Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 | Page 3

Order's Rapid Extension over Europe--Loyola's Dealings with his Chief Lieutenants--Propaganda--The Virtue of Obedience--The _Exercitia Spiritualia_--Materialistic Imagination--Intensity and Superficiality of Religious Training--The Status of the Novice--Temporal Coadjutors--Scholastics--Professed of the Three Vows--Professed of the Four Vows--The General--Control exercised over him by his Assistants--His Relation to the General Congregation--Espionage a Part of the Jesuit System--Advantageous Position of a Contented Jesuit--The Vow of Poverty--Houses of the Professed and Colleges--The Constitutions and Declarations--Problem of the _Monita Secreta_--Reciprocal Relations of Rome and the Company--Characteristics of Jesuit Education--Direction of Consciences--Moral Laxity--Sarpi's Critique--Casuistry--Interference in Affairs of State--Instigation to Regicide and Political Conspiracy--Theories of Church Supremacy--Insurgence of the European Nations against the Company
CHAPTER V.
SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC MORALS I
PART I.
How did the Catholic Revival affect Italian Society?--Difficulty of Answering this Question--Frequency of Private Crimes of Violence--Homicides and Bandits--Savage Criminal Justice--Paid Assassins--Toleration of Outlaws--Honorable Murder--Example of the Lucchese Army--State of the Convents--The History of Virginia de Leyva--Lucrezia Buonvisi--The True Tale of the Cenci--The Brothers of the House of Massimo--Vittoria Accoramboni--The Duchess of Palliano--Wife-Murders--The Family of Medici
CHAPTER VI.
SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC MORALS:
PART II.
Tales illustrative of Bravi and Banditti--Cecco Bibboni--Ambrogio Tremazzi--Lodovico dall'Armi--Brigandage--Piracy--Plagues--The Plagues of Milan, Venice, Piedmont--Persecution of the Untori--Moral State of the Proletariate--Witchcraft--Its Italian Features--History of Giacomo Centini

RENAISSANCE IN ITALY.
CHAPTER I.
THE SPANISH HEGEMONY.
Italy in the Renaissance--The Five Great Powers--The Kingdom of Naples--The Papacy--The Duchy of Milan--Venice--The Florentine Republic--Wars of Invasion closed by the Sack of Rome in 1527--Concordat between Clement VII. and Charles V.--Treaty of Barcelona and Paix des Dames--Charles lands at Genoa--His Journey to Bologna--Entrance into Bologna and Reception by Clement--Mustering of Italian Princes--Francesco Sforza replaced in the Duchy of Milan--Venetian Embassy--Italian League signed on Christmas Eve, 1529--Florence alone excluded--The Siege of Florence pressed by the Prince of Orange--Charles's Coronation as King of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor--The Significance of this Ceremony at Bologna--Ceremony in S. Petronio--Settlement of the Duchy of Ferrara--Men of Letters and Arts at Bologna--The Emperor's Use of the Spanish Habit--Charles and Clement leave Bologna in March, 1530--Review of the Settlement of Italy effected by Emperor and Pope--Extinction of Republics--Subsequent Absorption of Ferrara and Urbino into the Papal States--Savoy becomes an Italian Power--Period between Charles's Coronation and the Peace of Cateau Cambresis in 1559--Economical and Social Condition of the Italians under Spanish Hegemony--The Nation still Exists in Separate Communities--Intellectual Conditions--Predominance of Spain and Rome--Both Cosmopolitan Powers--Leveling down of the Component Portions of the Nation in a Common Servitude--The Evils of Spanish Rule.
In the first volume of my book on Renaissance in Italy I attempted to set forth the political and social phases through which the Italians passed before their principal States fell into the hands of despots, and to explain the conditions of mutual jealousy and military feebleness which exposed those States to the assaults of foreign armies at the close of the fifteenth century.
In the year 1494, when Charles VIII. of France, at Lodovico Sforza's invitation, crossed the Alps to make good his claim on Naples, the peninsula was Independent. Internal peace had prevailed for a period of nearly fifty years. An equilibrium had been established between the five great native Powers, which secured the advantages of confederation and diplomatic interaction.
While using the word confederation, I do not, of course, imply that anything similar to the federal union of Switzerland or of North America existed in Italy. The contrary is proved by patent facts. On a miniature scale, Italy then displayed political conditions analogous to those which now prevail in Europe. The parcels of the nation adopted different forms of self-government, sought divers foreign alliances, and owed no allegiance to any central legislative or administrative body. I therefore speak of the Italian confederation only in the same sense as Europe may now be called a confederation of kindred races.
In the year 1630, when Charles V. (of Austria and Spain) was crowned Emperor at Bologna, this national independence had been irretrievably lost by the Italians. This confederation of evenly-balanced Powers was now exchanged for servitude beneath a foreign monarchy, and for subjection to a cosmopolitan elective priesthood.
The history of social, intellectual, and moral conditions in Italy during the seventy years of the sixteenth century which followed Charles's coronation at Bologna, forms the subject of this work; but before entering upon these topics it will be well to devote one chapter to considering with due brevity the partition of Italy into five States in 1494, the dislocation of this order by the wars between Spain and France for supremacy, the position in which the same States found themselves respectively at the termination of those wars in 1527, and the new settlement of the peninsula effected by Charles V. in 1529-30.
The five members of the Italian federation in 1494 were the kingdom of Naples, the Papacy, the Duchy of Milan, and the Republics of Venice and Florence. Round them, in various relations of amity or hostility, were grouped these minor Powers: