Civilization of Renaissance in Italy | Page 7

More often, however, the old
Florentines speak on this subject in a tone of lofty seriousness. Dante
saw and characterized well the vulgarity and commonplace which
marked the ambition of the new princes. 'What else mean their trumpets
and their bells, their horns and their flutes, but "come, hangmen come,
vultures!"' The castle of the tyrant, as pictured by the popular mind, is
lofty and solitary, full of dungeons and listening-tubes, the home of
cruelty and misery. Misfortune is foretold to all who enter the service
of the despot, who even becomes at last himself an object of pity: he
must needs be the enemy of all good and honest men: he can trust no
one and can read in the faces of his subjects the expectation of his fall.
'As despotisms rise, grow, and are consolidated, so grows in their midst
the hidden element which must produce their dissolution and ruin.' But
the deepest ground of dislike has not been stated; Florence was then the
scene of the richest development of human individuality, while for the
despots no other individuality could be suffered to live and thrive but
their own and that of their nearest dependents. The control of the
individual was rigorously carried out, even down to the establishment
of a system of passports.
The astrological superstitions and the religious unbelief of many of the
tyrants gave, in the minds of their contemporaries, a peculiar color to
this awful and God-forsaken existence. When the last Carrara could no

longer defend the walls and gates of the plague-stricken Padua,
hemmed in on all sides by the Venetians (1405), the soldiers of the
guard heard him cry to the devil 'to come and kill him.'
* * *
The most complete and instructive type of the tyranny of the fourteenth
century is to be found unquestionably among the Visconti of Milan,
from the death of the Archbishop Giovanni onwards (1354). The family
likeness which shows itself between Bernabo and the worst of the
Roman Emperors is unmistakable; the most important public object
was the prince's boar-hunting; whoever interfered with it was put to
death with torture, the terrified people were forced to maintain 5,000
boar hounds, with strict responsibility for their health and safety. The
taxes were extorted by every conceivable sort of compulsion; seven
daughters of the prince received a dowry of 100,000 gold florins apiece;
and an enormous treasure was collected. On the death of his wife (1384)
an order was issued 'to the subjects' to share his grief, as once they had
shared his joy, and to wear mourning for a year. The coup de main
(1385) by which his nephew Giangaleazzo got him into his power--one
of those brilliant plots which make the heart of even late historians beat
more quickly was strikingly characteristic of the man .
In Giangaleazzo that passion for the colossal which was common to
most of the despots shows itself on the largest scale. He undertook, at
the cost of 300,000 golden florins, the construction of gigantic dikes, to
divert in case of need the Mincio from Mantua and the Brenta from
Padua, and thus to render these cities defenseless. It is not impossible,
indeed, that he thought of draining away the lagoons of Venice. He
founded that most wonderful of all convents, the Certosa of Pavia and
the cathedral of Milan, 'which exceeds in size and splendor all the
churches of Christendom.' The palace in Pavia, which his father
Galeazzo began and which he himself finished, was probably by far the
most magnificent of the princely dwellings of Europe. There he
transferred his famous library, and the great collection of relics of the
saints, in which he placed a peculiar faith. It would have been strange
indeed if a prince of this character had not also cherished the highest

ambitions in political matters. King Wenceslaus made him Duke (1395);
he was hoping for nothing less than the Kingdom of Italy or the
Imperial crown, when (1402) he fell ill and died. His whole territories
are said to have paid him in a single year, besides the regular
contribution of 1,200,000 gold florins, no less than 800,000 more in
extraordinary subsidies. After his death the dominions which he had
brought together by every sort of violence fell to pieces: and for a time
even the original nucleus could with difficulty be maintained by his
successors. What might have become of his sons Giovanni Maria (died
1412) and Filippo Maria (died 1447), had they lived in a different
country and under other traditions, cannot be said. But, as heirs of their
house, they inherited that monstrous capital of cruelty and cowardice
which had been accumulated from generation to generation.
Giovanni Maria, too, is famed for his dogs, which were no longer,
however, used for