Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/496

 476 ITALY [HISTORY. part in Italian affairs. The Guelf party was held together with a less tight hand even in cities so consistent as Florence. Here in the year 1300 new factions, subdivid ing the old Guelfs and Ghibellines under the names of Neri and Bianchi, had acquired such force that Boniface VII L, a violently Guelf pope, called in Charles of Valois to pacify the republic and undertake the charge of Italian affairs. Boniface was a passionate and unwise man. After quarrelling with the French king, Philip le Bel, he fell into the hands of the Colonna family at Anagni, and died, either of the violence he there received or of mortification, in October 1303. Trans- After the short papacy of Benedict XI. a Frenchman, lation Clement V., was elected, and the seat of the papacy was thc transferred to Avignon. Thus began that Babylonian exile of the popes which placed them in subjection to the French Avignon, crown, and ruined their prestige in Italy. Lasting seventy years, and joining on to the sixty years of the Great Schism, this enfeeblement of the papal authority, coinciding as it did with the practical elimination of the empire from Italian affairs, gave a long period of comparative indepen dence to the nation. Nor must it be forgotten that this exile was due to the policy which induced the pontiffs, in their detestation of Ghibellinism, to rely successively upon the houses of Anjou and of Valois. This policy it was which justified Dante s fierce epigram the puttaneggiar co regi. The period we have briefly traversed was immortalized by Dante in an epic which from one point of view might be called the poem of the Guelfs and Ghibellines. From the foregoing bare narration of events it is impossible to estimate the importance of these parties, or to understand their bearing on subsequent Italian history. We are there fore forced to pause awhile, and probe beneath the surface. The civil wars may be regarded as a continuation of the previous municipal struggle, intensified by recent hostilities between the burghers and the nobles. The quarrels of the church and empire lend pretexts and furnish war-cries ; but the real question at issue is not the supremacy of pope or emperor. The conflict is a social one, between civic and feudal institutions, between commercial and military interests, between progress and conservatism. Guelf de mocracy and industry idealize the pope. The banner of the church waves above the camp of those who aim at positive prosperity and republican equality. Ghibellitie aristocracy and immobility idealize the emperor. The prestige of the empire, based upon Roman law and feudal tradition, attracts imaginative patriots and systematic thinkers. The two ideals are counterposed and mutually exclusive. No city calls itself either Guelf or Ghibelline till it has expelled one-half of its inhabitants ; for each party is resolved to constitute the state according to its own conception, and the affirmation of the one programme is the negation of the other. The Ghibelline honestly believes that the Guelfs will reduce society to chaos. The Guelf is persuaded that the Ghibellines will annihilate freedom and strangle commerce. The struggle is waged by two sets of men who equally love their city, but who would fain rule it upon diametrically opposite principles, and who fight to the death for its possession. This con tradiction enters into the minutest details of life : armorial bearings, clothes, habits at table, symbolize and accentuate the difference. Meanwhile each party forms its own organization of chiefs, finance-officers, and registrars at home, and sends ambassadors to foreign cities of the same complexion. A network of party policy embraces and dominates the burghs of Italy, bringing the most distant centres into relation, and by the very division of the country augmenting the sense of nationality. The Italians learn through their discords at this epoch that they form one community. The victory in the conflict practically falls to the hitherto unenfranchised plebeians. The elder noble families die out or lose their preponderance. In some cities, as notably in Florence after the date 1292, it becomes criminal to be scioperato, or unemployed in industry. New houses rise into importance ; a new com mercial aristocracy is formed. Burghers of all denomina tions are enrolled in one or other of the arts or guilds, and these trading companies furnish the material from which the government or signoria of the city is composed. Plebeian handicrafts assert their right to be represented on an equality with learned professions and wealthy corpora tions. The ancient classes are confounded and obliterated in a population more homogeneous, more adapted for democracy and despotism. In addition to the parliament and the councils which Nev have been already enumerated, we now find a council o/^stitr the party established within the city. This body tends to. * become a little state within the state, and, by controlling ci ^ t the victorious majority, disposes of the government as it thinks best. The consuls are merged in ancients or priors, chosen from the arts. A new magistrate, the gonfalonier of justice, appears in some of the Guelf cities, with the special duty of keeping the insolence of the nobility in check. Meanwhile the poclesta still subsists ; but he is no longer equal to the task of maintaining an equilibrium of forces. He sinks more and more into a judge, loses more and more the character of dictator. His ancient place is now occupied by a new functionary, no longer acting as arbiter, but concentrating the forces of the triumphant party. The captain of the people, acting as head of the ascendant Guelfs or Ghibellines, undertakes the responsi bility of proscriptions, decides on questions of policy, forms alliances, declares war. Like all officers created to meet an emergency, the limitations to his power are ill-defined, and he is often little better than an autocrat. Age of the Despots. Thus the Italians, during the heat of the civil wars, Ori&amp;lt; were ostensibly divided between partisans of the empire of * and partisans of the church. After the death of Frederick ia II. their affairs were managed by Manfred and by Charles of Anjou, the supreme captains of the parties, under whose orders acted the captains of the people in each city. The contest being carried on by warfare, it followed that these captains in the burghs were chosen on account of military skill ; and, since the nobles were men of arms by profession, members of ancient houses took the lead again in towns where they had been absorbed into the bourgeoisie. In this way, after the downfall of the Ezzelini of Romano, the Delia Seal a dynasty arose in Verona, and the Carraresi in Padua. The Estensi made themselves lords of Ferrara ; the Torriani headed the Guelfs of Milan. At Ravenna we find the Polenta family, at Rimini the Malatestas, at Parma the Rossi, at Piacenza the Scotti, at Faenza the Manfredi. There is not a burgh of northern Italy but can trace the rise of a dynastic house to the vicissitudes of this period. In Tuscany, where the Guelf party was very strongly organ ized, and the commercial constitution of Florence kept the nobility in check, the communes remained as yet free from hereditary masters. Yet generals from time to time arose, the Conte Ugolino della Gheradesca at Pisa, Uguc- cione della Faggiuola at Lucca, the Conte Guido di Monte- feltro ut Florence, who threatened the liberties of Tuscan cities with military despotism. Left to themselves by absentee emperors and exiled popes, the Italians pursued their own course of develop ment unchecked. After the commencement of the 14th century, the civil wars decreased in fury, and at the same time it was perceived that their effect had been to confirm