Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/310

Rh 292 MILAN but it is not so rich in MSS. as the celebrated Ambrosian library, for which see LIBRARIES, vol. xiv. p. 531. Agriculture. The district of Milan is renowned for its excellent agriculture. It may be divided into two regions, where different systems of farming are pursued and different crops produced. The first region lies on the lower slopes of the Alps, where they sink into the plain. This is called the dry Milanese, for it is watered by torrents only, which have worn themselves too deep a bed to allow of irrigation, and the peasants are obliged to collect the rain water in large mud-lined tanks called &quot;poppe.&quot; The soil is for the most part thin and light, and is frequently washed down the incline into the plain ; in some parts it is only kept in its place by stone walls reared at great cost. The farms are smaller here than in the lower plain, and are let on a system which is a compromise between the mezzadria, which once obtained in the district, and regular leases. The tenant pays a money rent for the house ; and for the land he either pays in kind or in a money equivalent, supplemented by labour given to the landlord. In cases where vines or fruit trees are grown, the landlord supplies and maintains them till they come into fruit. The landlord carries out all improvements, and the tenant holds the farm at his pleasure. The rotation of cropping is for three years. The value of these farms varies greatly, ranging from 7 to 14 lire the pertica (1000 square yards). The district produces maize and wheat in abund ance, a little flax and millet, apples, and wine. The second agricultural district is that which lies in the plain ; it is called the wet Milanese, from the elaborate system of irrigation which makes the meadows yield a constant succession of crops. The plain is traversed by innumerable canals at various levels, crossing one another on bridges, or by siphons, so that the peasant can flood his fields at any moment. The system is as old as the 12th century; it was improved by Leonardo da Vinci, and is now the most perfect network of irrigation in Europe. The farms vary in extent from 1500 to 4500 pertiche. They are let upon leases for nine, twelve, or fifteen years, at rents ranging from 8 &quot;50 to 12 50 lire the pertica, while those near a city may bring from 15 to 20 lire. The rotation of cropping is five-yearly. The meadows yield four crops of grass in the year ; the first three the maggengo, the agostino, and the terzuolo are cut, the fourth is grazed off. Where the ground is perfectly flat and water can stagnate, rice is grown ; this crop is continued for four years in succession, then the land is rested with cereals and grass. The other crops are inaize and wheat. But the chief occupation is the supply of dairy produce. The cows are bought in the Swiss cantons of Uri, Zug, Lucerne, and Schwyz, the last furnishing the best milkers. The cheese called Parmesan comes from the Milanese ; and the rich cheese, made of unskimmed milk, known as Stracchino, is made principally at the village of Gorgonzola, 12 miles east of Milan. Industries. The industries of this district have increased very rapidly since the union of Italy, and the city is now the chief commercial centre in North Italy. The principal industry of Milan and the Milanese is the production and manufacture of silk. For feeding the worms mulberry trees are largely cultivated on the plain ; and the district counts upwards of 200 factories, where the silk thread is unwound from the cocoons, yielding 4,000,000 lt&amp;gt; of raw silk in the year. Some of this is exported to France for manufacture, but the Milanese can now almost rival their neighbours in the production of silk stuffs, velvets, and brocades. Cotton is manufactured at Saronno and Legnano, fustian at Busto, linen at Cassano, combs at Burlando, and porcelain and carriages of very excellent workmanship in Milan itself. History. Bellovesus, king of the Celts, who crossed the Alps when Tarquinius Priscus was king in Kome, is the traditional founder of Milan. The city became the capital of the Insubrian Gauls, and was taken by the Romans in 222 B.C. As a Roman municipiuni it continued to increase in magnificence and import ance ; and under Constantine it was the seat of the imperial vicar of the AVest. Under Theodosius, in the 4th century, Milan, to judge from Ausonius s description (Ordo Nob. Urbium, v.), must have been rich in temples and public buildings. Theodosius died at Milan after doing penance, at the bidding of St Ambrose, for his slaughter of the people of Thessalonica. Ambrose is still venerated in Milan as the founder of the Milanese church and the compiler of the Ambrosian rite, which is still in use throughout the diocese. After his death the period of invasions begins ; and Milan felt the power of the Huns under Attila (452), of the Heruli under Odoacer (476), and of the Goths under Theodoric (493). When Belisarius was sent by Justinian to recover Italy, Datius, the archbishop of Milan, joined him, and the Goths were expelled from the city. But Uraia, nephew of Vitigis the Gothic king, subsequently assaulted and retook the town, after a brave resistance. Uraia destroyed the whole of Milan in 539 ; and hence it is that this city, once so important a centre of Roman civilization, possesses so few remains of antiquity. Narses, in his campaigns against the Goths, had invited other barbarians, the Lombards, to his aid. They came in a body under Alboin, their king, in 568, and were soon masters of North Italy, and entered Milan the year following. Alboin established his capital at Pavia, and Milan remained the centre of Italian opposition to the foreign conquest. The Lombards were Arians, and the archbishops of Milan from the days of Ambrose had been always orthodox. Though the struggle was unequal, their attitude of resolute opposition to the Lombards gained for them great weight among the people, who felt that their archbishop was a power around whom they might gather for the defence of their liberty and religion. All the innate hatred of the foreigner went to strengthen the hands of the archbishops, who slowly acquired, in addition to their spiritual authority, powers military, executive, and judicial. These powers they came to administer through their delegates, called viscounts. When the Lombard kingdom fell before the Franks under Charles the Great in 774, the archbishops of Milan were still further strengthened by the close alliance between Charles and the church, which gave a sort of confirmation to their temporal authority, and also by Charles s policy of breaking up the great Lombard fiefs and dukedoms, for which he substituted the smaller counties. Under the confused government of Charles s immediate successors the archbishop was the only real power in Milan. But there were two classes of difficulties in the situation, ecclesiastical and political; and their presence had a marked effect on the development of the people and the growth of the commune, which was the next stage in the history of Milan. On the one hand the archbishop was obliged to contend against heretics or against fanatical reformers who found a following among the people ; and on the other, since the archbishop was the real power in the city, the emperor, the nobles, and the people each desired that he should be of their party ; and to whichever party he did belong he was certain to find himself violently opposed by the other two. From these causes it sometimes happened that there were two archbishops, and there fore no central control, or no archbishop at all, or else an archbishop in exile. The chief result of these difficulties was that a spirit of independence and a capacity of judging and acting for themselves was developed in the people of Milan. The terror of the Hunnish invasion, in 899, further assisted the people in their pro gress towards freedom, for it compelled them to take arms and to fortify their city, rendering Milan more than ever independent of the feudal lords who lived in their castles in the country. The tyranny of these nobles drove the peasantry and smaller vassals to seek the protection for life and property, the equality of taxation and of justice, which could be found only inside the walled city and under the rule of the archbishop. Thus Milan grew populous, and learned to govern itself. Its inhabitants became for the first time Milanese, attached to the standard of St Ambrose, no longer subjects of a foreign conqueror, but a distinct people, with a municipal life and prospects of their own. For the further growth of the commune, the action of the great archbishop Heri- bert, the establishment of the carroccio, the development of Milanese supremacy in Lombardy, the destruction of Lodi, Como, Pavia, and other neighbouring cities, the exhibition of free spirit and power in the Lombard league, and the battle of Legnano, see the article ITALY. See also LOMBARDS. After the battle of Legnano, in 1174, although the Lombard cities failed to reap the fruit of their united action, and fell to mutual jealousy once more, Milan internally began to grow in material prosperity. After the peace of Constance (1183) the city walls were extended ; the arts flourished, each in its own quarter, under a syndic who watched the interests of the trade. The manufacture of armour was the most important industry. During the struggles with the emperor Barbarossa, when freedom seemed on the point of being destroyed, many Milanese vowed themselves, their goods, and their families to the Virgin should their city come safely out of her troubles. Hence arose the powerful fraternity of the &quot;Umiliati,&quot; who established their headquarters at the Brera, and began to develop the wool trade, and subsequently gave the first impetus to the production of silk. From this period also date tin; irrigation works which render the Lombard plain a fertile garden. The government of the city consisted of (A) a parlamento or con- siglio grande, including all who possessed bread and wine of their own, a council soon found to be unmanageable owing to its size, and reduced first to 2000, then to 1500, and finally to 800 mem bers ; (B) a credenza or committee of twelve members, elected in the grand council, for the despatch of urgent or secret business : (C) the consuls, the executive, elected for one year, and compelled to report to the great council at the term of their office. The way in which the burghers used their liberty and powers, secured by the peace of Constance, in attacking the feudal nobility ; how they compelled the nobles to come into the city and to abandon their castles for a certain portion of the year ; how the war between the two classes was continued inside the city, resulting in the establish ment of the podesta ; and the nature and limits of this office, all this has been explained in the article ITALY. This bitter and well-balanced rivalry between the nobles and the people, and the endless danger to which it exposed the city owing to tlie fact that the nobles were always ready to claim the protec-