Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/824

Rh 792 MEDICI heretics, which led to the settlement of many foreigners in that city. He also improved the harbour and facilitated communication with Pisa by means of the Naviglio, a canal into which a portion of the water of the Arno was turned. lie nevertheless retained the reprehensible custom of trad ing on his own account, keeping banks in many cities of Europe. He successfully accomplished the draining of the Val di Chiana, cultivated the plains of Pisa, Fucecchio, aud Val di Nievole, and executed other works of public utility at Siena and Pisa. But his best energies were devoted to the foreign po licy by which he sought to emancipate himself from subjection to Spain. On the assassination (1589) of Henry III. of France, Ferdinand supported the claims of the king of Navarre, undeterred by the opposition of Spain and the Catholic League, who were dismayed by the prospect of a Huguenot succeeding to the throne of France. He lent money to Henry IV., and strongly urged his conversion to Catholicism ; he helped to pgrsuade the pope to accept Henry s abjuration, and pursued this policy with marvellous persistence until his efforts were crowned with success. Subsequently, however, Henry IV. showed faint gratitude for the benefits conferred upon him, and paid no attention to the expostulations of the grand duke, who then began to slacken his relations with France, and showed that he could guard his independ ence by other alliances. He gave liberal assistance to Philip III. for the campaign of the latter in Algiers, and to the emperor for the war with the Turks. Hence he was compelled to burden his subjects with enormous taxes, forgetting that while guaranteeing the independence of Tuscany by his loans to foreign powers he was increasingly sapping the strength of future generations. He at last succeeded in obtaining the formal investiture of Siena, which Spain had always considered a fief of her own. During this grand-duke s reign the Tuscan navy was notably increased, and did itself much honour on the Mediterranean. The war-galleys of the knights of St Stephen were despatched to the coast of Barbary to attack Bona, the headquarters of the corsairs, and they captured the town with much dash and bravery. And in the following year (1608) the same galleys achieved their most brilliant victory in the archipelago over the stronger fleet of the Turks, by taking nine of their vessels, seven hundred prisoners, and a store of jewels of the value of 2,000,000 ducats. Cosimo Ferdinand I. died in 1609, leaving four sons, of whom H.- the eldest, Cosimo II., succeeded to the throne at the age of nineteen. He was at first assisted in the government by his mother and a council of regency. He had a good disposition, and the fortune to reign during a period when Europe was at peace and Tuscany blessed with abundant harvests. Of his rule there is little to relate. His chief care was given to the galleys of St Stephen, and he sent them to assist the Druses against the Porte. On one occasion he was involved in a quarrel with France. Concino Concini, the Marshal d Ancre, being assassinated in 1617, Louis XLII. claimed the right of transferring the property of the murdered man to De Luynes. Cosimo opposed the decision, and, refusing to recognize the confiscation decreed by the French tribunals, demanded that Concini s son should be allowed to inherit. Hence followed much ill-feeling and mutual reprisals between the two countries, finally brought to an end by the intervention of the duke of Lorraine. Like his predecessors, Cosimo II. studied to promote the prosperity of Leghorn, and he deserves honour for abandon ing all commerce on his own account. But it was no praise worthy act to pass a law depriving women of almost all rights of inheritance. By tlii-s means many daughters of the nobility were driven into convents against their will. He gave scanty attention to the general affairs of the state. He was fond of luxury, spent freely on public festivities, and detested trouble. Tuscany was apparently tranquil and prosperous ; but the decay of which the seeds were sown under Cosimo I. and Ferdinand I. was rapidly spreading, and became before long patent to all and beyond all hope of remedy. The best deed done by Cosimo II. was the protection accorded by him to Galileo Galilei, who had removed to Padua, and there made some of his grandest discoveries. The grand-duke recalled him to Florence in 1610, and nominated him court mathematician and philosopher. Cosimo died in February 1621, after twelve years of a quiet reign marked by no great event. Feeling his end draw near, when he was only aged thirty and all his sons were still in their childhood, he hastened to arrange his family affairs. His mother, Cristina of Lorraine, and his wife, Maddalena of Austria, were nominated regents and guardians to his eldest son Ferdinand II., a boy of ten, and a council of four appointed, whose functions were regulated by law. Accordingly, after Cosimo s death, the young Ferdinand was sent to Rome and Vienna to complete his education, and the government of Tuscany remained in the hands of two jealous and quarrel some women. Thus the administration of justice and finance speedily went to ruin. Out of submissiveness to the pope, the regents did not dare to maintain their legitimate right to inherit the duchy of Urbino, and in 1623 sanc tioned the transfer of that right to the holy see. They conferred exaggerated privileges on the new Tuscan nobility, which became increasingly insolent and worthless. They resumed the practice of trading on their own account, and, without reaping much benefit thereby, did the utmost damage to private enterprise. In 1627 Ferdinand II., then aged seventeen, returned to Ferdinai Italy and assumed the reins of government; but, being of a II- very gentle disposition, he decided on sharing his power with the regents and his brothers, and arranged matters in such wise that each was almost independent of the other. He gained the love of his subjects by his great goodness; and, when Florence and Tuscany were cruelly ravaged by the plague in 1630, he showed admirable courage, and carried out many useful measures. But he was totally incapable of energy as a statesman. When the pope made bitter complaints because the board of health had dared to subject certain monks and priests to the necessary quarantine, the grand-duke insisted on his officers asking pardon on their knees for having done their duty. On the death in 1631 of the last duke of Urbino, the pope was allowed to seize the duchy without the slightest opposition on the part of Tuscany. As a natural consequence the pretensions of the Roman curia became increasingly exorbitant ; ecclesiastics usurped the functions of the state ; and the ancient laws of the republic, together with the regulations decreed by Cosimo I. as a check upon similar abuses, were allowed to become obsolete. On the extinction of the line of the Gonzagas at Mantua in 1627, w r ar broke out between France on the one side and Spain, Germany, and Savoy on the other. The grand- duke, uncertain of his policy, trimmed his sails according to events. Fortunately peace was re-established in 1631. Mantua and Monferrato fell to the duke of Nevers, as France had always desired. But Europe was again in arms for the Thirty Years War, and Italy was not at peace. Urban VIII. wished to aggrandize his nephews, the Barberini, by wresting Castro and Ronciglione from Odoardo Farnese, duke of Parma and brother-in-law to Ferdinand. Farnese determined to maintain his rights, and marched his army through Tuscany into the territories of the pope, who was greatly alarmed by the attack. Naturally the grand-duke was drawn into the war to defend his own state and his kinsman. His military operations, however, were of the feeblest and often the most laugliable character. At