Chapter XV: Part IV: The Case of the Italian Republics

NOTE ON LITERATURE

No quite satisfactory history of Italy has appeared in English. The
standard modern Italian history, that of Cesare Cantù, has been
translated into French; but in English there has been no general
history of any length since Procter and Spalding. Col. Procter's
_History of Italy_ (published as by G. Perceval, 1825; 2nd ed.
1844) has merit, but is not abreast of modern studies. Spalding's
_Italy and the Italian Islands_ (3 vols. 3rd ed. 1845) is an
excellent work of its kind, covering Italian history from the
earliest times, but is also in need of revision. The comprehensive
work of Dr. T. Hodgkin, _Italy and her Invaders_ (2nd ed. 1892-99,
8 vols.) comes down to the death of Charlemagne.

Of special histories there are several. One of the best and latest
is that of _The Lombard Communes_, by Prof. W.F. Butler (1906).
Captain H.E. Napier, in the preface to his _Florentine History_
(1846, 6 vols.) rightly contended that "no people can be known by
riding post through their country against time"; but his six
learned volumes are ill-written and ill-assimilated. The best
complete history of Florence, the typical Italian Republic, is the
long _Histoire de Florence_ by F.T. Perrens (9 tom. 1877-84; Eng.
tr. of one vol. by Hannah Lynch, 1892). T.A. Trollope's _History of
the Commonwealth of Florence_ (1865, 4 vols.) is less indigestible
than Napier's, but is gratuitously diffuse, and is written in large
part in unfortunate imitation of the pseudo-dramatic manner of
Carlyle. It is further blemished by an absurd index. Neither this
nor Mr. W. Carew Hazlitt's _History of the Venetian Republic_
(1860, 4 vols.; new ed. in two large vols. 1900) has much
sociological value, though the latter is copious and painstaking,
albeit also diffuse. The _Genoa_ of J. Theodore Bent (1881) is an
interesting sketch; but the well-read author fails in orderly
construction.

A good short manual is the _Italy_ of Mr. Hunt (Macmillan's
Historical Course); and an excellent compendium is supplied by the
two treatises of Oscar Browning (1894-95), _Guelphs and
Ghibellines_ (covering the period 1250-1409) and _The Age of the
Condottieri_, covering the Renaissance, to 1530. Bryce and Hallam
are alike helpful to general views; and it is still profitable to
return to the condensed _History of the Italian Republics_ by
Sismondi (written for the English "Cabinet Cyclopædia" in 1832),
though it needs revision in detail. In his two volumes entitled
_The Fall of the Roman Empire_ (1834) that author has given a
useful conspectus of the period covered by Gibbon's great work.
Sismondi's larger and earlier _Histoire des républiques italiennes_
has never ceased to be well worth study, though the _Geschichte von
Italien_ of H. Leo (1829) improves upon it in several respects. It
has been revised and condensed (Routledge, 1 large vol. 1906) by
Mr. William Boulting. For the early period the most comprehensive
survey is the _Geschichte Italiens im Mittelalter_ of Ludo Moritz
Hartmann (3 Bde. in 5, 1897-1911) which comes down to the tenth
century.

Among modern monographs that of Alfred von Reumont on _Lorenzo de'
Medici_ (Eng. tr. 1876, 2 vols.) in nearly every way supersedes the
old work of Roscoe, whose _Leo X_, again, is practically superseded
by later works on the Renaissance, in particular those of
Burckhardt (Eng. tr. of Geiger's ed. in 1 vol. 1892) and the late
J.A. Symonds. Miss Duffy has a good chapter on Florentine trade and
finance in her _Story of the Tuscan Republics_, 1892; and the short
work of F.T. Perrens, _La civilisation florentine du 13e au 16e
siècle_ (1892--in the _Bibliothèque d'histoire illustrée_) is
luminous throughout; but Ranke's _History of the Latin and Teutonic
Nations_ (Eng. tr. 1887), which deals with the Italy of 1494-1514,
is little more than a sand-heap of incident. On the economic side
there is a good research in Pignotti's essay on Tuscan Commerce in
his _History of Tuscany_ (Eng. tr. 1823, vol. iii). Much
interesting detail is given, with much needless rhetoric, in _The
Guilds of Florence_, by Edgcumbe Staley, 1906.

Of great general value is the elaborate work of Gregorovius,
_Geschichte der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter_ (4te Aufl. 8 Bde.
1886-96; Eng. tr. by Mrs. Hamilton, 8 vols. 1895-1902), which,
however, suffers from the disparity of its purposes, combining as
it does, a topographical history of the city of Rome with a full
history of its politics. It remains a valuable mass of materials
rather than a history proper. The same criticism applies to the
very meritorious _Geschichte der Stadt Rom_ of A. von Reumont (3
Bde. 1867-70), which begins with the very origin of the city, and
comes down to our own time.

But there has risen in contemporary Italy a school of historical
students who are rewriting the history of the great period in the
light of the voluminous archives which have been preserved by
municipalities. One outcome of this line of investigation is Prof.
Villari's _The Two First Centuries of Florentine History_ (Eng. tr.
of first 2 vols. 1894). New light, further, has been thrown on the
commercial history of Italy in the Dark Ages and early Middle Ages
by the admirable research of Prof. W. von Heyd, of which the
French translation by Furcy Raynaud, _Histoire du commerce du
Levant an moyen age_ (1886, 2 tom.) is recast and considerably
enlarged by the author, while the Renascence period is illuminated
by R. Pöhlmann's treatise, _Die Wirthschafts Politik der
Florentiner Renaissance und das Princip der Verkehrsfreiheit_
(Leipzig, 1878).