The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy

223

Macchiavelli, Scritti Minori, p. 142, in the well-known essay on the catastrophe of Sinigaglia. It is true that the French and Spanish soldiers were still more zealous than the Italians. Comp. in Paul. Jov. Vita Leonis X. (l. ii.) the scene before the battle of Ravenna, in which the Legate, weeping for joy, was surrounded by the Spanish troops, and besought for absolution. See further (ibid.) the statements respecting the French in Milan.

224

In the case of the heretics of Poli, in the Campagna, who held the doctrine that a genuine Pope must show the poverty of Christ as the mark of his calling, we have simply a kind of Waldensian doctrine. Their imprisonment under Paul II. is related by Infessura (Eccard, ii. col. 1893), Platina, p. 317, &c.

225

As an illustration of this feeling see the poem addressed to the Pope, quoted in Gregorovius, vii. 136.

226

Dialogus de Conjuratione Stephani de Porcariis, by his contemporary Petrus Godes de Vicenza, quoted and used by Gregorovius, viii. 130. L. B. Alberti, De Porcaria Conjuratione, in Murat. xxv. col. 309. Porcari was desirous ‘omnem pontificiam turbam funditus exstinguere.’ The author concludes: ‘Video sane, quo stent loco res Italiæ; intelligo qui sint, quibus hic perturbata esse omnia conducat....’ He names them ‘Extrinsecus impulsores,’ and is of opinion that Porcari will find successors in his misdeeds. The dreams of Porcari certainly bore some resemblance to those of Cola Rienzi. He also referred to himself the poem ‘Spirto Gentil,’ addressed by Petrarch to Rienzi.

227

‘Ut Papa tantum vicarius Christi sit et non etiam Cæsaris.... Tunc Papa et dicetur et erit pater sanctus, pater omnium, pater ecclesiæ,’ &c. Valla’s work was written rather earlier, and was aimed at Eugenius IV. See Vahlen, Lor. Valla (Berlin, 1870), pp. 25 sqq., esp. 32. Nicholas V., on the other hand, is praised by Valla, Gregorovius, vii. 136.

228

Pii II. Comment. iv. pp. 208 sqq. Voigt, Enea Silvio, iii. pp. 151 sqq.

229

Platina, Vita Pauli II.

230

Battista Mantovano, De Calamitatibus Temporum, l. iii. The Arabian sells incense, the Tyrian purple, the Indian ivory: ‘Venalia nobis templa, sacerdotes, altaria sacra, coronæ, ignes, thura, preces, cælum est venale Deusque.’ Opera, ed. Paris, 1507, fol. 302 b. Then follows an exhortation to Pope Sixtus, whose previous efforts are praised, to put an end to these evils.

231

See e.g. the Annales Placentini, in Murat. xx. col. 943.

232

Corio, Storia di Milano, fol. 416-420. Pietro had already helped at the election of Sixtus. See Infessura, in Eccard, Scriptores, ii. col. 1895. It is curious that in 1469 it had been prophesied that deliverance would come from Savona (home of Sixtus, elected in 1471) within three years. See the letter and date in Baluz. Miscell. iii. p. 181. According to Macchiavelli, Storie Fiorent. l. vii. the Venetians poisoned the cardinal. Certainly they were not without motives to do so.

233

Honorius II. wished, after the death of William I. (1127), to annex Apulia, as a feof reverted to St. Peter.

234

Fabroni, Laurentius Mag. Adnot. 130. An informer, Vespucci, sends word of both, ‘Hanno in ogni elezione a mettere a sacco questa corte, e sono i maggior ribaldi del mondo.’

235

Corio, fol. 450. Details, partly from unpublished documents, of these acts of bribery in Gregorovius, vii. 310 sqq.

236

A most characteristic letter of exhortation by Lorenzo in Fabroni, Laurentius Magn. Adnot. 217, and extracts in Ranke, Popes, i. p. 45, and in Reumont, Lorenzo, ii. pp. 482 sqq.

237

And perhaps of certain Neapolitan feofs, for the sake of which Innocent called in the Angevins afresh against the immovable Ferrante. The conduct of the Pope in this affair and his participation in the second conspiracy of the barons, were equally foolish and dishonest. For his method of treating with foreign powers, see above p. 127, note 2.

238

Comp. in particular Infessura, in Eccard. Scriptores, ii. passim.

239

According to the Dispacci di Antonio Giustiniani, i. p. 60, and iii. p. 309, Seb. Pinzon was a native of Cremona.

240

Recently by Gregorovius, Lucrezia Borgia, 2 Bände 3 Aufl., Stuttgart, 1875.

241

Except the Bentivoglio at Bologna, and the House of Este at Ferrara. The latter was compelled to form a family relationship, Lucrezia marrying Prince Alfonso.

242

According to Corio (fol. 479) Charles had thoughts of a Council, of deposing the Pope, and even of carrying him away to France, this upon his return from Naples. According to Benedictus, Carolus VIII. (in Eccard, Scriptores, ii. col. 1584), Charles, while in Naples, when Pope and cardinals refused to recognise his new crown, had certainly entertained the thought ‘de Italiæ imperio deque pontificis statu mutando,’ but soon after made up his mind to be satisfied with the personal humiliation of Alexander. The Pope, nevertheless, escaped him. Particulars in Pilorgerie, Campagne et Bulletins de la Grande Armée d’Italie, 1494, 1495 (Paris, 1866, 8vo.), where the degree of Alexander’s danger at different moments is discussed (pp. 111, 117, &c.). In a letter, there printed, of the Archbishop of St. Malo to Queen Anne, it is expressly stated: ‘Si nostre roy eust voulu obtemperer à la plupart des Messeigneurs les Cardinaulx, ilz eussent fait ung autre pappe en intention de refformer l’église ainsi qu’ilz disaient. Le roy désire bien la reformacion, mais il ne veult point entreprandre de sa depposicion.’

243

Corio, fol. 450. Malipiero, Ann. Veneti, Arch. Stor. vii. i. p. 318. The rapacity of the whole family can be seen in Malipiero, among other authorities, l. c. p. 565. A ‘nipote’ was splendidly entertained in Venice as papal legate, and made an enormous sum of money by selling dispensations; his servants, when they went away, stole whatever they could lay their hands on, including a piece of embroidered cloth from the high altar of a church at Murano.

244

This in Panvinio alone among contemporary historians (Contin. Platinæ, p. 339), ‘insidiis Cæsaris fratris interfectus … connivente … ad scelus patre,’ and to the same effect Jovius, Elog. Vir. Ill. p. 302. The profound emotion of Alexander looks like a sign of complicity. After the corpse was drawn out of the Tiber, Sannazaro wrote (Opera Omnia Latine Scripta 1535, fol. 41 a):

Besides the epigram quoted there are others (fol. 36 b, 42 b, 47 b, 51 a, b—in the last passage 5) in Sannazaro on, i.e. against, Alexander. Among them is a famous one, referred to in Gregorovius i. 314, on Lucrezia Borgia:

Others execrate his cruelty and celebrate his death as the beginning of an era of peace. On the Jubilee (see below, p. 108, note 1), there is another epigram, fol. 43 b. There are others no less severe (fol. 34 b, 35 a, b, 42 b, 43 a) against Cæsar Borgia, among which we find in one of the strongest:

(made use of by Bandello, iv. nov. 11). On the murder of the Duke of Gandia, see especially the admirable collection of the most original sources of evidence in Gregorovius, vii. 399-407, according to which Cæsar’s guilt is clear, but it seems very doubtful whether Alexander knew, or approved, of the intended assassination.

245

Macchiavelli, Opere, ed. Milan, vol. v. pp. 387, 393, 395, in the Legazione al Duca Valentino.

246

Tommaso Gar, Relazioni della Corte di Roma, i. p. 12, in the Rel. of P. Capello. Literally: ‘The Pope has more respect for Venice than for any other power in the world.’ ‘E però desidera, che ella (Signoria di Venezia) protegga il figliuolo, e dice voler fare tale ordine, che il papato o sia suo, ovvero della signoria nostra.’ The word ‘suo’ can only refer to Cæsar. An instance of the uncertainty caused by this usage is found in the still lively controversy respecting the words used by Vasari in the Vita di Raffaello: ‘A Bindo Altoviti fece il ritratto suo, &c.’

247

Strozzii Poetae, p. 19, in the ‘Venatio’ of Ercole Strozza: ’ … cui triplicem fata invidere coronam.’ And in the Elegy on Cæsar’s death, p. 31 sqq.: ‘Speraretque olim solii decora alta paterni.’

248

Ibid. Jupiter had once promised

249

Ibid.

250

He was married, as is well known, to a French princess of the family of Albret, and had a daughter by her; in some way or other he would have attempted to found a dynasty. It is not known that he took steps to regain the cardinal’s hat, although (acc. to Macchiavelli, l. c. p. 285) he must have counted on the speedy death of his father.

251

Macchiavelli, l. c. p. 334. Designs on Siena and eventually on all Tuscany certainly existed, but were not yet ripe; the consent of France was indispensable.

252

Macchiavelli, l. c. pp. 326, 351, 414; Matarazzo, Cronaca di Perugia, Arch. Stor. xvi. ii. pp. 157 and 221. He wished his soldiers to quarter themselves where they pleased, so that they gained more in time of peace than of war. Petrus Alcyonius, De Exilio (1522), ed. Mencken, p. 19, says of the style of conducting war: ‘Ea scelera et flagitia a nostris militibus patrata sunt quæ ne Scythæ quidem aut Turcæ, aut Pœni in Italia commisissent.’ The same writer (p. 65) blames Alexander as a Spaniard: ‘Hispani generis hominem, cujus proprium est, rationibus et commodis Hispanorum consultum velle, non Italorum.’ See above, p. 109.

253

To this effect Pierio Valeriano, De Infelicitate Literat. ed. Mencken, p. 282, in speaking of Giovanni Regio: ‘In arcano proscriptorum albo positus.’

254

Tommaso Gar, l. c. p. 11. From May 22, 1502, onwards the Despatches of Giustiniani, 3 vols. Florence, 1876, edited by Pasquale Villari, offer valuable information.

255

Paulus Jovius, Elogia, Cæsar Borgia. In the Commentarii Urbani of Ralph. Volaterianus, lib. xxii. there is a description of Alexander VI., composed under Julius II., and still written very guardedly. We here read: ‘Roma … nobilis jam carneficina facta erat.’

256

Diario Ferrarese, in Muratori, xxiv. col. 362.

257

Paul. Jovius, Histor. ii. fol. 47.

258

See the passages in Ranke, Röm. Päpste; Sämmtl. Werke, Bd. xxxvii. 35, and xxxix. Anh. Abschn. 1, Nro. 4, and Gregorovius, vii. 497, sqq. Giustiniani does not believe in the Pope’s being poisoned. See his Dispacci, vol. ii. pp. 107 sqq.; Villari’s Note, pp. 120 sqq., and App. pp. 458 sqq.

259

Panvinius, Epitome Pontificum, p. 359. For the attempt to poison Alexander’s successor, Julius II., see p. 363. According to Sismondi, xiii. p. 246, it was in this way that Lopez, Cardinal of Capua, for years the partner of all the Pope’s secrets, came by his end; according to Sanuto (in Ranke, Popes, i. p. 52, note), the Cardinal of Verona also. When Cardinal Orsini died, the Pope obtained a certificate of natural death from a college of physicians.

260

Prato, Arch. Stor. iii. p. 254; comp. Attilio Alessio, in Baluz. Miscell., iv. p. 518 sqq.

261

And turned to the most profitable account by the Pope. Comp. Chron. Venetum, in Murat. xxiv. col. 133, given only as a report: ‘E si giudiceva, che il Pontefice dovesse cavare assai danari di questo Giubileo, che gli tornerà molto a proposito.

262

Anshelm, Berner Chronik, iii. pp. 146-156. Trithem. Annales Hirsaug. tom. ii. pp. 579, 584, 586.

263

Panvin. Contin. Platinae, p. 341.

264

Hence the splendour of the tombs of the prelates erected during their lifetime. A part of the plunder was in this way saved from the hands of the Popes.

265

Whether Julius really hoped that Ferdinand the Catholic would be induced to restore to the throne of Naples the expelled Aragonese dynasty, remains, in spite of Giovio’s declaration (Vita Alfonsi Ducis), very doubtful.

266

Both poems in Roscoe, Leone X. ed. Bossi, iv. 257 and 297. Of his death the Cronaca di Cremona says: ‘quale fu grande danno per la Italia, perchè era homo che non voleva tramontani in Italia, ed haveva cazato Francesi, e l’animo era de cazar le altri.’ Bibl. Hist. Ital. (1876) i. 217. It is true that when Julius, in August, 1511, lay one day for hours in a fainting fit, and was thought to be dead, the more restless members of the noblest families—Pompeo Colonna and Antimo Savelli—ventured to call ‘the people’ to the Capitol, and to urge them to throw off the Papal yoke—‘a vendicarsi in libertà … a publica ribellione,’ as Guicciardini tells us in his tenth book. See, too, Paul. Jov. in the Vita Pompeji Columnae, and Gregorovius, viii. 71-75.

267

Septimo decretal. l. i. tit. 3, cap. 1-3.

268

Franc. Vettori, in the Arch. Stor. vi. 297.

269

Besides which it is said (Paul. Lang. Chronicon Cilicense) to have produced not less than 500,000 gold florins; the order of the Franciscans alone, whose general was made a cardinal, paid 30,000. For a notice of the various sums paid, see Sanuto, xxiv. fol. 227; for the whole subject see Gregorovius, viii. 214 sqq.

270

Franc. Vettori, l.c. p. 301. Arch. Stor. Append. i. p. 293 sqq. Roscoe, Leone X. ed. Bossi, vi. p. 232 sqq. Tommaso Gar, l. c. p. 42.

271

Ariosto, Sat. vi. v. 106. ‘Tutti morrete, ed è fatal che muoja Leone appresso.’ Sat. 3 and 7 ridicule the hangers on at Leo’s Court.

272

One of several instances of such combinations is given in the Lettere dei Principi, i. 65, in a despatch of the Cardinal Bibbiena from Paris of the year 1518.

273

Franc. Vettori, l.c. p. 333.

274

At the time of the Lateran Council, in 1512, Pico wrote an address: J. E. P. Oratio ad Leonem X. et Concilium Lateranense de Reformandis Ecclesiæ Moribus (ed. Hagenau, 1512, frequently printed in editions of his works). The address was dedicated to Pirckheimer and was again sent to him in 1517. Comp. Vir. Doct. Epist. ad Pirck., ed. Freytag, Leipz. 1838, p. 8. Pico fears that under Leo evil may definitely triumph over good, ‘et in te bellum a nostræ religionis hostibus ante audias geri quam pariri.’

275

Lettere dei Principi, i. (Rome. 17th March, 1523): ‘This city stands on a needle’s point, and God grant that we are not soon driven to Avignon or to the end of the Ocean. I foresee the early fall of this spiritual monarchy.... Unless God helps us we are lost.’ Whether Adrian were really poisoned or not, cannot be gathered with certainty from Blas Ortiz, Itinerar. Hadriani (Baluz. Miscell. ed. Mansi, i. p. 386 sqq.); the worst of it was that everybody believed it.

276

Negro, l.c. on Oct. 24 (should be Sept.) and Nov. 9, 1526, April 11, 1527. It is true that he found admirers and flatterers. The dialogue of Petrus Alcyonus ‘De Exilio’ was written in his praise, shortly before he became Pope.

277

Varchi, Stor. Fiorent. i. 43, 46 sqq.

278

Paul. Jov., Vita Pomp. Columnae.

279

Ranke, Deutsche Geschichte (4 Aufl.) ii. 262 sqq.

280

Varchi, Stor. Fiorent. ii. 43 sqq.

281

Ibid. and Ranke, Deutsche Gesch. ii. 278, note, and iii. 6 sqq. It was thought that Charles would transfer his seat of government to Rome.

282

See his letter to the Pope, dated Carpentras, Sept. 1, 1527, in the Anecdota litt. iv. p. 335.

283

Lettere dei Principi, i. 72. Castiglione to the Pope, Burgos, Dec. 10, 1527.

284

Tommaso Gar, Relaz. della Corte di Roma, i. 299.

285

The Farnese succeeded in something of the kind, the Caraffa were ruined.

286

Petrarca, Epist. Fam. i. 3. p. 574, when he thanks God that he was born an Italian. And again in the Apologia contra cujusdam anonymi Galli Calumnias of the year 1367 (Opp. ed. Bas. 1581) p. 1068 sqq. See L. Geiger, Petrarca, 129-145.

287

Particularly those in vol. i. of Schardius, Scriptores rerum Germanicarum, Basel, 1574. For an earlier period, Felix Faber, Historia Suevorum, libri duo (in Goldast, Script. rer. Suev. 1605); for a later, Irenicus, Exegesis Germaniæ, Hagenau, 1518. On the latter work and the patriotic histories of that time, see various studies of A. Horawitz, Hist. Zeitschrift, bd. xxxiii. 118, anm. 1.

288

One instance out of many: The Answers of the Doge of Venice to a Florentine Agent respecting Pisa, 1496, in Malipiero, Ann. Veneti. Arch. Stor. vii. i. p. 427.

289

Observe the expressions ‘uomo singolare’ and ‘uomo unico’ for the higher and highest stages of individual development.

290

By the year 1390 there was no longer any prevailing fashion of dress for men at Florence, each preferring to clothe himself in his own way. See the Canzone of Franco Sacchetti: ‘Contro alle nuove foggie’ in the Rime, publ. dal Poggiali, p. 52.

291

At the close of the sixteenth century Montaigne draws the following parallel (Essais, l. iii. chap. 5, vol. iii. p. 367 of the Paris ed. 1816): ‘Ils (les Italiens) ont plus communement des belles femmes et moins de laides que nous; mais des rares et excellentes beautés j’estime que nous allons à pair. Et j’en juge autant des esprits; de ceux de la commune façon, ils en ont beaucoup plus et evidemment; la brutalité y est sans comparaison plus rare; d’ames singulières et du plus hault estage, nous ne leur en debvons rien.’

292

And also of their wives, as is seen in the family of Sforza and among other North Italian rulers. Comp. in the work of Jacobus Phil. Bergomensis, De Plurimis Claris Selectisque Mulieribus, Ferrara, 1497, the lives of Battista Malatesta, Paola Gonzaga, Bona Lombarda, Riccarda of Este, and the chief women of the House of Sforza, Beatrice and others. Among them are more than one genuine virago, and in several cases natural gifts are supplemented by great humanistic culture. (See below, chap. 3 and part v.)

293

Franco Sacchetti, in his ‘Capitolo’ (Rime, publ. dal Poggiali, p. 56), enumerates about 1390 the names of over a hundred distinguished people in the ruling parties who had died within his memory. However many mediocrities there may have been among them, the list is still remarkable as evidence of the awakening of individuality. On the ‘Vite’ of Filippo Villani, see below.

294

Trattato del Governo della Famiglia forms a part of the work: La Cura della Famiglia (Opere Volg. di Leon Batt. Alberti, publ. da Anicio Bonucci, Flor. 1844, vol. ii.). See there vol. i. pp. xxx.-xl., vol. ii. pp. xxxv. sqq. and vol. v. pp. 1-127. Formerly the work was generally, as in the text, attributed to Agnolo Pandolfini (d. 1446; see on him Vesp. Fiorent., pp. 291 and 379); the recent investigations of Fr. Palermo (Florence 1871), have shown Alberti to be the author. The work is quoted from the ed. Torino, Pomba, 1828.

295

Trattato, p. 65 sqq.

296

Jov. Pontanus, De Fortitudine, l. ii. cap. 4, ‘De tolerando Exilio,’ Seventy years later, Cardanus (De Vitâ Propriâ, cap. 32) could ask bitterly: ‘Quid est patria nisi consensus tyrannorum minutorum ad opprimendos imbelles timidos et qui plerumque sunt innoxii?’

297

De Vulgari Eloquio, lib. i. cap. 6. On the ideal Italian language, cap. 17. The spiritual unity of cultivated men, cap. 18. On home-sickness, comp. the famous passages, Purg. viii. 1 sqq., and Parad. xxv. 1 sqq.

298

Dantis Alligherii Epistolae, ed. Carolus Witte, p. 65.

299

Ghiberti, Secondo Commentario, cap. xv. (Vasari ed Lemonnier, i. p. xxix.).

300

Codri Urcei Vita, at the end of his works, first pub. Bologna 1502. This certainly comes near the old saying: ‘ubi bene, ibi patria.’ C. U. was not called after the place of his birth, but after Forli, where he lived long; see Malagola, Codro Urceo, Bologna, 1877, cap. v. and app. xi. The abundance of neutral intellectual pleasure, which is independent of local circumstances, and of which the educated Italians became more and more capable, rendered exile more tolerable to them. Cosmopolitanism is further a sign of an epoch in which new worlds are discovered, and men feel no longer at home in the old. We see it among the Greeks after the Peloponnesian war; Plato, as Niebuhr says, was not a good citizen, and Xenophon was a bad one; Diogenes went so far as to proclaim homelessness a pleasure, and calls himself, Laertius tells us, ἁπολις. Here another remarkable work may be mentioned. Petrus Alcyonius in his book: Medices Legatus de Exilio lib. duo, Ven. 1522 (printed in Mencken, Analecta de Calam. Literatorum, Leipzig, 1707, pp. 1-250) devotes to the subject of exile a long and prolix discussion. He tries logically and historically to refute the three reasons for which banishment is held to be an evil, viz. 1. Because the exile must live away from his fatherland. 2. Because he loses the honours given him at home. 3. Because he must do without his friends and relatives; and comes finally to the conclusion that banishment is not an evil. His dissertation culminates in the words, ‘Sapientissimus quisque omnem orbem terrarum unam urbem esse ducit. Atque etiam illam veram sibi esse patriam arbitratur quæ se perigrinantem exciperit, quæ pudorem, probitatem, virtutem colit, quæ optima studia, liberales disciplinas amplectitur, quæ etiam facit ut peregrini omnes honesto otio teneant statum et famam dignitatis suæ.’