Chapter 7
Section 7 of Europe in Renaissance and Reformation by Mary A. Hollings. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, read by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 4. The Italian States in the 15th Century, Part 1. In the last half of the 15th century, Italy was not yet a nation, merely a bundle of states living a keen political life, and finding the great game of politics the most exciting of
occupations. Each state played for its own hand and for high stakes, with entire unscrupulousness. Thus absorbed, they none of them saw that they were observed by others from without, who with new methods and greater resources were coming unbidden to the board. A united resistance to the foreigner was out of the question, for it was only by ceaseless intrigue that any state managed to hold its own among the rest. Yet there was method in this
intrigue, dictated by certain inevitable alliances and equally inevitable quarrels. By following these out briefly, we may unravel the tangled threads of Italian politics a little way. The five states of which special account must be taken were Milan, Florence, Venice, Naples, and the Papacy, a Principality, two Republics, a Kingdom, and the States of the Church. During this half-century, they were usually grouped into one of two leagues,
the Triple Alliance or the Northern League. The Triple Alliance, consisting of Milan, Florence, and Naples may be called the normal or usual balance of power in Italy. And the main exceptions to this rule, when the Northern League, Milan, Florence, and Venice, against the papacy in Naples, prevailed, were during the Pazzi conspiracy and after 1485, when Naples became hostile to Milan on account of Ludovico Sforz's usurpation.
These alliances were the outcome of certain permanent interests. For instance, it was difficult for Naples and Venice to keep on good terms, for they were rival maritime powers, to whom the possession of the Apulian port seemed equally necessary, and Venice regarded Naples as the chief foe to her advance in Italy and Greece. Again, except during a period of sixteen years, when Venice was at war with the Turks, that republic was Milan's most serious rival for
the supremacy of North Italy. On the other hand, Milan had a strong common bond with Naples against the claims of the French houses of Orléans and Anjou. As both Naples and Florence were likely to interfere with the Pope's ambitious family schemes in Romagna, the papacy was usually hostile to them both, though the Medici did their best to maintain peaceable relations. But the popes were drawn toward Venice by sharing with her the burden
of resistance to the Turk and by a common dislike of Naples. These general rules point to the triple alliance of Milan, Florence, and Naples being the natural outcome of circumstances, and we must look more closely at those of each state in turn. The kingdom of Naples, of which the popes claimed the right of investiture, was deeply divided within itself. The rude mountaineers differed in race from the civilized coast dwellers. In the struggle between Aragon and Anjou, the Abruzzi had always
supported Aragon. Calabria, Anjou. This rivalry had rent in twain the land from the 13th century until the final accession of Alfonso the Magnanimous of Aragon in 1442. He proved a strong and popular leader, but the condition of Naples at his death in 1458 was showy rather than sound. There was a parliament, but it was scarcely representative, and had only been called once to confirm Ferrante's succession. The army was unreliable compared with the bands of retainers
commanded by the great barons, for the social state of the kingdom was still thoroughly feudal, and Naples had been too long the happy hunting ground of the condottieri to rely upon native military talent. The court expenditure was lavish and justice was already sold to raise funds. As Alfonso had no lawful heir, he was obliged to leave Aragon and Sicily to his brother. All he could bequeath to Ferrante, his illegitimate son, was Naples, his own conquest.
This was the moment for the House of Anjou to reassert its claim to Naples, and John of Calabria, whom we recognize as a member of the League of the Public Wheel, appeared as claimant. Like the rest of his house, he was inefficient, unlucky, and attractive. Ferrante tried to strengthen himself by alliances with Milan and the Pope, but his own harsh and cruel nature soon provoked a war with his barons, which should have given John his opportunity.
At first, the latter had some success, but after 1461, the tide turned. The new French king, Louis XI, disliked his Angevin relations and as a token of his regard for Sforza, was ready to present Milan with Genoa, which had been John's military base in Italy. Finally, the fickle barons returned to their allegiance, and in 1464, John withdrew from the contest. His claim, as we have seen, eventually passed through his cousin the Count of Men to the
French crown, and the proposal that it should be adopted by Charles VIII came directly from the discontented Neapolitan barons who had rebelled again in 1485 in favor of René of Lorraine. Ferrante broke his promise of pardon to the rebels and put to death all but those who were beyond his reach. This time in 1493, they appealed to the French king, and at the crisis in 1494, Ferrante died, leaving Alfonso, his heir and associate in his rule, to face the situation they had created
between them. The Neapolitan exiles had been encouraged by Venice to apply to France, and we have now to trace the Republic's reasons for giving this advice. The fifteenth century was outwardly the most splendid period in the splendid career of what Comines describes as the most triumphant city I have ever seen, but the burden of dominion was pressing heavily upon her. The wealth of Venice was gained not from manufacturers but from her
carrying trade, chiefly of timber and woolen goods, in return for spices and other goods of the east. And by this connection, her possessions in the Levant had been built up. The opposite coasts of the Adriatic, the Ionian Islands, Crete, and some of the Aegean Islands, certain ports of the Morea, all belonged to Venice, with treaty rights of trade with Constantinople and a number of towns in Palestine and Egypt. It would perhaps have been the Republic's best policy to become an
Eastern, that is, a Greek and Illyrian power. But unluckily, her treatment of her Levantine subjects in its corruption and injustice bore a strong contrast to her government of the mainland. Up to the middle of the 14th century, Venice had no mainland possessions, and it was not until a century later that her advance became rapid, partly because she despised her maritime subjects, partly because the claims of her inland trade and the jealousy of powerful neighbors drove her into
increasing her territory, but most of all, because of the appearance of an overwhelming foe, the Turk, in the eastern waters, Venice joined the general scramble for territory in Italy. No state there had more loyal subjects, but in greed and unscrupulousness in gaining them, Venice soon outdistanced, even Italian competitors, and it was said of her at the time that she was the fame, the defense, and the ornament of Italy without, but her plague and torment within.
From another standpoint, the change of policy was ruinous. Her wealth depended upon her maritime trade. The mainland provinces never paid their way and were costly to gain, and when her eastern possessions fell by degrees into Turkish hands, her revenues declined. As long as Venice retained her colonial empire and her vast commercial interests, she needed a class like her merchant princes to attend to her foreign policy. For this reason, the Venetians became the most observant,
acute, and practiced of European diplomatists. Again, the administration of affairs tended to fall to a few. The Doge had already become a figurehead, and the real rulers of Venice in the 15th century were a clique of the newer nobility who numbered in the 16th century about 40. They controlled the famous Council of Ten, which really consisted of 17 members from the Senate and Great Council, including the Doge. The Ten, or their chiefs, the three, managed all the
most important business of the state, and in their methods somewhat resembled the efforts of Sparta. They were therefore despotic and governed by secrecy and terrorism. At the same time, they made no parade of power, there were few or no revolutions, and the order and prosperity of the state secured the support of its citizens. The year 1454 is a convenient starting point for a sketch of the history of Venice during the next fifty years, for it is marked by peace with Milan
after a lengthy war and peace with the Turks. By the peace of Lodi, Piacenza and Lodi were confirmed to Venice, and she came to terms with the new lord of Milan, Francesco Sforza. The capture of Constantinople the year before had been an even more serious shock to Venice than to the rest of Europe, for Venice desired not war with the Turks but trade, and she saw that this new conquest meant war. However, Venice came to an agreement which staved off for a few years the evil day.
In return for tribute, the Turks allowed the Republic to keep her possessions and trade in the Levant. Meanwhile, the Turkish advance under Muhammad II continued. The great conqueror overran Serbia. Hungary was only snatched from his grasp by the splendid exertions of its hero, John Hunyadi, and the infectious fervor of friar Capistrano. Hunyadi raised the siege first of the key fortress of Semendria in 1456 and afterwards of Belgrade. Breaking through a barrier of boats
across the river, he entered the city whose walls were shattered by a fortnight's assault and drove the Turks, who greatly outnumbered his raw and ragged forces, in headlong flight, leaving 50,000 dead behind them. But a few days later, Christendom lost its champion from the plague. Capistrano died of fever, and the main burden of defense fell to the lot of George Kastriot, despot of Albania. His Turkish title, Skanderbeg, the Lord Alexander, recalls the fact
that though brought up in the sultan's court, he is one of the few who ever return to their faith and fatherland. For ten years he led his people to heroic defense of their country, of which he was acknowledged ruler by the sultan. Then he joined the Pope, Hungary, and Venice, and after driving the Turks from Croce, his capital, cleared the country of the enemy. This athlete of Christendom died in 1467, commending his son to the protection of the Venetians, to whom he had been as shield
and buckler. Elsewhere, Muhammad's successes continued. The quarrels of the Greek rulers let the Turks into the Morea, which was devastated beyond repair. And in 1464, Bosnia was subdued. In 1473, Venice at last declared war, which was mainly maritime at first. The chief event was the fall of Negroponte, which might have been saved had the Venetian commander Nicolo Canale been a Hunyadi. For the rest, however, Venice fought valiantly and almost single-handed against
the foe which, having added a new fleet to its equipment in 1471, had become more formidable than ever. Muhammad's conquest of Asia Minor had now left him free from Europe, and he renewed his attack on Albania and this time took Croja and Scutari. By 1479, Venice could do no more, and concluded the peace of Constantinople, retaining in return for tribute to the Sultan, Crete, seven ports in Greece, and her trading quarter in Constantinople.
Having been an idle spectator of the war, Europe was filled with consternation at the peace. It set free the Turks, and also, this mainly concerned the Italians, the Venetians, for further aggressions. By the advice, as all Italy believed, of Venice, the Turks besieged and took Cotranto in Apulia in 1480. It seemed as if Rome might share Constantinople's fate. At this crisis, however, Muhammad's attention was diverted to Rhodes, and he died next year in 1481.
By 1483, the Turkish conquest of Herzegovina was completed. Montenegro alone of all the Slavonic states in the Balkans held out. Its hardy mountaineers, under their ruler Ivan the Black, son of a comrade of Skanderbeg, deserted their capital and mounted to their new area of Chetinye. They rose to wear their sovereign eagle sails. They kept their faith, their freedom, on the height, chaste, frugal, savage, armed by day and night, against the Turk. The death of Muhammad
the Great was a welcome reprieve to Europe. With the exception of a short war in which the Turks rated Venetian territory as far as Vicenza, and seized most of her Greek ports, nothing serious happened until the conquest of Egypt in 1517 by Selim I. The last of the trade routes from the east was thereby blocked, that is, along the Persian Gulf to Aden, up the Red Sea, and by a short caravan journey to Alexandria, whence the goods were distributed to Venetian and Genoese
galleys and sent across the Brenner to Bruges. Since the discovery of the Cape route to India, the Portuguese had rapidly pushed on their commerce with the East. They were able, by 1509, to offer spice, pepper, and sugar at such cheap rates that a general fall in the prices of eastern produce ruined many of the older established merchants in the Netherlands, on the Rhine, and in Genoa and Venice. The Venetians joined an expedition sent from Cairo to fight the Portuguese,
but even had they been successful, their eastern trade was doomed, and the conquest of Egypt set the seal upon their doom. And we shall see that the year 1509 was to be fatal to Venice on land as well as on sea, that her ancient spirit was not yet dead, she was still to show in her dying resistance to the Turk in Cyprus in 1570 and Candia in 1669, and her love of pomp and luxuriant color immortalized itself in the greatest school of Italian colorists, those artists of the 16th
century, Titian, Tintoretto, Giorgione, Veronese, who have expressed on canvas the pride and glory of Venice. Meanwhile, Italy had been right in dreading the use Venice might make of the leisure bestowed on her by the Treaty of Constantinople. Certainly her policy from 1479 became more aggressive, as the three following instances may show. In 1481, she quarreled with Ferrara, who was a rival for her salt monopoly, and war broke out in which Pope Sixtus IV helped Venice
to seize Rovigo. The triple alliance then interfered, the Pope seeing that Venice would gain all the spoil, went over to the League. The Republic, whose supplies were exhausted, concluded the Peace of Bagnolo, which allowed her to keep Rovigo only of all her conquests. The Pope died immediately afterwards. It was said of vexation at the Peace. Secondly, it was by high-handed conduct that Venice gained possession of Cyprus in 1488.
the last king of that island, James of Lusignan, whose extraordinary personal fascination had secured for him his disputed throne, had married a Venetian lady, Catarina Coronaro, and to make her worthy a crown, the Republic formally adopted her as daughter of Saint Mark. When shortly afterwards James died, Venice became the guardian of her daughter and her daughter's child. Next, the Republic undertook the government of the island, and finally, fearing the intentions
of Alfonso of Naples, who proposed to marry the queen, persuaded Catarina, now childless, to abdicate in its favor. Catarina was loath to leave her little kingdom, but it was made clear to her that there was no alternative. A tiny state was found for her in the hill town and plain of Asolo, and there she reigned with the titles of Queen of Cyprus and Lady of Asolo, till the troubles following the League of Cambrai caused her to take refuge in
Venice, where she died in 1510. Lastly, Venice, turning envious eyes on the six Apulian ports, Gallipoli, Otranto, Brindisi, Trani, Monopoli, and Bari, decided that her best chance of gaining them was to invite foreign interference, and by upsetting the balance of power in Italy, to secure her prey as the price of her help. So she encouraged the fugitive Neapolitan nobles, who came in 1493 to ask her advice, to call in Charles VIII and the Duke of Orléans to make good
their claims upon Naples and Milan. It was a fatal mistake, for Galeazzo Sforza's words to Venice were still true. You are alone, and all the world is against you, not merely in Italy, but also beyond the Alps. End of Section 7
