treachery were matters of course, documentary evidence loses much of its weight, and cannot be taken without qualification as representing the real feelings of the persons concerned, who fenced, turned about, and lied, first on one side and then on another, with an agility surprising to those accustomed to live among truth-telling people (S.G.C.M.)

Authorities quoted by Dr. Geiger are: Reumont, Lorenzo, 2nd ed., i. 310; ii. 450. Desjardins: Négociations Diplomatiques de la France avec la Toscane (Paris, 1859), i. 173. Kervyn de Lettenhove, Lettres et Négociations de Philippe de Comines, i. 180.

193

Fabroni, Laurentius Magnificus, Adnot. 205 sqq. In one of his Briefs it was said literally, ‘Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo;’ but it is to be hoped that he did not allude to the Turks. (Villari, Storia di Savonarola, ii. p. 48 of the ‘Documenti.’)

194

E.g. Jovian. Pontan. in his Charon. In the dialogue between Æcus, Minos, and Mercurius (Op. ed. Bas. ii. p. 1167) the first says: ‘Vel quod haud multis post sæculis futurum auguror, ut Italia, cujus intestina te odia male habent Minos, in unius redacta ditionem resumat imperii majestatem.’ And in reply to Mercury’s warning against the Turks, Æcus answers: ‘Quamquam timenda hæc sunt, tamen si vetera respicimus, non ab Asia aut Græcia, verum a Gallis Germanisque timendum Italiæ semper fuit.’

195

Comines, Charles VIII., chap. 7. How Alfonso once tried in time of war to seize his opponents at a conference, is told by Nantiporto, in Murat. iii. ii. col. 1073. He was a genuine predecessor of Cæsar Borgia.

196

Pii II. Commentarii, x. p. 492. See a letter of Malatesta in which he recommends to Mohammed II. a portrait-painter, Matteo Passo of Verona, and announces the despatch of a book on the art of war, probably in the year 1463, in Baluz. Miscell. iii. 113. What Galeazzo Maria of Milan told in 1467 to a Venetian envoy, namely, that he and his allies would join with the Turks to destroy Venice, was said merely by way of threat. Comp. Malipiero, Ann. Veneti, Archiv. Stor. vii. i. p. 222. For Boccalino, see page 36.

197

Porzio, Congiura dei Baroni, l. i. p. 5. That Lorenzo, as Porzio hints, really had a hand in it, is not credible. On the other hand, it seems only too certain that Venice prompted the Sultan to the deed. See Romanin, Storia Documentata di Venezia, lib. xi. cap. 3. After Otranto was taken, Vespasiano Bisticci uttered his ‘Lamento d’Italia, Archiv. Stor. Ital. iv. pp. 452 sqq.

198

Chron. Venet. in Murat. xxiv. col. 14 and 76.

199

Malipiero, l. c. p. 565, 568.

200

Trithem. Annales Hirsaug, ad. a. 1490, tom. ii. pp. 535 sqq.

201

Malipiero, l. c. 161; comp. p. 152. For the surrender of Djem to Charles VIII. see p. 145, from which it is clear that a connection of the most shameful kind existed between Alexander and Bajazet, even if the documents in Burcardus be spurious. See on the subject Ranke, Zur Kritik neuerer Geschichtschreiber, 2 Auflage, Leipzig, 1874, p. 99, and Gregorovius, bd. vii. 353, note 1. Ibid. p. 353, note 2, a declaration of the Pope that he was not allied with the Turks.

202

Bapt. Mantuanus, De Calamitatibus Temporum, at the end of the second book, in the song of the Nereid Doris to the Turkish fleet.

203

Tommaso Gar, Relaz. della Corte di Roma, i. p. 55.

204

Ranke, Geschichte der romanischen und germanischen Völker. The opinion of Michelet (Reforme, p. 467), that the Turks would have adopted Western civilisation in Italy, does not satisfy me. This mission of Spain is hinted at, perhaps for the first time, in the speech delivered by Fedra Inghirami in 1510 before Julius II., at the celebration of the capture of Bugia by the fleet of Ferdinand the Catholic. See Anecdota Litteraria, ii. p. 419.

205

Among others Corio, fol. 333. Jov. Pontanus, in his treatise, De Liberalitate, cap. 28, considers the free dismissal of Alfonso as a proof of the ‘liberalitas’ of Filippo Maria. (See above, p. 38, note 1.) Compare the line of conduct adopted with regard to Sforza, fol. 329.

206

Nic. Valori, Vita di Lorenzo; Paul Jovius, Vita Leonis X. l. i. The latter certainly upon good authority, though not without rhetorical embellishment. Comp. Reumont, i. 487, and the passage there quoted.

207

If Comines on this and many other occasions observes and judges as objectively as any Italian, his intercourse with Italians, particularly with Angelo Catto, must be taken into account.

208

Comp. e.g. Malipiero, pp. 216, 221, 236, 237, 468, &c., and above pp. 88, note 2, and 93, note 1. Comp. Egnatius, fol. 321 a. The Pope curses an ambassador; a Venetian envoy insults the Pope; another, to win over his hearers, tells a fable.

209

In Villari, Storia di Savonarola, vol. ii. p. xliii. of the ‘Documenti,’ among which are to be found other important political letters. Other documents, particularly of the end of the fifteenth century in Baluzius, Miscellanea, ed. Mansi, vol. i. See especially the collected despatches of Florentine and Venetian ambassadors at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of sixteenth centuries in Desjardins, Négotiations diplomatiques de la France avec la Toscane. vols. i. ii. Paris. 1859, 1861.

210

The subject has been lately treated more fully by Max Jähns, Die Kriegskunst als Kunst, Leipzig, 1874.

211

Pii II. Comment. iv. p. 190, ad. a. 1459.

212

The Cremonese prided themselves on their skill in this department. See Cronaca di Cremona in the Bibliotheca Historica Italica, vol. i. Milan, 1876, p. 214, and note. The Venetians did the same, Egnatius, fol. 300 sqq.

213

To this effect Paul Jovius (Elogia, p. 184) who adds: ‘Nondum enim invecto externarum gentium cruento more, Italia milites sanguinarii et multæ cædis avidi esse didicerant.’ We are reminded of Frederick of Urbino, who would have been ‘ashamed’ to tolerate a printed book in his library. See Vespas. Fiorent.

214

Porcellii Commentaria Jac. Picinini, in Murat. xx. A continuation for the war of 1453, ibid. xxv. Paul Cortesius (De Hominibus Doctis, p. 33, Florence, 1734) criticises the book severely on account of the wretched hexameters.

215

Porcello calls Scipio Æmilianus by mistake, meaning Africanus Major.

216

Simonetta, Hist. Fr. Sfortiæ, in Murat. xxi. col. 630.

217

So he was considered. Comp. Bandello, parte i. nov. 40.

218

Comp. e.g. De Obsidione Tiphernatium, in vol. 2, of the Rer. Italic. Scriptores excodd. Florent. col. 690. The duel of Marshal Boucicault with Galeazzo Gonzaga (1406) in Cagnola, Arch. Stor. iii. p. 25. Infessura tells us of the honour paid by Sixtus IV. to the duellists among his guards. His successors issued bulls against duelling.

219

We may here notice parenthetically (see Jähns, pp. 26, sqq.) the less favourable side of the tactics of the Condottieri. The combat was often a mere sham-fight, in which the enemy was forced to withdraw by harmless manœuvres. The object of the combatants was to avoid bloodshed, at the worst to make prisoners with a view to the ransom. According to Macchiavelli, the Florentines lost in a great battle in the year 1440 one man only.

220

For details, see Arch. Stor. Append. tom. v.

221

Here once for all we refer our readers to Ranke’s Popes, vol. i., and to Sugenheim, Geschichte der Entstehung und Ausbildung des Kirchenstaates. The still later works of Gregorovius and Reumont have also been made use of, and when they offer new facts or views, are quoted. See also Geschichte der römischen Papstthums, W. Wattenbach, Berlin, 1876.

222

For the impression made by the blessing of Eugenius IV. in Florence, see Vespasiano Fiorent, p. 18. See also the passage quoted in Reumont, Lorenzo, i. 171. For the impressive offices of Nicholas V., see Infessura (Eccard, ii. col. 1883 sqq.) and J. Manetti, Vita Nicolai V. (Murat. iii. ii. col. 923). For the homage given to Pius II., see Diario Ferrarese (Murat. xxiv. col. 205), and Pii II. Commentarii, passim, esp. iv. 201, 204, and xi. 562. For Florence, see Delizie degli Eruditi, xx. 368. Even professional murderers respect the person of the Pope.

The great offices in church were treated as matters of much importance by the pomp-loving Paul II. (Platina, l. c. 321) and by Sixtus IV., who, in spite of the gout, conducted mass at Easter in a sitting posture. (Jac. Volaterran. Diarium, Murat. xxiii. col. 131.) It is curious to notice how the people distinguished between the magical efficacy of the blessing and the unworthiness of the man who gave it; when he was unable to give the benediction on Ascension Day, 1481, the populace murmured and cursed him. (Ibid. col. 133.)

223

Macchiavelli, Scritti Minori, p. 142, in the well-known essay on the catastrophe of Sinigaglia. It is true that the French and Spanish soldiers were still more zealous than the Italians. Comp. in Paul. Jov. Vita Leonis X. (l. ii.) the scene before the battle of Ravenna, in which the Legate, weeping for joy, was surrounded by the Spanish troops, and besought for absolution. See further (ibid.) the statements respecting the French in Milan.

224

In the case of the heretics of Poli, in the Campagna, who held the doctrine that a genuine Pope must show the poverty of Christ as the mark of his calling, we have simply a kind of Waldensian doctrine. Their imprisonment under Paul II. is related by Infessura (Eccard, ii. col. 1893), Platina, p. 317, &c.

225

As an illustration of this feeling see the poem addressed to the Pope, quoted in Gregorovius, vii. 136.

226

Dialogus de Conjuratione Stephani de Porcariis, by his contemporary Petrus Godes de Vicenza, quoted and used by Gregorovius, viii. 130. L. B. Alberti, De Porcaria Conjuratione, in Murat. xxv. col. 309. Porcari was desirous ‘omnem pontificiam turbam funditus exstinguere.’ The author concludes: ‘Video sane, quo stent loco res Italiæ; intelligo qui sint, quibus hic perturbata esse omnia conducat....’ He names them ‘Extrinsecus impulsores,’ and is of opinion that Porcari will find successors in his misdeeds. The dreams of Porcari certainly bore some resemblance to those of Cola Rienzi. He also referred to himself the poem ‘Spirto Gentil,’ addressed by Petrarch to Rienzi.