Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/498

 478 ITALY [HISTORY. Change It must further be noticed that the rise of mercenaries in type W as synchronous with a change in the nature of Italian of des- despotism. The tyrants, as we have already seen, estab lished themselves as captains of the people, vicars of the empire, vicars for the church, leaders of the Guelf and Ghibelline parties. They were accepted by a population eager for repose, who had merged old class distinctions in the conflicts of preceding centuries. They rested in large measure on the favour of the multitude, and pursued a policy of sacrificing to their interests the nobles. It was natural that these self-made princes should seek to secure the peace which they had promised in their cities, by free ing the psople from military service and disarming the aristocracy. As their tenure of power grew firmer, they advanced dynastic claims, assumed titles, and took the style of petty sovereigns. Their government became paternal ; and, though there was no limit to their cruelty when stung by terror, they used the purse rather than the sword, bribery at home and treasonable intrigue abroad in preference to coercive measures or open war. Thus was elaborated the type of despot which attained completeness in Gian Galeazzo Visconti and Lorenzo de Medici. No longer a tyrant of Ezzelino s stamp, he reigned by intelli gence and terrorism masked beneath a smile. He substi tuted cunning and corruption for violence. The lesser people tolerated him because he extended the power of their city and made it beautiful with public buildings. The bourgeoisie, protected in their trade, found it con venient to support him. The nobles, turned into courtiers, placemen, diplomatists, and men of affairs, ended by pre ferring his authority to the alternative of democratic institu tions. A lethargy of well-being, broken only by the pinch of taxation for war-costs, or by outbursts of frantic ferocity and lust in the less calculating tyrants, descended on the population of cities .which had boasted of their freedom. Only Florence and Venice, at the close of the period upon which we are now entering, maintained their republican independence. And Venice was ruled by a close oligarchy ; Florence was passing from the hands of her oligarchs into the power of the Medicean merchants. Discrimi- Between the year 1305, when Clement V. settled at nation of Avignon, and the year 1447, when Nicholas V. re-estab- listed the papacy upon a solid basis at Rome, the Italians approximated more nearly to self-government than at any other epoch of their history. The conditions which have been described, of despotism, mercenary warfare, and bour geois prosperity, determined the character of this epoch, which was also the period when the great achievements of the &quot;Renaissance were prepared. At the end of this century and a half, five principal powers divided the peninsula ; and their confederated action during the next forty-five years (1447-1492) secured for Italy a season of peace and brilliant prosperity. These five powers were the kingdom of Naples, the duchy of Milan, the republic of Florence, the republic of Venice, and the papacy. The subsequent events of Italian history will be rendered most intelligible if at this point we trace the development of these five con stituents of Italian greatness separately. The Two When Robert of Anjou died in 1343, he was succeeded Sicilies, by his grand-daughter Joan, the childless wife of four suc cessive husbands, Andrew of Hungary, Louis of Taranto, James of Aragon, and Otto of Brunswick. Charles of Durazzo, the last male scion of the Angevine house in Lower Italy, murdered Joan in 1382, and held the kingdom for five years. Dying in 1387, he transmitted Naples to his son Ladislaus, who had no children, and was followed in 1414 by his sister Joan II. She too, though twice married, died without issue, having at one time adopted Louis III. of Provence and his brother Rene, at another Alfonso V. of Aragon, who inherited the crown of Sicily, great powers After her death in February 1435, the kingdom was fought for between Rene&quot; of Anjou and Alfonso, suruarned the Magnanimous. Rene found supporters among the Italian princes, especially the Milanese Visconti, who helped him to assert his claims with arms. During the war of succession which ensued, Alfonso was taken prisoner by the Genoese fleet in August 1435, and was sent a prisoner to Filippo Maria at Milan. Here he pleaded his own cause so powerfully, and proved so incontestably the advantage which might ensue to the Visconti from his alliance, if he held the regno, that he obtained his release and recognition as king. From the end of the year 1435 Alfonso reigned alone and undisturbed in Lower Italy, combining for the first time since the year 1282 the crowns of Sicily and Naples. The former he held by inheritance, together with that of Aragon. The latter he considered to be his by conquest. Therefore, when he died in 1458. he bequeathed Naples to his natural son Ferdinand, while Sicily and Aragon passed together to his brother John, and so on to Ferdinand the Catholic. The twenty-three years of Alfonso s reign were the most prosperous and splendid period of South Italian history. He became an Italian in taste and sympathy, entering with enthusiasm into the humanistic ardour of the earlier Renaissance, encouraging men of letters at his court, administering his kingdom on the principles of an enlightened despotism, and lending his authority to establish that equilibrium in the peninsula upon which the politicians of his age believed, not without reason, that Italian independence might be secured. The last member of the Visconti family of whom we l)uc had occasion to speak was Azzo, who bought the city in Mili: 1328 from Louis of Bavaria. His uncle Lucchino suc ceeded, but was murdered in 1349 by a wife against whose life he had been plotting. Lucchino s brother John, arch bishop of Milan, now assumed the lordship of the city, and extended the power of the Visconti over Genoa and the whole of North Italy, with the exception of Piedmont, Verona, Mantua, Ferrara, and Venice. The greatness of the family dates from the reign of this masterful prelate. He died in 1354, and his heritage was divided between three members of his house, Matteo, Bernabo, and Galeazzo. In the next year Matteo, being judged incompetent to rule, was assassinated by order of his brothers, who made an equal partition of their subject cities, Bernabo residing in Milan, Galeazzo in Pavia. Galeazzo was the wealthiest and most magnificent Italian of his epoch. He married his daughter Violante to our duke of Clarence, and his son Gian Galeazzo to a daughter of King John of France. When he died in 1378, this son resolved to reunite the domains of the Visconti ; and, with this object in view, he plotted and executed the murder of his uncle Bernabo. Gian Galeazzo thus became by one stroke the most formidable of Italian despots. Immured in his castle at Pavia, accumu lating wealth by systematic taxation and methodical economy, he organized the mercenary troops who eagerly took service under so good a paymaster; and, by directing their operations from his cabinet, he threatened the whole of Italy with conquest. The last scions of the Delia Scala family still reigned in Verona, the last Carraresi in Padua ; the Estensi were powerful in Ferrara, the Gonzaghi in Mantua. Gian Galeazzo, partly by force and partly by intrigue, discredited these minor despots, pushed his dominion to the very verge of Venice, and, having subjected Lombardy to his sway, proceeded to attack Tuscany. Pisa and Perugia were threatened with extinction, and Florence dreaded the advance of the Visconti arms, when the plague suddenly cut short his career of treachery and conquest in the year 1 402. Seven years before his death Gian Galeazzo bought the title of duke of Milan and count of Pavia from