The ancient world found an end to anarchy in the Roman Empire, but the Roman Empire was a brute fact, not an idea. The Catholic
-494-
world sought an end to anarchy in the Church, which was an idea, but was never adequately embodied in fact. Neither the ancient nor the medieval solution was satisfactory–the one because it could not be idealized, the other because it could not be actualized. The modern world, at present, seems to be moving towards a solution like that of antiquity: a social order imposed by force, representing the will of the powerful rather than the hopes of common men. The problem of a durable and satisfactory social order can only be solved by combining the solidity of the Roman Empire with the idealism of Saint Augustine’s City of God. To achieve this a new philosophy will be needed.
CHAPTER II The Italian Renaissance
THE modern as opposed to the medieval outlook began in Italy with the movement called the Renaissance. At first, only a few individuals, notably Petrarch, had this outlook, but during the fifteenth century it spread to the great majority of cultivated Italians, both lay and clerical. In some respects, Italians of the Renaissance–with the exception of Leonardo and a few others-had not the respect for science which has characterized most important innovators since the seventeenth century; with this lack is associated their very partial emancipation from superstition, especially in the form of astrology. Many of them had still the reverence for authority that medieval philosophers had had, but they substituted the authority of the ancients for that of the Church. This was, of course, a step towards emancipation, since the ancients disagreed with each other, and individual judgement was required to decide which of them to follow. But very few Italians of the fifteenth century would have dared to hold an opinion for which no authority could be found either in antiquity or in the teaching of the Church.
To understand the Renaissance, it is necessary first to review briefly the political condition of Italy. After the death of Frederick
-495-
II in 1250, Italy was, in the main, free from foreign interference until the French king Charles VIII invaded the country in 1494. There were in Italy five important States: Milan, Venice, Florence, the Papal Domain, and Naples; in addition to these there were a number of small principalities, which varied in their alliance with or subjection to some one of the larger States. Until 1378, Genoa rivalled Venice in commerce and naval power, but after that year Genoa became subject to Milanese suzerainty.
Milan, which led the resistance to feudalism in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, fell, after the final defeat of the Hohenstaufen, under the dominion of the Visconti, an able family whose power was plutocratic, not feudal. They ruled for 170 years, from 1277 to 1447; then, after three years of restored republican government, a new family, that of the Sforza, connected with the Visconti, acquired the government, and took the title of Dukes of Milan. From 1494 to 1535, Milan was a battle-ground between the French and the Spaniards; the Sforza allied themselves sometimes with one side, sometimes with the other. During this period they were sometimes in exile, sometimes in nominal control. Finally, in 1535, Milan was annexed by the Emperor Charles V.
The Republic of Venice stands somewhat outside Italian politics, especially in the earlier centuries of its greatness. It had never been conquered by the barbarians, and at first regarded itself as subject to the Eastern emperors. This tradition, combined with the fact that its trade was with the East, gave it an independence of Rome, which still persisted down to the time of the Council of Trent ( 1545), of which the Venetian Paolo Sarpi wrote a very anti-papal history. We have seen how, at the time of the fourth Crusade, Venice insisted upon the conquest of Constantinople. This improved Venetian trade, which, conversely, suffered by the Turkish conquest of Constantinople in 1453. For various reasons, partly connected with food supply, the Venetians found it necessary, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, to acquire considerable territory on the mainland of Italy; this roused enmities, and led finally, in 1509, to the formation of the League of Cambray, a combination of powerful States by which Venice was defeated. It might have been possible to recover from this misfortune, but not from Vasco da Gama’s discovery of the Cape route to India ( 1497-8). This, added to the power of the Turks,
-496-
ruined Venice, which, however, lingered on until deprived of independence by Napoleon.
The constitution of Venice, which had originally been democratic, became gradually less so, and was, after 1297, a close oligarchy. The basis of political power was the Great Council, membership of which, after that date, was hereditary, and was confined to the leading families. Executive power belonged to the Council of Ten, which was elected by the Great Council. The Doge, the ceremonial head of the State, was elected for life; his nominal powers were very restricted, but in practice his influence was usually decisive. Venetian diplomacy was considered exceedingly astute, and the reports of Venetian am. bassadors were remarkably penetrating. Since Ranke, historians have used them as among the best sources for knowledge of the events with which they deal.
Florence was the most civilized city in the world, and the chief source of the Renaissance. Almost all the great names in literature, and the earlier as well as some of the later of the great names in art, are connected with Florence; but for the present we are concerned. with politics rather than culture. In the thirteenth century, there were three conflicting classes in Florence: the nobles, the rich merchants, and the small men. The nobles, in the main, were Ghibelline, the other two classes Guelf. The Ghibellines were finally defeated in 1266, and during the fourteenth century the party of the small men got the better of the rich merchants. The conflict, however, led not to a stable democracy, but to the gradual growth of what the Greeks would have called a “tyranny.” The Medici family, who ultimately became. the rulers of Florence, began as political bosses on the democratic side. Cosimo dei Medici ( 1389-1464), the first of the family to achieve clear pre-eminence, still had no official position; his power depended upon skill in manipulating elections. He was astute, conciliatory when possible, ruthless when necessary. He was succeeded, after a short interval, by his grandson Lorenzo the Magnificent, who held power from 1469 till his death in 1492. Both these men owed their position to their wealth, which they had acquired mainly in commerce, but also in mining and other industries. They understood how to make Florence rich, as well as themselves, and under them the city prospered.
Lorenzo’s son Pietro lacked his father’s merits, and was expelled
-497-
in 1494. Then followed the four years of Savonarola’s influence, when a kind of Puritan revival turned men against gaiety and luxury, away from free-thought and towards the piety supposed to have characterized a simpler age. In the end, however, mainly for political reasons, Savonarola’s enemies triumphed, he was executed and his body was burnt ( 1498). The Republic, democratic in intention but plutocratic in fact, survived till 1512, when the Medici were restored. A son of Lorenzo, who had become a cardinal at the age of fourteen, was elected Pope in 1513, and took the title of Leo X. The Medici family, under the title of Grand Dukes of Tuscany, governed Florence until 1737; but Florence meanwhile, like the rest of Italy, had become poor and unimportant.
The temporal power of the Pope, which owed its origin to Pepin and the forged Donation of Constantine, increased greatly during the Renaissance; but the methods employed by the popes to this end robbed the papacy of spiritual authority. The conciliar movement, which came to grief in the conflict between the Council of Basel and Pope Eugenius IV ( 1431-1447), represented the most earnest elements in the Church; what was perhaps even more important, it represented ecclesiastical opinion north of the Alps. The victory of the popes was the victory of Italy, and (in a lesser degree) of Spain. Italian civilization, in the latter half of the fifteenth century, was totally unlike that of northern countries, which remained medieval. The Italians were in earnest about culture, but not about morals
