244 Lorenzo completes the Subversion of the Republic.

heightened the appearance of usurpation in their influence. But if the people's wish to resign their freedom gives a title to accept the government of a country, the Medici were no usurpers. That family never lost the affections of the populace. The cry of Palle, Palle (their armorial distinction) would at any time rouse the Florentines to defend the chosen patrons of the republic. If their substantial influence could before be questioned, the conspiracy of the Pazzi, wherein Julian perished, excited an enthusiasm for the surviving brother, thit never ceased during his life. Nor was this anything unnatural, or any severe reproach to Florence. All around, in Lombardy and Romagna, the lamp of liberty had long since been extinguished in blood. The freedom of Siena and Genoa was dearly purchased by revolutionary proscriptions; that of Venice was only a name. The republic which had preserved longest, and with greatest purity, that vestal fire, had at least no degradation to fear in surrendering herself to Lorenzo de' Medici. I need not in this place expatiate upon what the name instantly suggests, the patronage of science and art, and the constellation of scholars and poets, of architects and painters, whose reflected beams cast their radiance around his head. His political reputation, though far less durable, was in his own age as conspicuous as that which he acquired in the history of letters. Equally active and sagacious, he held his way through the varying combinations of Italian policy, always with credit, and generally with success. Florence, if not enriched, was, upon the whole, aggrandised during his administration, which was exposed to some severe storms from the unscrupulous adversaries, Sixtus IV. and Ferdinand of Naples, whom he was compelled to resist. As a patriot, indeed, we never can bestow upon Lorenzo de' Medici the meed of disinterested virtue. He completed that subversion of the Florentine republic, which his two immediate ancestors had so well prepared. The two councils, her regular legislature, he superseded by a permanent senate of seventy persons;1 while the gonfalonier and priors, become a mockery and pageant, to keep up the illusion of liberty, were taught that in exercising a legitimate authority, without the sanction of their prince, a name now first heard at Florence, they incurred the risk of punishment for their audacity. Even the total dilapidation of his commercial wealth was repaired at the cost of the state; and the republic disgracefully screened the bankrupty of the Medici by her own. But, compared

1 Machiavel says that this was done ristringere il governo, e che le deliberazioni importanti si riducessero in minore numero. Mr Roscoe is puzzled how to explain this decided breach of the people's rights by his hero. But though it rather appears from Ammirato's expressions, that the two councils were now abolished, yet from M. Sismondi, who quotes an author I have not seen, and from Nardi, I should infer that they still formally subsisted.

2 Cambi, a gonfalonter of justice, had, in concert with the priors, admonished some public officers for a breach of duty. Fu giudicato questo atto molto superbo, says Ammirato, che senza participazione di Lorenzo de' Medici, principe del governo, fosse seguito, che in Pisa in quel tempo si ritrovava. The gonfalonier was fined for executing his constit. tional functions. This was a downright confession that the republic was at an end; and all it provokes M. Sismondi to say, is not too much.

3 Since the Medici took on themselves the character of princes, they had forgotten how to be merchants. But, imprudently enough, they had not discontinued their commerce, which was of course mismanaged by agents whom they did not overlook. The consequence was the complete dilapidation of their vast fortune. The public revenues had been for some years applied to make up its deficiencies. But the measures adopted by the republic, if we may still use that name, she should appear to have considered herself, rather than Lorenzo, as the

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with the statesmen of his age, we can reproach Lorenzo with nc heinous crime. He had many enemies; his descendants had many more; but no unequivocal charge of treachery or assassination has been substantiated against his memory. By the side of Galeazzo or Ludovico Sforza, of Ferdinand or his son Alfonso of Naples, of the pope Sixtus IV., he shines with unspotted lustre. So much was Lorenzo esteemed by his contemporaries, that his preinature death, in 1492, has frequently been considered as the cause of those unhappy revolutions that speedily ensued, and which his foresight would, it was imagined, have been able to prevent--an opinion which, whether founded in probability or otherwise, attests the common sentiment about his character.

If indeed Lorenzo de' Medici could not have changed the destinies of Italy, however premature his death may appear, if we consider the ordinary duration of human existence, it must be admitted, that for his own welfare, perhaps for his glory, he had lived out the full measure of his time. An age of new and uncommon revolutions was about to arise, among the earliest of which the temporary downfall of his family was to be reckoned. The long contested succession of Naples was again to involve Italy in war. The ambition of strangers was once more to desolate her plains. Ferdinand, king of Naples, had reigned for thirty years after the discomfiture of his competitor, with success and ability; but with a degree of ill faith as well as tyranny towards his subjects that rendered his government deservedly odious. His son, Alfonso, whose succession seemed now near at hand, was still more marked with these vices than himself. Meanwhile, the pretensions of the house of Anjou had legally descended, after the death of old Regnier, to Regnier, duke of Lorraine, his grandson by a daughter, whose marriage into the house of Lorraine had, however, so displeased her father, that he bequeathed his Neapolitan title, along with his real patrimony, the county of Provence, to a count of Maine, by whose testament they became vested in the crown of France. Louis XI., while he took possession of Provence, gave himself no trouble about Naples. But Charles VIII. inheriting his father's ambition, without that cool sagacity which restrained it in general from impracticable attempts, and far better circumstanced at home than Louis had ever been, was ripe for an expedition to vindicate his pretension upon Naples, or even for more extensive projects. It was now two centuries since the kings of France had aimed, by intervals, at conquests in Italy. Philip the Fair and his successors were anxious to keep up

debtor. The interest of the public debt was diminished one-half. Many charitable foundations were suppressed. The circulating specie was taken at one-fifth below its nominal value in payment of taxes, while the government continued to issue it at its former rate. Thus was Lorenzo reimbursed a part of his loss at the expense of all his fellow-citizens. It is slightly alluded to by Machiavel.

The vast expenditure of the Medici for the sake of political influence would of itself have absorbed all their profits. Cosmo is said by Guicciardini to have spent 400,000 ducats in building churches, monasteries, and other public works. The expenses of the family between 1434 and 1471 in buildings, charities, and taxes alone, amounted to 663,755 florins; equal in value, according to Sismondi, to 32,000,000 francs at present. They seem to have advanced monies imprudently, through their agents, to Edward IV, who was not the best of debtors. 1 Comines, who speaks sufficiently ill of the father, sums up the son's character very con cisely: Nul homme n'a este plus cruel qui lui, ne plus mauvais, ne plus vicieux et plus infect ne plus gourmand qui lui.

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Aragon, Naples, Milan, Florence, Lombardy.

a connexion with the Guelf party, and to be considered its natural heads, as the German emperors were of the Ghibelins. The long English wars changed all views of the court of France to self-defence. But, in the fifteenth century, its plans of aggrandisement beyond the Alps began to revive. Several times, as I have mentioned, the republic of Genoa put itself under the dominion of France. The dukes of Savoy, possessing most part of Piedmont, and masters of the mountain-passes, were by birth, intermarriage, and habitual policy, completely dedicated to the French interests. In the former wars of Ferdinand against the house of Anjou, Pope Pius II., a very enlightened statesman, foresaw the danger of Italy from the prevailing influence of France, and deprecated the introduction of her armies.2 But at that time the central parts of Lombardy were held by a man equally renowned as a soldier and a politician, Francesco Sforza. Conscious that a claim upon his own dominions subsisted in the house of Orleans, he maintained a strict alliance with the Aragonese dynasty at Naples, as having a common interest against France. But after his death, the connexion between Milan and Naples came to be weakened. In the new system of alliances, Milan and Florence, sometimes including Venice, were combined against Ferdinand and Sixtus IV., an unprincipled and restless pontiff. Ludovico Sforza, who had usurped the guardianship of his nephew, the Duke of Milan, found, as that young man advanced to maturity, that one crime required to be completed by another, To depose and murder his ward was, however, a scheme that prudence, though not conscience, bade him hesitate to execute. He had rendered Ferdinand of Naples, and Piero de' Medici, Lorenzo's heir, his decided enemies. A revolution at Milan would be the probable result of his continuing in usurpation. In these circumstances, Ludovico Sforza, in 1439, excited the king of France to undertake the conquest of Naples.

So long as the three great nations of Europe were unable to put forth their natural strength through internal separation or foreign war, the Italians had so little to dread for their independence, that their policy was altogether directed to regulating the domestic balance of power among themselves. In the latter part of the fifteenth century, a more enlarged view of Europe would have manifested the necessity of reconciling petty animosities, and sacrificing petty ambition, in order to preserve the nationality of their governments; not by attempting to melt down Lombards and Neapolitans, principalities and republics into a single monarchy, but by the more just and rational

1 Louis XI. treated Savoy as a fief of France; interfering in all its affairs, and even taking on himself the regency after the death of Philibert I., under pretence of preventing disorders. The marquis of Saluzzo, who possessed considerable territories in the south of Piedmont, had done homage to France ever since 1353, though to the injury of his real superior, the duke of Savoy. This gave France another pretext for interference in Italy.

?Cosmo de' Medici, in a conference with Pius II. at Florence, having expressed his surprise that the pope should support Ferdinand; Pontifex haud ferendum fuisse ait, regem a se constitutum, armis ejici, neque id Italia libertati conducere; Gallos, si regnum obtinuissent, Senas haud dubie subacturos; Florentinos adversus lilia nihil acturos; Borsium Mutinae ducem Gallis galliorem videri; Flaminia regulos ad Francos inclinare; Genuam Francis subesse, et civitatem Astensem; si pontifex Romanus aliquando Francorum amicus assumatur, nihil reliqui in Italiâ remanere quod non transeat in Gallorum nomen; tueri se Italiam, dum Ferdinandum tueretur. Spondanus, who led me to this passage, is very angry; but the year 1494 proved Pius II. to be a wary statesman

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scheme of a common federation. The politicians of Italy were abundantly competent, as far as cool and clear understandings could render them, to perceive the interests of their country. But it is the will of Providence, that the highest and surest wisdom, even in matters of policy, should never be unconnected with virtue. In relieving himself from an immediate danger, Ludovico Sforza overlooked the consideration that the presumptive heir of the king of France claimed by an ancient title that principality of Milan, which he was compassing by usurpation and murder. But neither Milan nor Naples was free from other claimants than France, nor was she reserved to enjoy unmolested the spoil of Italy. A louder and a louder strain of warlike dissonance will be heard from the banks of the Danube, and from the Mediterranean gulf. The dark and wily Ferdinand, the rash and lively Maximilian, are preparing to hasten into the lists; the schemes of ambition are assuming a more comprehensive aspect; and the con troversy of Neapolitan succession is to expand into the long rivalry between the houses of France and Austria. But here, while Italy is still untouched, and before as yet the first lances of France gleam along the defiles of the Alps, we close the history of the Middle Ages.

CHAPTER IV.

THE HISTORY OF SPAIN TO THE CONQUEST OF GRANADA.

THE history of Spain during the Middle Ages ought to commence with the dynasty of the Visigoths; a nation among the first that assaulted and overthrew the Roman empire, and whose establishment preceded by nearly half a century the invasion of Clovis. Vanquished by that conqueror in the battle of Poitiers, the Gothic monarchs lost their extensive dominions in Gaul, and transferred their residence from Toulouse to Toledo. But I hold the annals of barbarians so unworthy of remembrance, that I will not detain the reader by naming one sovereign of that obscure race. The Merovingian kings of France were perhaps as deeply stained by atrocious crimes, but their history, slightly as I have noticed it, is the necessary foundation of that of Charlemagne, and illustrates the feudal system and constitutional antiquities of France. If those of Castile had been equally interesting to the historical student, I should have taken the same pains to trace their original in the Gothic monarchy. For that is at least as much the primary source of the old Castilian constitution, as the AngloSaxon polity of our own. It may, however, suffice to mention, that it differed in several respects from that of the Franks during the same period. The crown was less hereditary, or at least the regular succession was more frequently disturbed. The prelates had a still more commanding influence in temporal government. The distinction of Romans and barbarians was less marked, the laws more uniform, and approaching nearly to the imperial code. The power of the sovereign

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The Petty Kingdoms if Spain.

was perhaps more limited by an aristocratical council than in France, but it never yielded to the dangerous influence of mayors of the palace. Civil wars and disputed successions were very frequent, but the integrity of the kingdom was not violated by the custom of parti tion.

Spain, after remaining for nearly three centuries in the possession of the Visigoths, fell under the yoke of the Saracens in 712. The fervid and irresistible enthusiasm which distinguished the youthful period of Mohammedism, might sufficiently account for this conquest, even if we could not assign additional causes, the factions which divided the Goths, the resentment of disappointed pretenders to the throne, the provocations of Count Julian, and the temerity that risked the fate of an empire on the chances of a single battle. It is more surprising, that a remnant of this ancient monarchy should not only have preserved its national liberty and name in the northern mountains, but waged for some centuries a successful, and generally an offensive, warfare against the conquerors, till the balance was com pletely turned in its favour, and the Moors were compelled to maintain almost as obstinate and protracted a contest for a small portion of the peninsula. But the Arabian monarchs of Cordova found in their success and imagined security a pretext for indolence; even in the cultivation of science, and contemplation of the magnificent architecture of their mosques and palaces, they forgot their poor, but daring enemies in the Asturias; while, according to the nature of despotism, the fruits of wisdom or bravery in one generation were lost in the follies and effeminacy of the next. Their kingdom was dismembered by successful rebels, who formed the states of Toledo, Huesca, Saragosa, and others less eminent; and these, in their own mutual contests, not only relaxed their natural enmity towards the Christian princes, but sometimes sought their alliance.

The last attack, which seemed to endanger the reviving monarchy of Spain, was that of Almanzor, the illustrious vizir of Haccham II., towards the end of the tenth century, wherein the city of Leon, and even the shrine of Compostella, were burned to the ground. For some ages before this transient reflux, gradual encroachments had been made upon the Saracens ; and the kingdom, originally styled of Oviedo, the seat of which was removed to Leon in 914, had extended its boundary to the Ducro, and even to the mountainous chain of the Guadarrama. The province of old Castile, thus denominated, as is generally supposed, from the castles erected, while it remained a march or frontier against the Moors, was governed by hereditary counts, elected originally by the provincial aristocracy, and virtually independent, it seems probable, of the kings of Leon, though commonly serving them in war, as brethren of the same faith and nation.

While the kings of Leon were thus occupied in recovering the western provinces, another race of Christian princes grew up silently under the shadow of the Pyrenean mountains. Nothing can be more obscure than the beginnings of those little states, which were formed in Navarre and the country of Soprarbe. They might, perhaps, be almost contemporaneous with the Moorish conquests. On both sides of the Pyrences dwelt an aboriginal people; the last to undergo the yoke,