Civilization of Renaissance in Italy | Page 9

give it no other
practical authority than what might flow from an imperial charter. The
whole conduct of Charles in Italy was a scandalous political comedy.
Matteo Villani relates how the Visconti escorted him round their
territory, and at last out of it; how he went about like a hawker selling
his wares (privileges, etc.) for money; what a mean appearance he
made in Rome, and how at the end, without even drawing the sword, he
returned with replenished coffers across the Alps. Sigismund came, on
the first occasion at least (1414), with the good intention of persuading
John XXIII to take part in his council; it was on that journey, when
Pope and Emperor were gazing from the lofty tower of Cremona on the
panorama of Lombardy, that their host, the tyrant Gabrino Fondolo,
was seized with the desire to throw them both over. On his second visit
Sigismund came as a mere adventurer; for more than half a year he
remained shut up in Siena, like a debtor in gaol, and only with
difficulty, and at a later period, succeeded in being crowned in Rome.
And what can be thought of Frederick III? His journeys to Italy have
the air of holiday-trips or pleasure-tours made at the expense of those
who wanted him to confirm their prerogatives, or whose vanity is
flattered to entertain an emperor. The latter was the case with Alfonso
of Naples, who paid 150,000 florins for the honour of an imperial visit.
At Ferrara, on his second return from Rome (1469), Frederick spent a
whole day without leaving his chamber, distributing no less than eighty

titles; he created knights, counts, doctors. notaries--counts, indeed, of
different degrees, as, for instance, counts palatine, counts with the right
to create doctors up to the number of five, counts with the rights to
legitimatize bastards, to appoint notaries, and so forth. The Chancellor,
however, expected in return for the patents in question a gratuity which
was thought excessive at Ferrara. The opinion of Borso, himself created
Duke of Modena and Reggio in return for an annual payment of 4,000
gold florins, when his imperial patron was distributing titles and
diplomas to all the little court, is not mentioned. The humanists, then
the chief spokesmen of the age, were divided in opinion according to
their personal interests, while the Emperor was greeted by some of
them with the conventional acclamations of the poets of imperial Rome.
Poggio confessed that he no longer knew what the coronation meant: in
the old times only the victorious Imperator was crowned, and then he
was crowned with laurel.
With Maximilian I begins not only the general intervention of foreign
nations, but a new imperial policy with regard to Italy. The first step --
the investiture of Lodovico il Moro with the duchy of Milan and the
exclusion of his unhappy nephew -- was not of a kind to bear good
fruits. According to the modern theory of intervention when two parties
are tearing a country to pieces, a third may step in and take its share,
and on this principle the empire acted. But right and justice could be
involved no longer. When Louis XI was expected in Genoa (1507), and
the imperial eagle was removed from the hall of the ducal palace and
replaced by painted lilies, the historian Senarega asked what, after all,
was the meaning of the eagle which so many revolutions had spared,
and what claims the empire had upon Genoa. No one knew more about
the matter than the old phrase that Genoa was a camera imperii. In fact,
nobody in Italy could give a clear answer to any such questions. At
length when Charles V held Spain and the empire together, he was able
by means of Spanish forces to make good imperial claims: but it is
notorious that what he thereby gained turned to the profit, not of the
empire, but of the Spanish monarchy.
* * *

Closely connected with the political illegitimacy of the dynasties of the
fifteenth century was the public indifference to legitimate birth, which
to foreigners -- for example, to Commines -- appeared so remarkable.
The two things went naturally together. In northern countries, as in
Burgundy, the illegitimate offspring were provided for by a distinct
class of appanages, such as bishoprics and the like: in Portugal an
illegitimate line maintained itself on the throne only by constant effort;
in Italy. on the contrary, there no longer existed a princely house where
even in the direct line of descent, bastards were not patiently tolerated.
The Aragonese monarchs of Naples belonged to the illegitimate line,
Aragon itself falling to the lot of the brother of Alfonso I. The great
Federigo of Urbino was, perhaps, no Montefeltro at all. When Pius II
was on his