Civilization of Renaissance in Italy | Page 8

hunting but for tearing human bodies. Tradition has
preserved their names, like those of the bears of Emperor Valentinian I.
In May, 1409, when war was going on, and the starving populace cried
to him in the streets, _Pace! Pace!_ he let loose his mercenaries upon
them, and 200 lives were sacrificed; under penalty of the gallows it was
forbidden to utter the words pace and guerra, and the priests were
ordered, instead of dona nobis pacem, to say tranquillitatem! At last a
band of conspirators took advantage of the moment when Facino Cane,
the chief Condotierre of the insane ruler, lay in at Pavia, and cut down
Giovanni Maria in the church of San Gottardo at Milan; the dying
Facino on the same day made his officers swear to stand by the heir
Filippo Maria, whom he himself urged his wife to take for a second
husband. His wife, Beatrice di Tenda, followed his advice. We shall
have occasion to speak of Filippo Maria later on.
And in times like these Cola di Rienzi was dreaming of founding on the
rickety enthusiasm of the corrupt population of Rome a new State
which was to comprise all Italy. By the side of rulers such as those
whom we have described, he seems no better than a poor deluded fool.
Despots of the Fifteenth Century
The despotisms of the fifteenth century show an altered character.

Many of the less important tyrants, and some of the greater, like the
Scala and the Carrara had disappeared, while the more powerful ones,
aggrandized by conquest, had given to their systems each its
characteristic development. Naples for example received a fresh and
stronger impulse from the new Aragonese dynasty. A striking feature of
this epoch is the attempt of the Condottieri to found independent
dynasties of their own. Facts and the actual relations of things, apart
from traditional estimates, are alone regarded; talent and audacity win
the great prizes. The petty despots, to secure a trustworthy support,
begin to enter the service of the larger States, and become themselves
Condottieri, receiving in return for their services money and immunity
for their misdeeds, if not an increase of territory. All, whether small or
great, must exert themselves more, must act with greater caution and
calculation, and must learn to refrain from too wholesale barbarities;
only so much wrong is permitted by public opinion as is necessary for
the end in view, and this the impartial bystander certainly finds no fault
with. No trace is here visible of that half-religious loyalty by which the
legitimate princes of the West were supported; personal popularity is
the nearest approach we can find to it. Talent and calculation are the
only means of advancement. A character like that of Charles the Bold,
which wore itself out in the passionate pursuit of impracticable ends,
was a riddle to the Italians. 'The Swiss were only peasants, and if they
were all killed, that would be no satisfaction for the Burgundian nobles
who might fall in the war. If the Duke got possession of all Switzerland
without a struggle, his income would not be 5,000 ducats the greater.'
The mediaeval features in the character of Charles, his chivalrous
aspirations and ideals, had long become unintelligible to the Italians.
The diplomatists of the South. when they saw him strike his officers
and yet keep them in his service, when he maltreated his troops to
punish them for a defeat, and then threw the blame on his counsellors
in the presence of the same troops, gave him up for lost. Louis XI, on
the other hand, whose policy surpasses that of the Italian princes in
their own style, and who was an avowed admirer of Francesco Sforza,
must be placed in all that regards culture and refinement far below
these rulers.
Good and evil lie strangely mixed together in the Italian States of the

fifteenth century. The personality of the ruler is so highly developed,
often of such deep significance, and so characteristic of the conditions
and needs of the time, that to form an adequate moral judgement on it
is no easy task.
The foundation of the system was and remained illegitimate, and
nothing could remove the curse which rested upon it. The imperial
approval or investiture made no change in the matter, since the people
attached little weight to the fact that the despot had bought a piece of
parchment somewhere in foreign countries, or from some stranger
passing through his territory. If the Emperor had been good for
anything, so ran the logic of uncritical common sense, he would never
have let the tyrant rise at all. Since the Roman expedition of Charles IV,
the emperors had done nothing more in Italy than sanction a tyranny
which had arisen without their help; they could