Chapter VIII: Italy in the Fourteenth Century, 1313-1402 (1)

Guelfs and Ghibellines—Equality of parties leads to foreign
intervention—Lewis the Bavarian—John of Bohemia—League against
Mastino della Scala—Walter de Brienne in Florence—Rise of
mercenaries—Foreign and native Condottieri—Joanna I. of
Naples—Succession disputes in Naples—Rome and the Papal
States—Career of Rienzi—Cardinal Albornoz recovers the Papal
States—Return of the Popes to Rome and outbreak of the Great
Schism—Strife of classes and families in Florence—Rising of the
_Ciompi_—Revolution of 1382 and triumph of the oligarchy in
Florence—Rivalry of Venice and Genoa—War of Chioggia—The Visconti in
Milan—Successes of Gian Galeazzo Visconti—His death.

The death of Henry VII. marks the failure of the last serious effort on the part of a German king to carry out the ideal of [Sidenote: Guelfs and Ghibellines.] Dante’s _De Monarchia_ by establishing an efficient monarchy in Italy. A few years earlier the Papacy, which had done more than any other power to thwart the imperial pretensions, had almost deliberately weakened its authority by transferring its residence to the banks of the Rhône. It seemed as if Italy might for a time be freed from the rivalry of the two claimants to universal rule, whose quarrel had done so much to cause discord and anarchy in the peninsula. But it is one of the numerous anomalies of Italian history that the factions of Guelfs and Ghibellines continue their feuds with the same vigour and animosity as in the days when each had a substantial cause to fight for. Yet beneath these feuds we can trace a growing undercurrent of political interests and of selfish aggrandisement, which gradually led to the absorption of the lesser states by their more powerful neighbours, and ultimately to the formation of the five greater powers whose rivalry fills the history of the next century. The example was set by Venice, [Sidenote: Venetian policy.] whose geographical position removed her from the main current of party strife, while her interests were more strictly defined than those of any other state. In the east she had to maintain and extend her trade and her influence against the rivalry of Genoa; and she had also to face the serious problems raised by the steady decline of the Eastern Empire and the constant aggressions of the Turks. In the west she had not yet acquired any territory on the mainland, but two pressing interests compelled her to keep a watchful eye on the politics of Lombardy. She could not with safety allow any continental power to obtain complete control of the Alpine passes through which Venetian merchandise found its way to the markets of Central Europe. Still less could she neglect the imperative need of securing supplies of food. Built upon the small islands of the lagoons, she could not possibly raise enough produce to feed her citizens, and was necessarily dependent upon importations from eastern Lombardy or Dalmatia. If a hostile power could cut off these supplies, Venice must be speedily starved into surrender. This double interest forced Venice to play a more prominent part in Italian politics than her isolated position seemed to warrant, and in the end impelled her to join in the scramble for territory on the mainland.

With the exception of Venice, all the Italian states were more or less involved in the strife of factions. In the south [Sidenote: Balance of parties.] Robert of Naples, relying upon Papal and French support, still held the Guelf leadership, and still aimed, like his grandfather, at converting this leadership into a kingdom of Italy. But the Angevin power was no longer what it had been in the days of Charles I. The Sicilian Vespers had given Sicily to a hostile dynasty, and the Popes in Avignon were less valuable allies than their predecessors in Rome. In the north lay the main strength of the Ghibelline party. Despots, like Matteo Visconti in Milan and Cangrande della Scala in Verona, were rapidly overthrowing the republican independence of the Lombard cities, and these men had no legal basis for their authority save their appointment as imperial vicars. Between Naples and Lombardy lay the Papal States and Tuscany. In the former, the Popes continued to employ what authority they could wield through their legates on the Guelf and Angevin side. But the decline of their direct authority led to the rise of petty despots in cities which were nominally papal fiefs, and these despots, desiring the maximum of independence for themselves, naturally leaned towards Ghibellinism. In Tuscany there was also a marked division. Florence was the head of a group of communes which retained republican institutions and were ardently Guelf in sympathy. But Pisa, also a republic, was equally resolute on the Ghibelline side.

On the whole the two parties were so evenly matched in strength, that it was difficult for either to resist the temptation of trying to turn the balance in its own favour by [Sidenote: Foreign intervention in Italy.] calling in foreign assistance. It is true that a number of writers, including Sismondi, have represented the Guelfs as the national and the Ghibellines as the anti-national party. But this view involves both a misconception of the mediæval empire, and also the anachronism of assuming a sense of nationality to exist in Italy at a time when no such idea was possible. The only sentiment which could vie with devotion to party was patriotism; but patriotism beyond the bounds of his own city was as unknown to a citizen of Florence or Milan as it was to an Athenian or a Spartan in the days of Greek independence. Robert of Naples was as much a foreigner to a native of Lombardy or Tuscany as Lewis the Bavarian, and the king of France was much more so. As long as party spirit was the strongest force in Italy, we can trace a succession of appeals for foreign intervention: and when party spirit finally gave way to the rivalry of state with state, this intervention grew into conquest and occupation.

Henry VII. in the last struggle before his death had clearly and correctly perceived that the key to the situation was in [Sidenote: Struggle in Tuscany.] Tuscany, that if the Ghibelline cause could triumph in that province the overthrow of the Guelfs might be confidently expected. And not long after his death the desired state of things seemed not unlikely to be realised. One of the most famous adventurers of the age, Castruccio Castracani, who had risen to prominence by his military ability, made himself lord of Lucca and there became a formidable neighbour to Florence. In 1325 he reduced the intermediate town of Pistoia, and defeated the Florentine forces at Altopascio. So terrified were the Florentines that they resolved to sacrifice their independence as the price of safety and the victory of their party. They offered the lordship of the city to Robert of Naples, who accepted it for his only son, Charles of Calabria. The progress of Castruccio was checked, and the appearance of Neapolitan forces in Tuscany impelled the Ghibelline leaders to call in the assistance of Lewis of Bavaria (_vide_ p. 104). Lewis [Sidenote: Lewis the Bavarian in Italy.] entered Italy in 1327, but his coming brought little real gain to his allies. In Milan he imprisoned his host, Galeazzo Visconti, and restored to the citizens a mockery of republican independence. Pisa, in spite of her Ghibelline traditions, stood a month’s siege before she would open her gates to a prince who might hand her over as a reward to his chief supporter Castruccio Castracani. No attempt was made to attack the Duke of Calabria in Florence, and Lewis hurried on to Rome. There he was crowned emperor. John XXII. was deposed as a heretic, and an Antipope was elected. Castruccio was formally created Duke of Lucca, Pistoia, and Volterra. But the news came that the Florentines had captured Pistoia by stratagem, and Castruccio had to hurry north for the defence of his duchy. He was indignant that Lewis had given the lordship of Pisa to the empress, and in defiance of imperial authority he took measures to secure his own rule in the city. From Pisa he advanced to a successful siege of Pistoia, but he died almost immediately after (September 3, 1328) of a fever contracted in the trenches.

The death of Castruccio and the humiliating failure of Lewis the Bavarian, who was forced to evacuate Rome in the autumn of 1328, deprived the Ghibellines of the advantages which they had secured in the early part of the year. Lucca, which had threatened to subdue both Florence and Pisa, became a prize for which many states and adventurers contended. But the Guelfs did not profit as much as might have been expected from the disasters of their opponents. Charles of Calabria, having served the purpose of the Florentines by saving them from Castruccio, died on November 9, 1328, and Florence recovered her independence. Robert of Naples, profoundly discouraged by the death of his only son, abandoned most of his ambitious projects and ceased to interfere in the politics of northern Italy. Soon afterwards the emperor found it necessary to leave Italy in order to look after his interests in Germany. Before his departure he restored Milan to the rule of Azzo Visconti, the son of the deposed Galeazzo, who had perished, like Castruccio, of a disease contracted during the siege of Pistoia.

The departure of Lewis and the inactivity of the Neapolitan king left the parties in northern Italy to fight out their quarrels without foreign aid. The Ghibellines had lost their short-lived ascendency in Tuscany, but they were still omnipotent on the Lombard plain. By far the most powerful Ghibelline prince at this time was [Sidenote: Power of Mastino della Scala.] Mastino della Scala, who in 1329 had succeeded his uncle Cangrande in the government of Verona. Cangrande, a typical Italian despot in his combination of relentless cruelty with the patronage of letters, had established a strong territorial power in eastern Lombardy. He had forced Marsilio Carrara to govern Padua as his lieutenant, while he had brought into direct submission the towns of Vicenza, Feltre, Belluno, and Treviso, and was thus enabled to control the most important eastern passes through the Alps. Mastino inherited his uncle’s ambition with his territories, and on receiving an appeal for aid from the Ghibelline exiles of Brescia, he eagerly seized the pretext for laying siege to that city. This aggression led to the most interesting and unique instance of foreign intervention in Italy. John of Bohemia [Sidenote: John of Bohemia.] (_vide_ p. 18) happened to be at the moment on the Italian borders at Trent, negotiating the marriage of his second son with the heiress of Tyrol, Margaret Maultasch (_vide_ p. 107). He had never taken part in Italian politics, but he enjoyed a brilliant reputation in Europe, and there was much in his position to attract the attention of the Italians. He was known to be on the most intimate terms with the Pope and the French king, both patrons of the Guelf cause. At the same time, as the son of Henry VII., he had strong claims on the allegiance of the Ghibellines. If any man could act as a mediator in the party feuds of Italy, it was the head of the house of Luxemburg.

To King John the besieged Brescians appealed for assistance, and offered in return the sovereignty over the city. [Sidenote: Successes of John in Italy.] The prospect of a new field for adventure was more than John could resist. He ordered levies to be collected in Bohemia, and warned Mastino della Scala to desist from attacking a city which owned his lordship. Mastino obeyed on condition that the Ghibelline exiles should be restored; and this promise, to the great chagrin of the dominant party in Brescia, the king fulfilled. On his entry into the city (December 31, 1330) John announced that he would belong to no party, that his one aim was to restore peace and justice, and that he hoped that before long there would be no more Guelfs and Ghibellines. The immediate effect of such unprecedented language was almost magical. The Italians, exhausted with continual party warfare, welcomed as a protecting angel the prince who promised impartiality. One after another the cities of northern Italy, Bergamo, Cremona, Pavia, Vercelli, and Novara, placed themselves under the rule of John of Bohemia. Even Azzo Visconti, the powerful lord of Milan, found it advisable to acknowledge the suzerainty of the king, and to accept the title of royal vicar. Soon afterwards John’s dominions were extended southwards by the submission of Parma, Reggio, Modena, and the unfortunate Lucca, which had been tossed from hand to hand since the death of Castruccio Castracani. In every case the exiles, of either faction, were allowed to return, and the government was established without any regard to party divisions. For a moment it seemed that the spontaneous action of the Italians themselves might create the monarchy that had so long seemed an impossible dream.

But John’s success was too sudden to be lasting. Party enmities were too deeply rooted to be torn up at the first [Sidenote: Opposition to John.] effort. Men began to ask in whose name had he come; did he represent the Emperor or the Pope? An appeal to these potentates produced only negative answers. John XXII. was indignant with the king for restoring the Ghibelline exiles in Guelf strongholds; Lewis was jealous that a rival should succeed where he had failed. And John had enemies both in Italy and outside. Mastino della Scala felt himself threatened by the rise of a conterminous principality in Lombardy, and Florence was afraid lest a power which extended so far as Lucca might endanger her own independence. In the north the dukes of Austria and the kings of Poland and Hungary formed a league against him, and John had to cross the Alps for the defence of Bohemia. His absence only hastened the destruction of a dominion that rested on too shallow a foundation to endure. If he had succeeded for a moment in uniting Guelfs and Ghibellines under his rule, a still more wonderful union was brought about for his overthrow. In 1332 the strange spectacle was seen of a close league of Florence and Naples with Azzo Visconti, Mastino della Scala, and other Ghibelline princes of the north. Mastino had already succeeded in capturing Brescia, and Azzo had seized upon Bergamo and Vercelli. The rest of John’s possessions were to be partitioned among the allies. Cremona was to go to Visconti, Parma to Mastino, Modena to the house of Este, Reggio to the Gonzagas of Mantua, and Lucca to the Florentines.

John of Bohemia had succeeded in dividing the northern league, and had proceeded to France and Avignon in order to secure the support of Philip VI. and the Pope. He now hurried back to the aid of his son Charles, whom he had left in charge of his Italian dominions. But he found that he had no sufficient native support to [Sidenote: Collapse of his power.] enable him to face the hostile coalition. The two parties whom he had tried to conciliate were now united in opposition. He had few real interests at stake in Italy, whither he had been mainly attracted by the love of adventure. Instead of prosecuting the struggle, he sold his prerogatives in each town to the highest bidder he could find, and quitted Italy with his son in 1333. The episode is interesting as throwing light on the character of John, and on the impulsive character of the Italians, but in an indirect way it was of unforeseen importance. The future emperor, Charles IV., never forgot the experience of Italian politics which he had obtained during the two years in which he acted as his father’s deputy, and one of the dominant influences which shaped his subsequent policy in Germany (see chapter vi.), was a desire to save that country from falling into the same condition as Italy.

The chief gainers by the overthrow of John of Bohemia were the Ghibelline leaders of the confederacy against him, [Sidenote: League against Mastino della Scala.] and especially Mastino della Scala, who not only took his own share of the plunder, but refused to give up Lucca, which should have fallen to Florence. It was reckoned by contemporaries that only one European prince, the king of France, drew a larger revenue from his subjects than the lord of Verona. But the rapid growth of his power only served to excite the enmity of his neighbours. Venice was impelled by self-interest to attack a potentate who not only dominated the district from which the republic drew its most available supplies of food, but also commanded the all-important Alpine passes. Florence was eager to punish the ill-faith which withheld from her the coveted possession of Lucca. Marsilio Carrara was tempted by the prospect of recovering the independent lordship of Padua, while Azzo Visconti and the other Lombard despots welcomed the opportunity of destroying the ascendency in Lombardy which for the last decade had been enjoyed by the Scaligers. The result was the formation of a powerful league which Mastino was unable to resist. In 1338 he was forced to conclude a treaty which put an end to the preponderance of Verona in the north. Venice received Treviso, with the adjacent territory, Castelbaldo and Bassano, thus securing a land fertile in corn and cattle, and at the same time access to the foot of the Alps. The Carrara dynasty was established in Padua as a buffer between Venice and the growing power of the Visconti, who seized Brescia and Bergamo. Only Verona and Vicenza remained to the house of Scala.

But the unfortunate Florentines were again duped of the reward which should have attended their alliance with the Ghibelline princes. Lucca was indeed ceded by Mastino for a money payment, but the Pisans intervened to prevent such an addition to the dominions of their rivals. In 1341 the Pisans defeated the forces of Florence, and in the next year they obtained the surrender of Lucca. This disappointment was the last of a series of disasters which weakened and discredited the government of the _popolo grasso_ in Florence (_vide_ p. 32). In their chagrin the citizens resorted to the expedient, so familiar in the mediæval history of Italy, of intrusting a temporary dictatorship to a foreigner. Their choice fell upon Walter [Sidenote: Walter de Brienne in Florence, 1343.] de Brienne, who had previously been active in Florence as a follower of Charles of Calabria. His ancestors had gained the duchy of Athens at the time when the Fourth Crusade had given to western princes the dominion of the eastern empire, and though his father had been forced to resign in 1312, Walter still called himself Duke of Athens. The temporary military and judicial authority intrusted to the duke failed to satisfy his ambition, and he set himself to establish a permanent despotism in Florence. It was not difficult for him to gain over the _grandi_ and the lower classes, who were jealous of the monopoly of power claimed by the wealthy burgesses. With their aid a parliament was convoked which insisted on voting the signory to the duke for his life. But ten months of arbitrary rule sufficed to disgust the most liberty-loving people in Italy, and the nobles and lesser guilds combined with the greater guilds to overthrow the despotism which had risen through the jealousy of classes. Walter de Brienne ordered his hired horsemen to ‘course the city,’ _i.e._ to gallop along the principal streets and disperse the insurgents. But the citizens had erected barricades to bar the progress of the cavalry, and the duke, besieged in the Palazzo Vecchio, was compelled to abdicate. His fall was followed by concessions to the _grandi_ who had taken an active part in the struggle. The Ordinances of Justice [Sidenote: Constitutional changes.] (_vide_ p. 32) were repealed, and the office of gonfalonier, whose original function was to enforce the ordinances, was abolished. The government was to be intrusted to twelve priors, three from each quarter of the city; and of these three, one was to be a noble and two burghers. Other offices were also thrown open to the nobles. But the old jealousy of the _grandi_ was too deeply seated to allow this arrangement to be permanent. A rising of the mob forced the four noble priors to quit the _palazzo_. The nobles took up arms to defend their cause, but the civil strife was fatal to the power of their whole class. The ordinances, and with them the office of gonfalonier, were revived, and the only permanent result of the crisis was the extension of political privileges to the _popolo minuto_, or members of the lesser guilds. The number of priors was fixed at eight, two from each quarter, and half the number were to belong to the lesser guilds. The gonfalonier was to be chosen alternately from the two classes of citizens. But while the exclusion of the noble class from office was rendered permanent, some five hundred members of that class were freed from its disabilities by being disennobled and ‘raised’ to the rank of ordinary burghers.

The martial spirit which enabled the Florentines to defeat the schemes of the Duke of Athens, was by no means common in Italy at the time, and did not endure long even in Florence. The fourteenth century witnessed a change in the military system of [Sidenote: Rise of Mercenaries in Italy.] Italy which was destined to exercise the most vital and lasting effects upon the history of the peninsula. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the military force of each state had consisted of the male population of the state organised as a militia. The central rallying-point of the army was the _carroccio_ or city standard, and the regiments were arranged according to local divisions, or sometimes according to the guild organisation of the city. Such a force was the firmest security for the maintenance of political liberty. But when despots began to overthrow republican independence in most of the communes, their first aim was to disarm their subjects, and to procure troops who had no natural sympathy with the native population. The example was set by Frederick II., whose government of his southern kingdom furnished in many ways a model for the imitation of later rulers. In his struggle with the Popes he incurred great odium by taking Saracens into his pay. The northern despots tried to secure their power by enlisting foreign soldiers under their standard. Each of the successive invasions of Henry VII., Lewis the Bavarian, and John of Bohemia, left behind a number of German adventurers who were willing to take Italian pay. These men were formed into body-guards by the Visconti and other Italian despots, who were thus enabled to disarm their subjects, and to trample on their liberties. And the republics which retained their independence soon found it necessary to follow the example of the princes. The mercenary troops were for the most part heavy-armed cavalry, and the civic infantry were no match for them in the open field. The republics would only have courted destruction by continuing to employ a force which was inadequate for their defence. Moreover, under the altered conditions of warfare, campaigns were much longer than when the struggle was decided by a single contest between the armed populace of two rival cities. The ordinary citizen could no longer afford to sacrifice his time and his business to do work which he might pay others to do for him. It was cheaper to be heavily taxed for the maintenance of a hired force, than to leave the shop or the counting-house for a protracted campaign. The Florentines soon adopted the custom of employing mercenaries, and in 1351 commuted personal service for a money payment. The Venetians, though they employed native crews and native commanders in their fleet, always hired foreigners to fight their battles on land. One result of the change was that infantry was wholly superseded by heavy-armed cavalry, until the general use of gunpowder, and the intervention of the great powers in Italy, brought about another great change in the art of war.

At first the mercenary troops in Italy were employed as the body-guard of a tyrant, or as the standing army of a republic. But as the leaders of these forces became conscious [Sidenote: Foreign Condottieri.] of their power, they began to form independent armies, which might live at the expense of the unwarlike natives, or might acquire wealth by letting out their services to the highest bidder. The first notable instance of such an army was in 1343, when a German, Werner, or, as the Italians called him, Guarnieri, formed the Great Company. He levied contributions on the states which he entered with his forces, and only occasionally took part in the Italian wars. The same company, or another with the same name, appears in 1353 under the command of Fra Moreale, who was afterwards put to death by Rienzi. When the treaty of Bretigny put an end for a time to the English wars in France, a new flood of foreign adventurers poured into Italy, where they formed the White Company under the famous Englishman, John Hawkwood or Giovanni Acuto. He was distinguished among _condottieri_ for the fidelity with which he performed his contracts, and the Florentines expressed their sense of his services by giving him a tomb and a monument in the _Duomo_.

In the earlier part of the fourteenth century the majority of the mercenary soldiers and their commanders were foreigners; in the later part of the century their place was to a large extent taken by native troops and _condottieri_. As the smaller communes were gradually deprived of liberty and of an independent political life by the extension of the larger states, the more energetic and [Sidenote: Native Condottieri.] ambitious citizens were only too glad to find an opening for their activity in the career of arms. In 1379 the Company of St. George, into which none but Italians were admitted, was founded by Alberigo da Barbiano, a noble of Romagna. In this company were trained Braccio and Sforza, the founders of the two great schools of Italian commanders in the fifteenth century. That the native troops could be as efficient as the foreigners whom they superseded was proved in 1401, when a German army in the service of the Emperor Rupert was routed by an Italian force which had been hired by the Duke of Milan.

Whatever semblance of unity had been given to Italian history by the continuance of party feuds disappeared altogether in the later part of the fourteenth century, when party allegiance was finally subordinated to the desire of each state for territorial aggrandisement. Chronological arrangement becomes impossible, and all that can be done is to briefly point out the most notable incidents in the history of the greater states. It will be convenient to begin this survey with the south of the peninsula, and to proceed northwards.

The ambition of Robert of Naples had been moderated by the death of his only son in 1328, and though he continued [Sidenote: Naples.] to support the Popes in their quarrel with Lewis the Bavarian, he took very little part in Italian politics in his later years. The subsequent history of Naples turns for the most part upon dynastic rivalry, and demands an accurate knowledge of genealogy.[9] Robert himself had succeeded his father in 1309 to the exclusion of the stronger hereditary claim of his nephew, Carobert of Hungary. Carobert died in 1342, leaving two sons, Lewis, king of Hungary and afterwards of Poland, and Andrew. Robert, who died in the following year, had no direct descendants except two granddaughters, Joanna and Maria, the children of Charles of Calabria. In the hope of averting strife with the Hungarian branch Robert, before his death, arranged a marriage between Joanna and her cousin Andrew. [Sidenote: Joanna I. and Andrew.] But this expedient failed to produce the desired result. Joanna claimed the right of succession to her grandfather, and wished to treat her husband as a mere prince-consort. Andrew, however, insisted on the priority of his own claim as the male representative of the eldest line. The quarrel was complicated by the action of two descendants of Robert’s younger brothers, Lewis of Taranto, who was suspected of being Joanna’s lover, and Charles of Durazzo, who had married Maria, the queen’s younger sister. Both were aspirants for the succession, and while Lewis sided with Joanna, Charles encouraged the Hungarian prince to assert his claims. At last, in 1345, Europe was scandalised by the news that Andrew had been murdered. Suspicion rested from the first upon Joanna and Lewis of Taranto, whom she subsequently married, though it is as difficult to furnish absolute proof of their guilt as in the superficially similar case of Mary Stuart and Bothwell. Lewis of Hungary, however, considered himself justified in accusing Joanna of his brother’s murder, and took measures to exact vengeance and, [Sidenote: Lewis of Hungary invades Naples.] at the same time, to assert his own claim. His expedition was delayed for two years by the intrigues of Pope Clement VI., by the struggle in Germany between Lewis the Bavarian and Charles IV., and by the opposition of the Venetians, always quarrelling with Hungary for the possession of Dalmatia. It was not till the end of 1347 that Lewis was able to make his way overland to Naples. Many of the nobles, including Charles of Durazzo, rallied to his cause, and Joanna was forced to fly to Provence. Lewis was crowned king of Naples, and one of his first acts was to put to death Charles of Durazzo, nominally on a charge of complicity in Andrew’s death, but probably because he might prove a dangerous candidate for the throne. The outbreak of the Black Death and difficulties in Hungary compelled Lewis to return northwards, and Joanna seized the opportunity to attempt the recovery of her kingdom. To raise money she sold Avignon to Clement VI., and it remained a papal possession till its annexation to France in 1791. Joanna’s return to Naples was followed by a desultory war with the Hungarian party. Lewis returned to uphold his cause in 1350, but he found it practically impossible to hold a kingdom so distant from Hungary, and in 1351 he agreed to a treaty. The question of Joanna’s guilt was referred to the Pope, and on his decision in her favour Lewis resigned the Neapolitan crown, magnanimously refusing the money compensation which was offered him by the papal award.

For the next thirty years the history of Naples was comparatively uneventful. Joanna married two more husbands [Sidenote: Succession to Joanna I.] after the death of Lewis of Taranto, but had no children to survive her. As she grew old the question of the succession became of pressing importance. Her nearest relative was her niece, Margaret, the daughter of her sister Maria and the Charles of Durazzo who had been put to death in 1348. The latter’s brother, Lewis, had left a son, another Charles of Durazzo, who, in 1370, married his cousin Margaret, and was afterwards treated by Joanna as her heir. But in 1378 the Great Schism in the Papacy began, and the queen and her nephew took opposite sides. Joanna was the first and most ardent supporter of Clement VII., whereas Charles of Durazzo, who had been trained and employed by his kinsman, Lewis of Hungary, espoused the cause of Urban VI. The result was a violent quarrel, and Urban encouraged Charles, in 1381, to take up arms against Joanna instead of waiting for the succession. Determined to disinherit her undutiful kinsman, and, at the same time, to gain the support of France, Joanna offered to [Sidenote: The second House of Anjou.] adopt as her heir Louis of Anjou, brother of Charles V. of France. Louis could trace descent from the Neapolitan house, as his great-grandfather, Charles of Valois, had married a daughter of Charles II. of Naples. The offer was accepted, and from it arose the claim to Naples of the second house of Anjou—a claim which distracted southern Italy for a century, and ultimately passing to the French king, became the pretext for the famous invasion of Charles VIII. in 1494. But for the moment Joanna’s action brought her little good. Before aid could come from France she was taken prisoner by Charles, and died in captivity (May 22, 1382). The successful [Sidenote: Charles III. and Louis I.] prince was crowned as Charles III. of Naples. His rival, Louis of Anjou, seized one of Joanna’s dominions, the county of Provence, which remained in the hands of his descendants. He also led a formidable army to enforce his claim upon Naples, but he was not successful, and died in 1385 without gaining more than the mere title of king.

Charles III. was now firmly established in Naples, but the disturbances in Hungary after the death of Lewis the Great induced him to assert a claim to that kingdom. A momentary success was followed by his assassination (February 24, 1386). Hungary fell into the hands of Sigismund, and civil war broke out in Naples between the supporters of Ladislas, [Sidenote: Ladislas and Louis II.] Charles III.’s son, and Louis II. of Anjou, who inherited the claims of his father. There is no need to trace the details of the struggle, which after many fluctuations of success ended in the victory of Ladislas. For a few years in the next century Ladislas was one of the most influential and active princes of Italy. On his premature death in 1414, the crown of Naples passed to his sister Joanna II., in whom the direct line of the original Angevin house of Naples came to an end.

It would be tedious, and perhaps impossible, to narrate in detail the history of the Papal States during the residence of [Sidenote: Rome and the Papal States.] the Popes at Avignon and the subsequent schism. Under the strongest of the preceding Popes, there had never been any organised central government in the territories which owned their sway. The Popes had been the suzerains rather than the rulers of the States of the Church. Every considerable city was either a republic with its own municipal government, or was subject to a despot who had succeeded in undermining the communal institutions. Even in Rome itself the bishop could exercise little direct authority. Over and over again, the turbulence of the citizens had driven successive Popes to seek a refuge in some smaller town. In fact, the Romans might easily have shaken off papal rule altogether but for two considerations. The Popes drew so much wealth from Latin Christendom that they could afford to levy very light taxes upon their immediate subjects. And the Romans gained enormous indirect profit from the crowds of pilgrims and wealthy suitors who were constantly drawn to the papal court. It is true that this profit was diverted to Avignon in the fourteenth century, but though this was a great grievance to the Romans, it was a reason for demanding the return of the Popes rather than for making the separation permanent. The government of Rome was in theory republican, but nothing survived from the ancient republic except its memory and its disorder. A Senate had been revived in the twelfth century only to prove a complete failure, and the name of Senator had come to be applied to a temporary magistrate, who was sometimes elected by the citizens but more often nominated by the Pope. A central board of thirteen officers, one from each _rione_ or district of the city, was intrusted with the municipal administration, but it had little real authority. Every other commune in Italy had found it necessary to restrict or abolish the privileges of the feudal nobles. But in Rome the Colonnas, the Orsini, and other noble families enjoyed the most lawless independence and treated the citizens with the utmost contempt. The brawls of their retainers filled the streets with disorder, and it was dangerous for the townspeople to resist any outrage either on person or on property. The Popes had rarely been successful in checking the lawlessness of the barons, and now that the Pope was at a distance from Rome all restraint upon their licence seemed to be removed.

It was in these circumstances that a momentary revival of order and liberty was effected by the most extraordinary adventurer of an age that was prolific in adventurers. [Sidenote: Rienzi.] Cola di Rienzi was born of humble parents, though he afterwards tried to gratify his own vanity and to gain the ear of Charles IV. by claiming to be the bastard son of Henry VII. A wrong which he could not venture to avenge excited his bitter hostility against the baronage, while the study of Livy and other classical writers inspired him with regretful admiration for the glories of ancient Rome. He succeeded in attracting notice by his personal beauty and by the rather turgid eloquence which was his chief talent. In 1342 he took the most prominent part in an embassy from the citizens to Clement VI., and though he failed to induce the Pope to return to Rome, which at that time he seems to have regarded as the panacea for the evils of the time, he gained sufficient favour at Avignon to be appointed papal notary. From this time he deliberately set himself to raise the people to open resistance against their oppressors, while he disarmed the suspicions of the nobles by intentional buffoonery and extravagance of conduct. On May 20, 1347, the first blow was struck. Rienzi with a chosen band of conspirators, and accompanied by the papal vicar, who had every interest in weakening the baronage, proceeded to the Capitol, and, amidst the applause of the mob, promulgated the laws of the _buono stato_. He himself took the title [Sidenote: The ‘good estate.’] of Tribune in order to emphasise his championship of the lower classes. The most important of his laws were for the maintenance of order. Private garrisons and fortified houses were forbidden. Each of the thirteen districts was to maintain an armed force of a hundred infantry and twenty-five horsemen. Every port was provided with a cruiser for the protection of merchandise, and the trade on the Tiber was to be secured by a river police.

The nobles watched the progress of this astonishing revolution with impotent surprise. Stefano Colonna, who was [Sidenote: Rienzi’s triumph and fall.] absent on the eventful day, expressed his scorn of the mob and their leader. But a popular attack on his palace convinced him of his error, and forced him to fly from the city. Within fifteen days the triumph of Rienzi seemed to be complete, when the proudest nobles of Rome submitted and took an oath to support the new constitution. But the suddenness of his success was enough to turn a head which was never of the strongest. The Tribune began to dream of restoring to the Roman Republic its old supremacy. And for a moment even this dream seemed hardly chimerical. Europe was really dazzled by the revival of its ancient capital. Lewis of Hungary and Joanna of Naples submitted their quarrel to Rienzi’s arbitration. Thus encouraged, he set no bounds to his ambition. He called upon the Pope and cardinals to return at once to Rome. He summoned Lewis and Charles, the two claimants to the imperial dignity, to appear before his throne and submit to his tribunal. His arrogance was shown in the pretentious titles which he assumed, and in the gorgeous pomp with which he was accompanied on public and even on private occasions. On August 15, after bathing in the porphyry font in which the Emperor Constantine had been baptized, he was crowned with seven crowns representing the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost. His most loyal admirer prophesied disaster when the Tribune ventured on this occasion to blasphemously compare himself with Christ. And Rienzi’s government deteriorated with his personal character. It had at first been liberal and just; it became arbitrary and even treacherous. His personal timidity made him at once harsh and vacillating. The heads of the great families, whom he had invited to a banquet, were seized and condemned to death on a charge of conspiracy. But a sudden terror of the possible consequences of his action caused him to relent, and he released his victims just as they were preparing for execution. His leniency was as ill-timed as his previous severity. The nobles could no longer trust him, and their fear was diminished by the weakness which they despised while they profited by it. They retired from Rome and concerted measures for the overthrow of their enemy. The first attack, which was led by Stefano Colonna, was repulsed almost by accident; but Rienzi, who had shown more cowardice than generalship, disgusted his supporters by his indecent exultation over the bodies of the slain. And there was one fatal ambiguity in Rienzi’s position. He had begun by announcing himself as the ally and champion of the Papacy, and Clement VI. had been willing enough to stand by and watch the destruction of the baronage. But the growing independence and the arrogant pretensions of the Tribune exasperated the Pope. A new legate was despatched to Italy to denounce and excommunicate Rienzi as a heretic. The latter had no longer any support to lean upon. When a new attack was threatened, the people sullenly refused to obey the call to arms. Rienzi had not sufficient courage to risk a final struggle. On December 15 he abdicated and retired in disguise from Rome. His rise to power, his dazzling triumph, and his downfall were all comprised within the brief period of seven months.

For the next few years Rienzi disappeared from view. According to his own account he was concealed in a cave in the [Sidenote: Rienzi in exile.] Apennines, where he associated with some of the wilder members of the sect of the Fraticelli, and probably imbibed some of their tenets. Rome relapsed into anarchy, and men’s minds were distracted from politics by the ravages of the Black Death. The great jubilee held in Rome in 1350 became a kind of thanksgiving service of those whom the plague had spared. It is said that Rienzi himself visited the scene of his exploits without detection among the crowds of pilgrims. But he was destined to reappear in a more public and disastrous manner. In his solitude his courage and his ambition revived, and he meditated new plans for restoring freedom to Rome and to Italy. The allegiance to the Church, which he had professed in 1347, was weakened by the conduct of Clement VI. and by the influence of the Fraticelli, and he resolved in the future to ally himself with the secular rather than with the ecclesiastical power, with the Empire rather than with the Papacy. In August 1351 he appeared in disguise in Prague and demanded an audience of Charles IV. To him he proposed the far-reaching scheme which he had formed during his exile. The Pope and the whole body of clergy were to be deprived of their temporal power; the petty tyrants of Italy were to be driven out; and the emperor was to fix his residence in Rome as the supreme ruler of Christendom. All this was to be accomplished by Rienzi himself at his own cost and trouble. Charles IV. listened with some curiosity to a man whose career had excited such universal interest, but he was the last man to be carried away by such chimerical suggestions. The introduction into the political proposals of some of the religious and communistic ideas of the Fraticelli gave the king a pretext for committing Rienzi to the Archbishop of Prague for correction and instruction. The archbishop communicated with the Pope, and on the demand of Clement VI. Charles agreed to hand Rienzi over to the papal court on condition that his life should be spared. In 1352 Rienzi was conveyed to Avignon and thrust into prison. He owed his life perhaps less to the king’s request than to the opportune death of Clement VI. in this year.

The new Pope, Innocent VI., was more independent of French control than his immediate predecessors. The French king was fully occupied with internal disorders, and with the English war. Thus the Pope was able to give more attention to Italian politics, which were sufficiently pressing. The independence and anarchy of the Papal States constituted a serious problem, but the danger of their subjection to a foreign power was still more serious. In 1350 the important city of Bologna had been seized by the Visconti of Milan, and the progress of this powerful family threatened to absorb the whole of the Romagna. Innocent determined to resist their encroachments, and at the same time to restore the papal authority, and in 1353 he intrusted [Sidenote: Albornoz in Italy.] this double task to Cardinal Albornoz. Albornoz, equally distinguished as a diplomatist and as a military commander, resolved to ally the cause of the Papacy with that of liberty. His programme was to overthrow the tyrants as the enemies both of the people and of the Popes, and to restore municipal self-government under papal protection. His attention was first directed to the city of Rome, which, after many vicissitudes since 1347, had fallen under the influence of a demagogue named Baroncelli. Baroncelli had revived to some extent the schemes of Rienzi, but had declared openly against papal rule. To oppose this new tribune, Albornoz conceived the project of using the influence of Rienzi, whose rule was now [Sidenote: Rienzi’s return and death, 1354.] regretted by the populace that had previously deserted him. The Pope was persuaded to release Rienzi from prison and to send him to Rome, where the effect of his presence was almost magical. The Romans flocked to welcome their former liberator, and he was reinstalled in power with the title of Senator, conferred upon him by the Pope. But his character was not improved by adversity, and his rule was more arbitrary and selfish than it had been before. The execution of the _condottiere_, Fra Moreale, was an act of ingratitude as well as of treachery. Popular favour was soon alienated from a ruler who could no longer command either affection or respect, and in a mob rising Rienzi was put to death (October 8, 1354). But his return had served the purpose of Albornoz. Rome was preserved to the Papacy, and the cardinal [Sidenote: Recovery of the Papal States.] could proceed in safety with his task of subduing the independent tyrants of Romagna. Central Italy had not yet witnessed the general introduction of mercenaries, and the native populations still fought their own battles. The policy of exciting revolts among the subject citizens was completely successful, and by 1360 almost the whole of Romagna had submitted to the papal legate. His triumph was crowned in this year, when, by skilful use of quarrels among the Visconti princes, he succeeded in recovering Bologna.

But the successes of Albornoz appeared more like the conquests of a foreign power than the restoration of a legitimate authority. The long residence in Avignon had alienated Italian sympathies from [Sidenote: Return of the Popes to Rome.] the Papacy. The Visconti embarked in open war with the Popes after the fall of Bologna, and they had many advantages on their side. The ecclesiastical thunders which had frightened Lewis the Bavarian into submission had no terrors for Italian princes. When Bernabo Visconti received a bull of excommunication from the Pope, he forced the legates to eat the parchment and the leaden seal. It was evident that nothing but a return to Italy could render permanent the restored secular authority of the Popes. Urban V., who succeeded Innocent VI. in 1362, was induced by the arguments of Albornoz and the personal influence of Charles IV. to disregard the prejudices of the cardinals, and in 1368 he entered Rome, where he was joined by the emperor. But Urban was soon discouraged by the death of Albornoz, and the obvious weakness of imperial support. He had no natural interests in Italy, which was a foreign country to him, and he found Rome quite as uncomfortable a place of residence as it had been represented. In 1370 he embarked for Marseilles, and returned to Avignon. His departure had the most disastrous results. Papal authority was repudiated by the cities of Romagna, and the Visconti hastened to take advantage of the altered conditions. Even Gregory XI., who had been chosen by the cardinals as the least likely candidate to quit Avignon, found it necessary to follow his predecessor’s example and return to Italy. But his experience in Rome convinced him that the enterprise was hopeless, and his departure was only prevented by his death (March, 1378). The choice of an Italian, Urban VI., as his successor was a partial concession to the violence [Sidenote: The Schism, 1378-1418.] of the Roman mob. On the first pretext the French cardinals deserted their nominee, and the election of a rival Pope, Clement VII., inaugurated the Great Schism which lasted for forty years. During this period the temporal authority of the Papacy was again annihilated, and it was not till the Council of Constance had restored unity in 1418 that its revival could once more be seriously undertaken.

The history of Florence in the fourteenth century is filled with a continuous struggle of classes and families for political [Sidenote: Florence.] ascendency. Though the details of the struggle are complicated and wearisome, it is necessary to pay some attention to its general character in order to understand the conditions under which the later authority of the Medici grew up. The expulsion of the Duke of Athens had been followed by a settlement by which the _grandi_ were excluded from political power, which was to be shared between the members of the greater and the lesser guilds. But as time went on, and the memory of previous disasters was effaced, the _popolo grasso_ began to aim at the [Sidenote: Class jealousies.] recovery of their former preponderance in the city. To propose a direct change of the constitution might provoke a rising of the artisans, so it was decided to obtain the desired end by indirect methods. A law of 1301, of which it was forbidden to propose the revocation under heavy penalties, decreed that a Ghibelline, or any man suspected of not being a true Guelf, was to be incapable of holding office. For the carrying out of this law there grew up the practice of _ammonizio_, which has been called the ostracism of Florence. If a charge of Ghibellinism were brought against a man, and supported by six witnesses, who swore to public report, the priors were bound to admonish the accused, and any person thus admonished (_ammonito_) was excluded from office. His name was not placed in the bags, or if it were already included, it was put on one side when drawn out and another name drawn in its place. This party device was now employed by the wealthy burghers to recover a monopoly of power for their class. By systematically bringing a charge of Ghibellinism against the members of the lesser guilds who were likely to obtain office, their exclusion could be effected without any open assertion of disqualification. In carrying out this policy the plutocrats were aided by the organisation of the _parte Guelfa_ (_vide_ p. 35), which was the stronghold of oligarchical interests within the republic. The accusations were managed by the captains of the _parte_, and they could always find the necessary six witnesses. The pretext for so strict an enforcement of the law against Ghibellinism was found in the two Italian visits of Charles IV. in 1353 and 1368, though the emperor did nothing whatever to excite the alarm of the Guelfs.