Jacob Burckhardt - The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy

Franc. Burlamacchi, father of the head of the Lucchese Protestants, Michele B. See Arch. Stor. Ital. ser. i. tom. x., pp. 435-599; Documenti, pp. 146 sqq.; further Carlo Minutoli, Storia di Fr. B. , Lucca, 1844, and the important additions of Leone del Prete in the Giornale Storico degli Archiv. Toscani , iv. (1860), pp. 309 sqq. It is well known how Milan, by its hard treatment of the neighbouring cities from the eleventh to the thirteenth century, prepared the way for the foundation of a great despotic state. Even at the time of the extinction of the Visconti in 1447, Milan frustrated the deliverance of Upper Italy, principally through not accepting the plan of a confederation of equal cities. Comp. Corio, fol. 358 sqq.

On the third Sunday in Advent, 1494, Savonarola preached as follows on the method of bringing about a new constitution: The sixteen companies of the city were each to work out a plan, the Gonfalonieri to choose the four best of these, and the Signory to name the best of all on the reduced list. Things, however, took a different turn, under the influence indeed of the preacher himself. See P. Villari, Savonarola . Besides this sermon, S. had written a remarkable Trattato circa il regimento di Ferenze (reprinted at Lucca, 1817).

The latter first in 1527, after the expulsion of the Medici. See Varchi, i. 121, &c.

Macchiavelli, Storie Fior. l. iii. cap. 1: ‘Un Savio dator di leggi,’ could save Florence.

Varchi, Stor. Fior. i. p. 210.

‘Discorso sopra il riformar lo Stato di Firenze,’ in the Opere Minori , p. 207.

The same view, doubtless borrowed from here, occurs in Montesquieu.

Belonging to a rather later period (1532?). Compare the opinion of Guicciardini, terrible in its frankness, on the condition and inevitable organisation of the Medicean party. Lettere di Principi , iii. fol. 124, (ediz. Venez. 1577).

Æn. Sylvii, Apologia ad Martinum Mayer , p. 701. To the same effect Macchiavelli, Discorsi , i. 55, and elsewhere.

How strangely modern half-culture affected political life is shown by the party struggles of 1535. Della Valle, Lettere Sanesi , iii. p. 317. A number of small shopkeepers, excited by the study of Livy and of Macchiavelli’s Discorsi , call in all seriousness for tribunes of the people and other Roman magistrates against the misgovernment of the nobles and the official classes.

Piero Valeriano, De Infelicitate Literator. , speaking of Bartolommeo della Rovere. (The work of P. V. written 1527 is quoted according to the edition by Menken, Analecta de Calamitate Literatorum , Leipz. 1707.) The passage here meant can only be that at p. 384, from which we cannot infer what is stated in the text, but in which we read that B. d. R. wished to make his son abandon a taste for study which he had conceived and put him into business.

Senarega, De reb. Genuens , in Murat. xxiv. col. 548. For the insecurity of the time see esp. col. 519, 525, 528, &c. For the frank language of the envoy on the occasion of the surrender of the state to Francesco Sforza (1464), when the envoy told him that Genoa surrendered in the hope of now living safely and comfortably, see Cagnola, Archiv. Stor. iii. p. 165 sqq. The figures of the Archbishop, Doge, Corsair, and (later) Cardinal Paolo Fregoso form a notable contrast to the general picture of the condition of Italy.

So Varchi, at a much later time. Stor. Fiorent. i. 57.

Galeazzo Maria Sforza, indeed, declared the contrary (1467) to the Venetian agent, namely, that Venetian subjects had offered to join him in making war on Venice; but this is only vapouring. Comp. Malipiero, Annali Veneti, Archiv. Stor. vii. i. p. 216 sqq. On every occasion cities and villages voluntarily surrendered to Venice, chiefly, it is true, those that escaped from the hands of some despot, while Florence had to keep down the neighbouring republics, which were used to independence, by force of arms, as Guicciardini ( Ricordi , n. 29) observes.

Most strongly, perhaps, in an instruction to the ambassadors going to Charles VII. in the year 1452. (See Fabroni, Cosmus , Adnot. 107, fol. ii. pp. 200 sqq.) The Florentine envoys were instructed to remind the king of the centuries of friendly relations which had subsisted between France and their native city, and to recall to him that Charles the Great had delivered Florence and Italy from the barbarians (Lombards), and that Charles I. and the Romish Church were ‘fondatori della parte Guelfa. Il qual fundamento fa cagione della ruina della contraria parte e introdusse lo stato di felicità, in che noi siamo.’ When the young Lorenzo visited the Duke of Anjou, then staying at Florence, he put on a French dress. Fabroni, ii. p. 9.

Comines, Charles VIII. chap. x. The French were considered ‘comme saints.’ Comp. chap. 17; Chron. Venetum , in Murat. xxiv. col. 5, 10, 14, 15; Matarazzo, Cron. di Perugia, Arch. Stor. xvi. ii. p. 23, not to speak of countless other proofs. See especially the documents in Desjardins, op. cit. p. 127, note 1.

Pii II. Commentarii , x. p. 492.

Gingins, Dépêches des Ambassadeurs Milanais , etc. i. pp. 26, 153, 279, 283, 285, 327, 331, 345, 359; ii. pp. 29, 37, 101, 217, 306. Charles once spoke of giving Milan to the young Duke of Orleans.

Niccolò Valori, Vita di Lorenzo , Flor. 1568. Italian translation of the Latin original, first printed in 1749 (later in Galletti, Phil. Villani, Liber de Civit. Flor. famosis Civibus , Florence, 1847, pp. 161-183; passage here referred to p. 171). It must not, however, be forgotten that this earliest biography, written soon after the death of Lorenzo, is a flattering rather than a faithful portrait, and that the words here attributed to Lorenzo are not mentioned by the French reporter, and can, in fact, hardly have been uttered. Comines, who was commissioned by Louis XI. to go to Rome and Florence, says ( Mémoires , l. vi. chap. 5): ‘I could not offer him an army, and had nothing with me but my suite.’ (Comp. Reumont, Lorenzo , i. p. 197, 429; ii. 598). In a letter from Florence to Louis XI. we read (Aug. 23, 1478: ‘Omnis spes nostra reposita est in favoribus suæ majestatis.’ A. Desjardins, Négociations Diplomatiques de la France avec la Toscane (Paris, 1859), i. p. 173. Similarly Lorenzo himself in Kervyn de Lettenhove, Lettres et Négotiations de Philippe de Comines , i. p. 190. Lorenzo, we see, is in fact the one who humbly begs for help, not who proudly declines it.

Dr. Geiger in his appendix maintains that Dr. Burchhardt’s view as to Lorenzo’s national Italian policy is not borne out by evidence. Into this discussion the translator cannot enter. It would need strong proof to convince him that the masterly historical perception of Dr. Burchhardt was in error as to a subject which he has studied with minute care. In an age when diplomatic lying and political treachery were matters of course, documentary evidence loses much of its weight, and cannot be taken without qualification as representing the real feelings of the persons concerned, who fenced, turned about, and lied, first on one side and then on another, with an agility surprising to those accustomed to live among truth-telling people (S.G.C.M.)