Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/822

Rh 790 MEDICI executioner. Some, however, thought that Cosimo had caused him to be murdered, and adopted this mode of con cealing the crime. The young prince s cold-blooded massacre of his captives cast an enduring shadow upon his reign and dynasty. But it was henceforward plain to all that he was a man of stern resolve, who went&quot; straight to his end without scruples or half measures. Before long he was regarded by many as the incarnation of Machiavelli s Prince, &quot; inasmuch as he joined daring to talent and prudence, was capable of great cruelty, and yet could practise mercy in due season.&quot; Guicciardini, who still pre tended to act as mentor, and who on account of his many services had a certain influence over him, was obliged to withdraw from public life and busy himself with writing his History at his villa of Arcetri. He died in this retreat in 1540, and it was immediately rumoured that the duke had caused him to be poisoned. This shows the estimation in which Cosimo was now held. It was true that he punished with death all who dared to resist his will. By 1540 sentence of death had been pronounced against four hundred and thirty contumacious fugitives, and during his reign one hundred and forty men and six women actually ascended the scaffold, without counting those who perished in foreign lands by the daggers of his assassins. He reduced the old republican institutions to empty forms, by making the magistrates mere creatures of his will. He issued the sternest edicts against the rebels, particu larly by the law known as the &quot; Polverina,&quot; from the name of its proposer Jacopo Polverini. This law decreed not only the confiscation of the property of exiles, but likewise that of their heirs, even if personally acquired by the latter. Cosimo ruled like the independent sovereign of a great state, and always showed the capacity, firmness, and courage demanded by that station. Only, his state being small and weak, he was forced to rely chiefly upon his personal talent and wealth. It was necessary for him to make heavy loans to the different European sovereigns, especially to Charles V., the most rapacious of them all, and to give enormous bribes to their ambassadors. Besides, he had to carry on wars for the extension of his dominions, and neither his inherited wealth nor the large sums gained by confiscating the estates of rebellious subjects sufficed for all this outlay. He was accordingly compelled to burden the people with taxes, and thus begin at once to diminish its strength. Cosimo bore a special grudge against the neighbouring republics of Siena and Lucca. Although the latter was small and weak, and the former garrisoned by Spaniards, yet the spectacle of free institutions at the frontiers of his own state served as a continual incitement to subjects dis affected to the new regime. In fact Francesco Burlainacchi, a zealous Lucchese patriot, had conceived the design of re-establishing republican government in all the cities of Tuscany. Cosimo, with the emperor s help, succeeded in having him put to death. Lucca, however, was an insig nificant state making no pretence of rivalry, whereas Siena was an old and formidable foe to Florence, and had always given protection to the Florentine exiles. It was now very reluctantly submitting to the presence of a Spanish garrison, and, being stimulated by promises of prompt and efficacious assistance from France, rose in rebellion and expelled the Spaniards in 1552. Cosimo instantly seized the opportunity, wrote to the emperor in terms that appealed to his pride, asked leave to attack Siena, and begged for troops to ensure the success of his enterprise. As no immediate answer arrived, he feigned to begin negotiations with Henry IT. of France, and, by thus arous ing the imperial jealousy, obtained a contingent of German and Spanish infantry. Then came a long and bloody war. Siena was besieged for fifteen months, and its inhabitants, aided by the valour of Piero Strozzi, who fought under the French flag, made a most heroic resistance, even women and children helping on the walls. But fortune was against them. Piero Strozzi sustained several defeats, and finally the Sienese, having exhausted their ammunition and being decimated by famine and the sword, were obliged to capitulate on honourable terms that were shamelessly violated. By the varied disasters of the siege and the num ber of fugitives the population was reduced from forty to eight thousand inhabitants. The republicans, still eager to resist, withdrew to Montalcino. Cosimo now ruled the city and territory of Siena in the name of Charles V., who always refused him its absolute possession. After the emperor s abdication, and the succession of Philip II. to the Spanish throne, Cosimo at last obtained Siena and Ponto- ferra by giving up his claim to a sum of 200,000 ducats that he was to have received from Charles V. In 1559 he also captured Montalcino, and thus formed the grand- duchy of Tuscany, but he continued to govern the new state i.e., Siena and its territories separately from the old. His rule was intelligent, skilful, and despotic; but his enormous expenses drove him to raise large sums of money by special contrivances unsuited to the country and the people. Hence, notwithstanding the genius of its founder, the grand-duchy held from the first the elements of its future decay. Cosimo preferred to confer office upon men of humble origin in order to have pliable tools, but he also liked to be surrounded by a courtier aristocracy on the Spanish and French pattern. As no Tuscan aristocracy any longer existed, he created new nobles, and tempted foreign ones to come by the concession of various feudal privileges : and, in order to turn this artificial aristocracy to some account., he founded the knightly order of St Stephen, charged with the defence of the coast against pirates, which in course of time won much honour by its prowess. He also estab lished a small standing army for the protection of his fron tiers ; but, as we have seen, he generally employed German and Spanish troops for his wars, and always had a foreign bodyguard. At the commencement of his reign he opposed the popes in order to maintain the independence of his own state ; but later, to obtain help, he truckled to them in many ways, even to the extent of giving up to the Inquisition his own confidant, Piero Carnesecchi, who, being accused of heresy, was beheaded and burnt in 1567. In reward for these acts of submission, the popes showed him friendship, and Pius V. granted him the title of grand- Title of duke, conferring the patent and crown upon him in Rome, graml- although the emperor had always withheld his consent. duke - Finally, however, the latter confirmed the title to Cosimo s successor. The measure most injurious to Tuscany was the fiscal system of taxes, of which the sole aim was to extort the greatest possible amount of money. The con sequent damage to industry, commerce, and agriculture was immense, and, added to the devastations caused by the Sienese war, led to their utter ruin. Otherwise Cosimo did not neglect useful measures for the interior prosperity of his state. He was no Maecenas, but nevertheless restored the Pisan university, enlarged that of Siena, had the public records classified, and also executed public works like the Santa Trinita bridge. During the great innnda tions of 1557 he turned his whole energy to the relief of the sufferers. In 1539 he had espoused Eleonora of Toledo, daughter of the viceroy of Naples, by whom he had several children. Two died in 1562, and their mother soon followed them to the grave. It was said that one of these boys, Don Garcia, had murdered the other, and then been killed by the enraged father. Indeed Cosimo was further accused of having put his own wife to death; but neither rumour had any foundation. He now showed signs of illness and failure