Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino (Vol. 1-3). Dennistoun James

of the empire. Little did they deem that the rising sun, which they were thus prompt to worship, would eventually consume them, root and branch!

      Yet the tenures and investitures of these seigneuries constituted but a pseudo-feudalism, resting upon a basis entirely different from that of the barons of northern nations. Among the latter, land, as the only known element of political power, was monopolised by the sovereign, who doled it out, under such conditions as he deemed fit, to those whose good swords were best able to defend it and the donor. The principle thus diffused from the centre radiated through the mass. The nobles parcelled out their great estates in various portions among friends and dependents, military service being the consideration chiefly exacted, in times when a circulating medium was scanty, and the pecuniary wants much restricted. This system established two main results. The hardy and patriotic soldiery who peopled the rural territory were the nerve of the nation, whilst the landless population, being destitute of individual importance, gradually drew together for mutual support, and settled in communities under the protection of some powerful lord or influential monastery. But in the Ausonian peninsula natural causes induced gregarious habits and social influences, whereby the peaceful pursuits of trade and money-making were promoted. An efficient soldiery was, however, rendered requisite for the small states by the very circumstances which most contributed to their general prosperity—their numbers and near neighbourhood, the competition of commercial communities, the struggles of political or family factions. Yet in proportion to the development of that prosperity, and the increase of wealth and refinement, the reluctance of substantial and sedentary citizens became more decided to the inconveniences and hardships of the field. For them the art of war was scarcely less a calamity than its miseries; the more they had to lose, the less willing or able were they to defend it. There are few evils in life which money may not remedy or alleviate, and when it was found that substitutes could be hired to relieve them from military service, the problem was satisfactorily solved. Fighting became a separate profession, and its duties no longer distracted those who had other occupations. Thus arose the condottiere system, by which any bold baron or experienced captain, having formed round his banner a corps of tried and daring spirits, leased their services and his own for a stipulated term and price. Their whole arrangements being avowedly mercenary, they had no patriotism, no preference for standards or watchwords. The highest offer secured them, and when their engagement expired, or their pay fell into arrear, they were free to pass over to the enemy, or seek any other master. But besides their fixed stipend, they had perquisites from the hazards of war: the ransom of rich prisoners accrued to the leaders, while the soldiery were glutted by the occasional booty of a sacked city.

      The changes occasioned by this system influenced Italy in its military, political, and social relations. Formerly, a truce disarmed the combatants, and sent them to forget their discipline in their domestic duties. Now, one campaign followed another, teaching the same free companies new evolutions and more perfect lessons in martial science; or if a piping time of general peace ever arrived, their leaders scrupled not to keep them in practice by a private adventure of pillage against some feeble victim, until they should be required for the fresh contests which a few months were sure to develop. Their armour, accoutrement, and drill thus became more complicated; men-at-arms and lances were considered the only effective troops. But their efficiency was counteracted by another result of stipendiary warfare. Exempt from enthusiasm in any cause, their tactics became a money question. To close a campaign by a series of brilliant successes was to kill the goose that gave them the golden eggs: to carry havoc into the adverse ranks was damaging to those who might be their next paymasters or comrades. Sanguinary conflicts brought them danger without advantage, whilst the capture of an opponent or a camp ensured for them a rich prize. War was, in fact, a game which they were paid to play, with no interest in the stakes beyond their individual opportunities of plunder. Equally indifferent to past victories or future fame, they cared little for beating the enemy, could they but reach his baggage-waggons, or temporise until he could buy them off. Battles, thus deprived of their dangers and stirring incidents, became great prize-fights, in which the victors deserved no sympathy, and the conquered required no commiseration. Gain was substituted for glory, languor for gallantry, calculation for courage. Patriotism slumbered; honesty of purpose and energy of action fell into disuse; the parties in the match, careless of victory, manœuvred only for stalemate. Hence the political results of Italian campaigns were inconsiderable, compared with the forces in the field, the time consumed, and the resources expended. Impoverished states were generally left without defenders and even wealthy belligerents were liable to a sudden and immediate desertion by their hireling bands. Still more fatal were the moral effects upon the people. The feudal system rendered every occupier of the soil a soldier, ready to stand by his king and country; and it transmitted to more peaceful times "a bold peasantry, their country's pride" and best defenders. But it was otherwise with the brave spirits of the Ausonian commonwealths; they were bound to the banner of some privileged bandit, who served the best bidder, whilst the mass of the community became indifferent to a native land for which they were never called upon to hazard life or limb. The stipendiaries fought for or against freedom, faith, country, and comrades; the citizens endured their outrage or purchased their mercy. In the end, the military were brutalised, whilst the civilians became enervated. The former were made venal, the latter cowardly. The master-mind of Machiavelli, after the French invasions of 1492–9, saw these mischiefs, and would have remedied them by his plan for a civic militia; but it was too late, and the degeneracy engrafted upon the national character of Italy by the condottiere system still cankers it to the core.

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      Although the states which grew up under these varying circumstances are universally known as the Italian Republics, this phrase is scarcely correct in our idiom. The leading peculiarity of mediæval Italy was the separate sovereignty of its petty principalities, and towns of minor rank, in which democratic constitutions were but incidental and transient distinctions, progressively disappearing as the dark ages were succeeded by a cycle of golden radiance. The Italian Republics might, therefore, be more aptly named the Italian Communes or Commonwealths. This misnomer has also given rise to somewhat confused views regarding the amount of liberty enjoyed in these states, especially since their history has become known to us from the pen of one whose democratic prepossessions, though clothed in eloquence, are so tempered by benevolent philosophy as those of Sismondi.

      Liberty is a word of vague signification, both as to quality and degree. In a political sense, it has at least three meanings: personal freedom, self-government, national independence. Let us test the application of each of these qualities to the Italian commonwealths. Neither in them nor in any contemporary state, was freedom of person known in name or in fact. Individuals had no guarantee against oppression by their rulers, nor security from their powerful neighbours; no great charter constituted for them a claim of right to personal protection. In this respect there was little difference between the subjects of a petty autocrat and those of a democratic faction—between the tyranny of one or of many: but in Venice, that most prosperous and permanent of all the commonwealths, which Roscoe, by a happy antithesis, has described as a "republic of nobles with a populace of slaves," and which especially arrogated the republic as its title, individual safety was at the lowest grade.

      In most of the communities, self-government, or the sovereignty of the people, had scarcely a reality as regarded the masses. Under the seigneurs, when the hereditary principle was weak, it was oftener supplemented or infringed by the sword than by the popular will. In the few commonwealths which, during the fifteenth century, preserved their democratic institutions, such as Florence and Siena, the guilds and companies constituted indeed a quasi-representative system; but these had generally fallen into the hands of privileged classes, and even the shadow of power which clung to them was constantly torn away by some ambitious burgher, or misused for the extermination of a rival faction. Indeed, the most liberal of their constitutions corresponded in the main to our own municipal machinery, limiting the privileges of self-government to certain classes in the cities, and entirely excluding from them the rural population. The value at which these privileges were held may be estimated by the indifference of immediately adjacent despotic states, whether languishing under the savage tyranny of a Malatesta,^*15 or enjoying the beneficent sway of a Montefeltro. Even when, outraged beyond endurance, they rose against their oppressors, it was much more frequently to set up a new autocrat, than to seize for themselves