The Greater Dynasties
In treating of the chief dynasties of Italy, it is convenient to discuss the Aragonese, on account of its special character, apart from the rest. The feudal system, which from the days of the Normans had survived in the form of a territorial supremacy of the barons, gave a distinctive colour to the political constitution of Naples; while elsewhere in Italy, excepting only in the southern part of the ecclesiastical dominion, and in a few other districts, a direct tenure of land prevailed, and no hereditary powers were permitted by the law. The great Alfonso, who reigned in Naples from 1435 onwards (d. 1458), was a man of another kind than his real or alleged descendants. Brilliant in his whole existence, fearless in mixing with his people, dignified and affable in intercourse, admired rather than blamed even for his old man's passion for Lucrezia d'Alagnam, he had the one bad quality of extravagance, from which, however, the natural consequence followed. Unscrupulous financiers were long omnipotent at court, till the bankrupt king robbed them of their spoils; a crusade was preached as a pretext for taxing the clergy; when a great earthquake happened in the Abruzzi, the survivors were compelled to make good the contributions of the dead. By such means Alfonso was able to entertain distinguished guests with unrivalled splendour; he found pleasure in ceaseless expense, even for the benefit of his enemies, and in rewarding literary work knew absolutely no measure. Poggio received 500 pieces of gold for translating Xenophon's Cyropaedeia.
Ferrante, who succeeded him, passed as his illegitimate son by a Spanish lady, but was not improbably the son of a half-caste Moor of Valencia. Whether it was his blood or the plots formed against his life by the barons which embittered and darkened his nature, it is certain that he was equalled in ferocity by none among the princes of his time. Restlessly active, recognized as one of the most powerful political minds of the day, and free from the vices of the profligate, he concentrated all his powers, among which must be reckoned profound dissimulation and an irreconcilable spirit of vengeance, on the destruction of his opponents. He had been wounded in every point in which a ruler is open to offence; for the leaders of the barons, though related to him by marriage, were yet the allies of his foreign enemies. Extreme measures became part of his daily policy. The means for this struggle with his barons, and for his external wars, were exacted in the same Muhammadan fashion which Frederick II had introduced: the government alone dealt in oil and corn; the whole commerce of the country was put by Ferrante into the hands of a wealthy merchant, Francesco Coppola, who had entire control of the anchorage on the coast, and shared the profits with the king. Deficits were made up by forced loans, by executions and confiscations, by open simony, and by contributions levied on the ecclesiastical corporations. Besides hunting, which he practised regardless of all rights of property, his pleasures were of two kinds: he liked to have his opponents near him, either alive in well-guarded prisons, or dead and embalmed, dressed in the costume which they wore in their lifetime. He would chuckle in talking of the captives with his friends, and made no secret whatever of the museum of mummies. His victims were mostly men whom he had got into his power by treachery; some were even seized while guests at the royal table. His conduct to his first minister, Antolello Petrucci, who had grown sick and grey in his service, and from whose increasing fear of death he extorted 'present after present', was literally devilish. At length the suspicion of complicity with the last conspiracy of the barons gave the pretext for his arrest and execution. With him died Coppola. The way in which all this is narrated in Caracciolo and Porzio makes one's hair stand on end.
The elder of the king's sons, Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, enjoyed in later years a kind of co-regency with his father. He was a savage, brutal profligate, who in point of frankness alone had the advantage of Ferrante, and who openly avowed his contempt for religion and its usages. The better and nobler features of the Italian despotisms are not to be found among the princes of this line; all that they possessed of the art and culture of their time served the purposes of luxury or display. Even the genuine Spaniards seem to have almost always degenerated in Italy; but the end of this cross-bred house (1494 and 1503) gives clear proof of a want of blood. Ferrante died of mental care and trouble; Alfonso accused his brother Federigo, the only honest member of the family, of treason, and insulted him in the vilest manner. At length, though he had hitherto passed for one of the ablest generals in Italy, he lost his head and fled to Sicily, leaving his son, the younger Ferrante, a prey to the French and to domestic treason. A dynasty which had ruled as this had done must at least have sold its life dear, if its children were ever to hope for a restoration. But, as Comines one-sidedly and yet on the whole rightly observes on this occasion, 'Jamais homme cruel ne fut plus hardi': there was never a more cruel man.
The despotism of the dukes of Milan, whose government from the time of Giangaleazzo onwards was an absolute monarchy of the most thoroughgoing sort, shows the genuine Italian character of the fifteenth century. The last of the Visconti, Filippo Maria (1412—47), is a character of peculiar interest, and of which fortunately an admirable description has been left us. What a man of uncommon gifts and high position can be made by the passion of fear is here shown with what may be called a mathematical completeness. All the resources of the state were devoted to the one end of securing his personal safety, though happily his cruel egotism did not degenerate into a purposeless thirst for blood. He lived in the Citadel of Milan, surrounded by magnificent gardens, arbours and lawns. For years he never set foot in the city, making his excursions only in the country, where lay several of his splendid castles; the flotilla which, drawn by the swiftest horses, conducted him to them along canals constructed for the purpose, was so arranged as to allow of the application of the most rigorous etiquette. Whoever entered the Citadel was watched by a hundred eyes; it was forbidden even to stand at the window, lest signs should be given to those without. All who were admitted among the personal followers of the prince were subjected to a series of the strictest examinations; then, once accepted, were charged with the highest diplomatic commissions, as well as with the humblest personal services — both in this court being alike honourable. And this was the man who conducted long and difficult wars, who dealt habitually with political affairs of the first importance, and every day sent his plenipotentiaries to all parts of Italy. His safety lay in the fact that none of his servants trusted the others, that his condottieri were watched and misled by spies, and that the ambassadors and higher officials were baffled and kept apart by artificially nourished jealousies, and in particular by the device of coupling an honest man with a knave. His inward faith, too, rested upon opposed and contradictory systems; he believed in blind necessity, and in the influence of the stars, and offering prayers at one and the same time to helpers of every sort; he was a student of the ancient authors, as well as of French tales of chivalry. And yet the same man, who would never suffer death to be mentioned in his presence, and caused his dying favourites to be removed from the castle, that no shadow might fall on the abode of happiness, deliberately hastened his own death by closing up a wound, and, refusing to be bled, died at last with dignity and grace.
His son-in-law and successor, the fortunate condottiere Francesco Sforza (145o—66), was perhaps of all the Italians of the fifteenth century the man most after the heart of his age. Never was the triumph of genius and individual power more brilliantly displayed than in him; and those who would not recognize his merit were at least forced to wonder at him as the spoilt child of fortune. The Milanese claimed it openly as an honour to be governed by so distinguished a master; when he entered the city the thronging populace bore him on horseback into the cathedral, without giving him the chance to dismount. Let us listen to the balance-sheet of his life, in the estimate of Pope Pius II, a judge in such matters:
In the year 1459, when the duke came to the congress at Mantua, he was sixty (really fifty-eight) years old; on horseback he looked like a young man; of a lofty and imposing figure, with serious features, calm and affable in conversation, princely in his whole bearing, with a combination of bodily and intellectual gifts unrivalled in our time, unconquered on the field of battle — such was the man who raised himself from a humble position to the control of an empire. His wife was beautiful and virtuous, his children were like the angels of heaven; he was seldom ill, and all his chief wishes were fulfilled. And yet he was not without misfortune. His wife, out of jealousy, killed his mistress; his old comrades and friends, Troilo and Brunoro, abandoned him and went over to King Alfonso; another, Ciarpollone, he was forced to hang for treason; he had to suffer it that his brother Alessandro set the French upon him; one of his sons formed intrigues against him, and was imprisoned; the March of Ancona, which he had won in war, he lost again the same way. No man enjoys so unclouded a fortune, that he has not somewhere to struggle with adversity. He is happy who has but few troubles.
With this negative definition of happiness the learned pope dismisses the reader. Had he been able to see into the future, or been willing to stop and discuss the consequences of an uncontrolled despotism, one pervading fact would not have escaped his notice — the absence of all guarantee for the future. Those children, beautiful as angels, carefully and thoroughly educated as they were, fell victims, when they grew up, to the corruption of a measureless egotism. Galeazzo Maria (1466—76), solicitous only of outward effect, took pride in the beauty of his hands, in the high salaries he paid, in the financial credit he enjoyed, in his treasure of two million pieces of gold, in the distinguished people who surrounded him, and in the army and birds of chase which he maintained. He was fond of the sound of his own voice, and spoke well, most fluently, perhaps, when he had the chance of insulting a Venetian ambassador. He was subject to caprices, such as having a room painted with figures in a single night; and, what was worse, to fits of senseless debauchery and of revolting cruelty to his nearest friends. To a handful of enthusiasts, he seemed a tyrant too bad to live; they murdered him, and thereby delivered the state into the power of his brothers, one of whom, Lodovico il Moro, threw his nephew into prison, and took the government into his own hands. From this usurpation followed the French intervention, and the disasters which befell the whole of Italy.
Lodovico Sforza, called 'il Moro', the Moor, is the most perfect type of the despot of that age, and, as a kind of natural product, almost disarms our moral judgement. Notwithstanding the profound immorality of the means he employed, he used them with perfect ingeniousness; no one would probably have been more astonished than himself to learn that for the choice of means as well as of ends a human being is morally responsible; he would rather have reckoned it as a singular virtue that, so far as possible, he had abstained from too free a use of the punishment of death. He accepted as no more than his due the almost fabulous respect of the Italians for his political genius. In 1496 he boasted that the Pope Alexander was his chaplain, the Emperor Maximilian his condottiere, Venice his chamberlain, and the King of France his courier, who must come and go at his bidding. With marvellous presence of mind he weighed, even in his last extremity (1499), all possible means of escape, and at length decided, to his honour, to trust to the goodness of human nature; he rejected the proposal of his brother, the Cardinal Ascanio, who wished to remain in the Citadel of Milan, on the ground of a former quarrel: 'Monsignore, take it not ill, but I trust you not, brother though you be'; and appointed to the command of the castle, 'that pledge of his return', a man to whom he had always done good, but who nevertheless betrayed him. At home the Moor was a good and useful ruler, and to the last he reckoned on his popularity both in Milan and in Como. In later years (after 1496) he had overstrained the resources of his state, and at Cremona had ordered, out of pure expediency, a respectable citizen, who had spoken against the new taxes, to be quietly strangled. Since that time, in holding audiences, he kept his visitors away from his person by means of a bar, so that in conversing with him they were compelled to speak at the top of their voices. At his court, the most brilliant in Europe, since that of Burgundy had ceased to exist, immorality of the worst kind was prevalent; the daughter was sold by the father, the wife by the husband, the sister by the brother. The prince himself was incessantly active, and, as son of his own deeds, claimed relationship with all who, like himself, stood on their personal merits — with scholars, poets, artists and musicians. The academy which he founded served rather for his own purposes than for the instruction of scholars; nor was it the fame of the distinguished men who surrounded him which he heeded, so much as their society and their services. It is certain that Bramante was scantily paid at first; Leonardo, on the other hand, was up to 1496 suitably remunerated — and besides, what kept him at the court, if not his own free will? The world lay open to him, as perhaps to no other mortal man of that day; and if proof were wanting of the loftier element in the nature of Lodovico il Moro, it is found in the long stay of the enigmatic master at his court. That afterwards Leonardo entered the service of Cesare Borgia and Francis I was probably due to the interest he felt in the unusual and striking character of the two men.
After the fall of the Moor, his sons were badly brought up among strangers. The elder, Massimiliano, had no resemblance to him; the younger, Francesco, was at all events not without spirit. Milan, which in those years changed its rulers so often, and suffered so unspeakably in the change, endeavored to secure itself against a reaction. In the year 1512 the French, retreating before the arms of Maximilian and the Spaniards, were induced to make a declaration that the Milanese had taken no part in their expulsion, and, without being guilty of rebellion, might yield themselves to a new conqueror. It is a fact of some political importance that in such moments of transition the unhappy city, like Naples at the flight of the Aragonese, was apt to fall a prey to gangs of (often highly aristocratic) scoundrels.
The house of Gonzaga at Mantua and that of Montefeltro of Urbino were among the best ordered and richest in men of ability during the second half of the fifteenth century. The Gonzaga were a tolerably harmonious family; for a long period no murder had been known among them, and their dead could be shown to the world without fear. The Marquis Francesco Gonzaga and his wife, Isabella of Este, in spite of some few irregularities, were a united and respectable couple, and brought up their sons to be successful and remarkable men at a time when their small but most important state was exposed to incessant danger. That Francesco, either as statesman or as soldier, should adopt a policy of exceptional honesty, was what neither the emperor, nor Venice, nor the King of France could have expected or desired; but certainly since the battle of the Taro (1495), so far as military honour was concerned, he felt and acted as an Italian patriot, and imparted the same spirit to his wife. Every deed of loyalty and heroism, such as the defence of Faenza against Cesare Borgia, she felt as a vindication of the honour of Italy. Our judgement of her does not need to rest on the praises of the artists and writers who made the fair princess a rich return for her patronage; her own letters show her to us as a woman of unshaken firmness, full of kindliness and humorous observation. Bembo, Bandello, Ariosto and Bernardo Tasso sent their works to this court, small and powerless as it was, and empty as they found its treasury. A more polished and charming circle was not to be seen in Italy, since the dissolution (1508) of the old court of Urbino; and in one respect, in freedom of movement, the society of Ferrara was inferior to that of Mantua. In artistic matters Isabella had an accurate knowledge, and the catalogue of her small but choice collection can be read by no lover of art without emotion.
In the great Federigo (1444—82), whether he were a genuine Montefeltro or not, Urbino possessed a brilliant representative of the princely order. As a condottiere he shared the political morality of soldiers of fortune, a morality of which the fault does not rest with them alone; as ruler of his little territory he adopted the plan of spending at home the money he had earned abroad, and taxing his people as lightly as possible. Of him and his two successors, Guidobaldo and Francesco Maria, we read: 'They erected buildings, furthered the cultivation of the land, lived at home, and gave employment to a large number of people: their subjects loved them.' But not only the state, but the court too, was a work of art and organization, and this in every sense of the word. Federigo had 500 persons in his service; the arrangements of the court were as complete as in the capitals of the greatest monarchs, but nothing was wasted; all had its object, and all was carefully watched and controlled. The court was no scene of vice and dissipation: it served as a school of military education for the sons of other great houses, the thoroughness of whose culture and instruction was made a point of honour by the duke. The palace which he built, if not one of the most splendid, was classical in the perfection of its plan; there was placed the greatest of his treasures, the celebrated library. Feeling secure in a land where all gained profit or employment from his rule, and where none were beggars, he habitually went about unarmed and almost unaccompanied; alone among the princes of his time he ventured to walk in an open park, and to take his frugal meals in an open chamber, while Livy, or in time of fasting some devotional work, was read to him. In the course of the same afternoon he would listen to a lecture on some classical subject, and thence would go to the monastery of the Clarisses and talk of sacred things through the grating with the abbess. In the evening he would overlook the martial exercises of the young people of his court on the meadow of San Francesco, known for its magnificent view, and saw to it well that all the feats were done in the most perfect manner. He strove always to be affable and accessible to the utmost degree, visiting the artisans who worked for him in their shops, holding frequent audiences, and, if possible, attending to the requests of each individual on the same day that they were presented. No wonder that the people, as he walked along the street, knelt down and cried: 'Dio ti mantenga, signore!' He was called by thinking people 'the light of Italy'. His gifted son Guidobaldo, visited by sickness and misfortune of every kind, was able at the last (1508) to give his state into the safe hands of his nephew Francesco Maria (nephew also of Pope Julius II), who at least succeeded in preserving the territory from any permanent foreign occupation. It is remarkable with what confidence Guidobaldo yielded and fled before Cesare Borgia and Francesco before the troops of Leo X; each knew that his restoration would be all the easier and the more popular the less the country suffered through a fruitless defence. When Lodo-vico made the same calculation at Milan, he forgot the many grounds of hatred which existed against him. The court of Guidobaldo has been made immortal as the high school of polished manners by Baldassare Castiglione, who represented his eclogue 'Thyrsis' before, and in honour of, that society (1506), and who afterwards (1518) laid the scene of the dialogue of his Cortigiano in the circle of the accomplished Duchess Elisabetta Gonzaga.
The government of the family of Este at Ferrara, Modena and Reggio displays curious contrasts of violence and popularity. Within the palace frightful deeds were perpetrated; a princess was beheaded (1425) for alleged adultery with a step-son; legitimate and illegitimate children fled from the court, and even abroad their lives were threatened by assassins sent in pursuit of them (1471). Plots from without were incessant; the bastard of a bastard tried to wrest the crown from the lawful heir, Ercole I; this latter is said afterwards (1493) to have poisoned his wife on discovering that she, at the instigation of her brother Ferrante of Naples, was going to poison him. This list of tragedies is closed by the plot of two bastards against their brothers, the ruling Duke Alfonso I and Cardinal Ippolito (1506), which was discovered in time, and punished with imprisonment for life. The financial system in this state was of the most perfect kind, and necessarily so, since none of the large or second-rate powers of Italy were exposed to such danger and stood in such constant need of armaments and fortifications. It was the hope of the rulers that the increasing prosperity of the people would keep pace with the increasing weight of taxation, and the Marquis Niccolò (d. 1441) used to express the wish that his subjects might be richer than the people of other countries. If the rapid increase of the population be a measure of prosperity actually attained, it is certainly a fact of importance that in the year 1497, notwithstanding the wonderful extension of the capital, no houses were to be let. Ferrara is the first really modern city in Europe; large and well-built quarters sprang up at the bidding of the ruler: here, by the concentration of the official classes and the active promotion of trade, was formed for the first time a true capital; wealthy fugitives from all parts of Italy, Florentines especially, settled and built their palaces at Ferrara. But the indirect taxation, at all events, must have reached a point at which it could only just be borne. The government, it is true, took measures of alleviation which were also adopted by other Italian despots, such as Galeazzo Maria Sforza: in time of famine corn was brought from a distance and seems to have been distributed gratuitously; but in ordinary times it compensated itself by the monopoly, if not of corn, of many other of the necessaries of life — fish, salt, meat, fruit and vegetables, which last were carefully planted on and near the walls of the city. The most considerable source of income, however, was the annual sale of public offices, a usage which was common throughout Italy, and about the working of which at Ferrara we have more precise information. We read, for example, that at the new year 1502 the majority of the officials bought their places at 'prezzi salati'; public servants of the most various kinds, custom-house officers, bailiffs (massari), notaries, 'podestà', judges and even captains, i. e. lieutenant-governors of provincial towns, are quoted by name. As one of the 'devourers of the people' who paid dearly for their places, and who were 'hated worse than the devil', Tito Strozza — let us hope not the famous Latin poet — is mentioned. About the same time every year the dukes were accustomed to make a round of visits in Ferrara, the so-called 'andar per ventura', in which they took presents from, at any rate, the more wealthy citizens. The gifts, however, did not consist of money, but of natural products.
It was the pride of the duke for all Italy to know that at Ferrara the soldiers received their pay and the professors at the university their salary not a day later than it was due; that the soldiers never dared lay arbitrary hands on a citizen or peasant; that the town was impregnable to assault; and that vast sums of coined money were stored up in the citadel. To keep two sets of accounts seemed unnecessary: the Minister of Finance was at the same time manager of the ducal household. The buildings erected by Borso (1430—71), by Ercole I (till 1505), and by Alfonso I (till 1534), were very numerous, but of small size; they are characteristic of a princely house which, with all its love of splendour — Borso never appeared but in embroidery and jewels — indulged in no ill-considered expense. Alfonso may perhaps have foreseen the fate which was in store for his charming little villas, the Belvedere with its shady gardens, and Montana with its fountains and beautiful frescoes.
It is undeniable that the dangers to which these princes were constantly exposed developed in them capacities of a remarkable kind. In so artificial a world only a man of consummate address could hope to succeed; each candidate for distinction was forced to make good his claims by personal merit and show himself worthy of the crown he sought. Their characters are not without dark sides; but in all of them lives something of those qualities which Italy then pursued as its ideal. What European monarch of the time laboured for his own culture as, for instance, Alfonso I? His travels in France, England and the Netherlands were undertaken for the purpose of study: by means of them he gained an accurate knowledge of the industry and commerce of these countries. It is ridiculous to reproach him with the turner's work which he practised in his leisure hours, connected as it was with his skill in the casting of cannon, and with the unprejudiced freedom with which he surrounded himself by masters of every art. The Italian princes were not, like their contemporaries in the North, dependent on the society of an aristocracy which held itself to be the only class worth consideration, and which infected the monarch with the same conceit. In Italy the prince was permitted and compelled to know and to use men of every grade in society; and the nobility, though by birth a caste, were forced in social intercourse to stand upon their personal qualifications alone. But this is a point which we shall discuss more fully in the sequel.
The feeling of the Ferrarese towards the ruling house was a strange compound of silent dread, of the truly Italian sense of well-calculated interest, and of the loyalty of the modern subject: personal admiration was transferred into a new sentiment of duty. The city of Ferrara raised in 1451 a bronze equestrian statue to their Prince Niccolò, who had died ten years earlier; Borso (1454) did not scruple to place his own statue, also of bronze, but in a sitting posture, hard by in the market; in addition to which the city, at the beginning of his reign, decreed to him a 'marble triumphal pillar'. A citizen who, when abroad in Venice, had spoken ill of Borso in public was informed against on his return home, and condemned to banishment and the confiscation of his goods; a loyal subject was with difficulty restrained from cutting him down before the tribunal itself, and with a rope round his neck the offender went to the duke and begged for a full pardon. The government was well provided with spies, and the duke inspected personally the daily list of travellers which the inn-keepers were strictly ordered to present. Under Borso, who was anxious to leave no distinguished stranger unhonoured, this regulation served a hospitable purpose; Ercole I used it simply as a measure of precaution. In Bologna, too, it was then the rule, under Giovanni II Bentivoglio, that every passing traveller who entered at one gate must obtain a ticket in order to go out at another. An unfailing means of popularity was the sudden dismissal of oppressive officials. When Borso arrested in person his chief and confidential counsellors, when Ercole I removed and disgraced a tax-gatherer who for years had been sucking the blood of the people, bonfires were lighted and the bells were pealed in their honour. With one of his servants, however, Ercole let things go too far. The director of the police, or by whatever name we should choose to call him (capitano di giustizia), was Gregorio Zampante of Lucca — a native being unsuited for an office of this kind. Even the sons and brothers of the duke trembled before this man; the fines he inflicted amounted to hundreds and thousands of ducats, and torture was applied even before the hearing of a case: bribes were accepted from wealthy criminals, and their pardon obtained from the duke by false representations. Gladly would the people have paid any sum to this ruler for sending away the 'enemy of God and man'. But Ercole had knighted him and made him godfather to his children; and year by year Zampante laid by 2,000 ducats. He dared only eat pigeons bred in his own house, and could not cross the street without a band of archers and bravos. It was time to get rid of him; in 1496 two students and a converted Jew whom he had mortally offended killed him in his house while he was taking his siesta, and then rode through the town on horses held in waiting, raising the cry, 'Come out! Come out! We have slain Zampante!' The pursuers came too late, and found them already safe across the frontier. Of course it now rained satires — some of them in the form of sonnets, others of odes.
It was wholly in the spirit of this system that the sovereign imposed his own respect for useful servants on the court and on the people. When in 1469 Borso's privy councillor Lodovico Casella died, no court of law or place of business in the city, and no lecture-room at the university, was allowed to be open: all had to follow the body to San Domenico, since the duke intended to be present. And, in fact, 'the first of the house of Este who attended the corpse of a subject' walked, clad in black, after the coffin, weeping, while behind him came the relatives of Casella, each conducted by one of the gentlemen of the court: the body of the plain citizen was carried by nobles from the church into the cloister, where it was buried. Indeed this official sympathy with princely emotion first came up in the Italian states. At the root of the practice may be a beautiful, humane sentiment; the utterance of it, especially in the poets, is, as a rule, of equivocal sincerity. One of the youthful poems of Ariosto, on the death of Leonora of Aragon, wife of Ercole I, contains besides the inevitable graveyard flowers, which are scattered in the elegies of all ages, some thoroughly modern features:
This death had given Ferrara a blow which it would not get over for years: its benefactress was now its advocate in heaven, since earth was not worthy of her; truly the angel of Death did not come to her, as to us common mortals, with blood-stained scythe, but fair to behold [onesta] and with so kind a face that every fear was allayed.
But we meet, also, with a sympathy of a different kind. Novelists, depending wholly on the favour of their patrons, tell us the love-stories of the prince, even before his death, in a way which, to later times, would seem the height of indiscretion, but which then passed simply as an innocent compliment. Lyrical poets even went so far as to sing the illicit flames of their lawfully married lords, e. g. Angelo Poliziano, those of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and Gioviano Pontano, with a singular gusto, those of Alfonso of Calabria. The poem in question betrays unconsciously the odious disposition of the Aragonese ruler; in these things too, he must needs be the most fortunate, else woe be to those who are more successful! That the greatest artists, for example Leonardo, should paint the mistresses of their patrons was no more than a matter of course.
But the house of Este was not satisfied with the praises of others; it undertook to celebrate them itself. In the Palazzo Schifanoia Borso caused himself to be painted in a series of historical representations, and Ercole (from 1472 on) kept the anniversary of his accession to the throne by a procession which was compared to the feast of Corpus Christi; shops were closed as on Sunday; in the centre of the line walked all the members of the princely house (bastards included) clad in embroidered robes. That the crown was the fountain of honour and authority, that all personal distinction flowed from it alone, had been long expressed at this court by the Order of the Golden Spur — an order which had nothing in common with medieval chivalry. Ercole I added to the spur a sword, a gold-laced mantle and a grant of money, in return for which there is no doubt that regular service was required.
The patronage of art and letters for which this court has obtained a world-wide reputation was exercised through the university, which was one of the most perfect in Italy, and by the gift of places in the personal or official service of the prince; it involved consequently no additional expense. Boiardo, as a wealthy country gentleman and high official, belonged to this class. At the time when Ariosto began to distinguish himself, there existed no court, in the true sense of the word, either at Milan or Florence, and soon there was none either at Urbino or at Naples. He had to content himself with a place among the musicians and jugglers of Cardinal Ippolito till Alfonso took him into his service. It was otherwise at a later time with Torquato Tasso, whose presence at court was jealously sought after.
The Opponents of the Despots
In face of this centralized authority, all legal opposition within the borders of the state was futile. The elements needed for the restoration of a republic had been for ever destroyed, and the field prepared for violence and despotism. The nobles, destitute of political rights, even where they held feudal possessions, might call themselves Guelphs or Ghibellines at will, might dress up their bravos in padded hose and feathered caps or how else they pleased; thoughtful men like Machiavelli knew well enough that Milan and Naples were too 'corrupt' for a republic. Strange judgements fall on these two so-called parties, which now served only to give an official sanction to personal and family disputes. An Italian prince, whom Agrippa of Nettesheim advised to put them down, replied that their quarrels brought him more than 12,000 ducats a year in fines. And when in the year 1500, during the brief return of Lodovico il Moro to his states, the Guelphs of Tortona summoned a part of the neighbouring French army into the city, in order to make an end once for all of their opponents, the French certainly began by plundering and ruining the Ghibellines, but finished by doing the same to the Guelphs, till Tortona was utterly laid waste. In Romagna, the hotbed of every ferocious passion, these two names had long lost all political meaning. It was a sign of the political delusion of the people that they not seldom believed the Guelphs to be the natural allies of the French and the Ghibellines of the Spaniards. It is hard to see that those who tried to profit by this error got much by doing so. France, after all her interventions, had to abandon the peninsula at last, and what became of Spain, after she had destroyed Italy, is known to every reader.
But to return to the despots of the Renaissance. A pure and simple mind, we might think, would perhaps have argued that, since all power is derived from God, these princes, if they were loyally and honestly supported by all their subjects, must in time themselves improve and lose all traces of their violent origin. But from characters and imaginations inflamed by passion and ambition, reasoning of this kind could not be expected. Like bad physicians, they thought to cure the disease by removing the symptoms, and fancied that if the tyrant were put to death, freedom would follow of itself. Or else, without reflecting even to this extent, they sought only to give a vent to the universal hatred, or to take vengeance for some family misfortune or personal affront. Since the governments were absolute, and free from all legal restraints, the opposition chose its weapons with equal freedom. Boccaccio declares openly:
Shall I call the tyrant king or prince, and obey him loyally as my lord? No, for he is the enemy of the commonwealth. Against him I may use arms, conspiracies, spies, ambushes and fraud; to do so is a sacred and necessary work. There is no more acceptable sacrifice than the blood of a tyrant.
We need not occupy ourselves with individual cases; Machiavelli, in a famous chapter of his Discorsi, treats of the conspiracies of ancient and modern times from the days of the Greek tyrants downwards, and classifies them with cold-blooded indifference according to their various plans and results. We need make but two observations, first on the murders committed in church, and next on the influence of classical antiquity. So well was the tyrant guarded that it was almost impossible to lay hands upon him elsewhere than at solemn religious services; and on no other occasion was the whole family to be found assembled together. It was thus that the Fabrianese murdered the members of their ruling house, the Chiavelli, during high mass (1435), the signal being given by the words of the Creed, 'Et incarnatus est.' At Milan the Duke Giovan Maria Visconti (1412) was assassinated at the entrance of the church of San Gottardo, Galeazzo Maria Sforza (1476) in the church of Santo Stefano, and Lodovico il Moro only escaped (1484) the daggers of the adherents of the widowed Duchess Bona through entering the church of Sant' Ambrogio by another door than that by which he was expected. There was no intentional impiety in the act; the assassins of Galeazzo did not fail to pray before the murder to the patron saint of the church, and to listen devoutly to the first mass. It was, however, one cause of the partial failure of the conspiracy of the Pazzi against Lorenzo and Giuliano Medici (1478), that the brigand Montesecco, who had bargained to commit the murder at a banquet, declined to undertake it in the cathedral of Florence. Certain of the clergy 'who were familiar with the sacred place, and consequently had no fear' were induced to act in his stead.
As to the imitation of antiquity, the influence of which on moral and more especially on political questions we shall often refer to, the example was set by the rulers themselves, who, both in their conception of the state and intheir personal conduct, took the old Roman empire avowedly as their model. In like manner their opponents, when they set to work with a deliberate theory, took pattern by the ancient tyrannicides. It may be hard to prove that in the main point — in forming the resolve itself — they consciously followed a classical example; but the appeal to antiquity was no mere phrase. The most striking disclosures have been left us with respect to the murderers of Galeazzo Sforza — Lampugnani, Olgiati and Visconti. Though all three had personal ends to serve, yet their enterprise may be partly ascribed to a more general reason. About this time Cola de' Montani, a humanist and professor of eloquence, had awakened among many of the young Milanese nobility a vague passion for glory and patriotic achievements, and had mentioned to Lampugnani and Olgiati his hope of delivering Milan. Suspicion was soon aroused against him: he was banished from the city, and his pupils were abandoned to the fanaticism he had excited. Some ten days before the deed they met together and took a solemn oath in the monastery of Sant' Ambrogio. 'Then,' says Olgiati, 'in a remote corner I raised my eyes before the picture of the patron saint, and implored his help for ourselves and for all his people.' The heavenly protector of the city was called on to bless the undertaking, as was afterwards St Stephen, in whose church it was fulfilled. Many of their comrades were now informed of the plot, nightly meetings were held in the house of Lampugnani, and the conspirators practised for the murder with the sheaths of their daggers. The attempt was successful, but Lampugnani was killed on the spot by the attendants of the duke; the others were captured. Visconti was penitent, but Olgiati through all his tortures maintained that the deed was an acceptable offering to God, and exclaimed while the executioner was breaking his ribs, 'Courage, Girolamo! Thou wilt long be remembered; death is bitter, but glory is eternal.'
But however idealistic the object and purpose of such conspiracies may appear, the manner in which they were conducted betrays the influence of that worst of all conspirators, Catiline — a man in whose thoughts freedom had no place whatever. The annals of Siena tell us expressly that the conspirators were students of Sallust, and the fact is indirectly confirmed by the confession of Olgiati. Elsewhere, too, we meet with the name of Catiline, and a more attractive pattern of the conspirator, apart from the end he followed, could hardly be discovered.
Among the Florentines, whenever they got rid of, or tried to get rid of, the Medici, tyrannicide was a practice universally accepted and approved. After the flight of the Medici in 1494, the bronze group of Donatello — Judith with the dead Holofernes — was taken from their collection, and placed before the Palazzo della Signoria, on the spot where the David of Michelangelo now stands, with the inscription, 'Exemplum salutis publicae cives posuere 1495'. No example was more popular than that of the younger Brutus, who, in Dante, lies with Cassius and Judas Iscariot in the lowest pit of hell, because of his treason to the empire. Pietro Paolo Boscoli, whose plot against Giuliano, Giovanni and Giulio Medici failed (1513), was an enthusiastic admirer of Brutus, and in order to follow his steps, only waited to find a Cassius. Such a partner he met with in Agostino Capponi. His last utterances in prison — a striking evidence of the religious feeling of the time — show with what an effort he rid his mind of these classical imaginations, in order to die like a Christian. A friend and the confessor both had to assure him that St Thomas Aquinas condemned conspirators absolutely; but the confessor afterwards admitted to the same friend that St Thomas drew a distinction and permitted conspiracies against a tyrant who had forced himself on a people against their will.
After Lorenzino Medici had murdered the Duke Alessandro (1537), and then escaped, an apology for the deed appeared, which is probably his own work, and certainly composed in his interest, in which he praises tyrannicide as an act of the highest merit; on the supposition that Alessandro was a legitimate Medici, and, therefore, related to him, if only distantly, he boldly compares himself with Timoleon, who slew his brother for his country's sake. Others, on the same occasion, made use of the comparison with Brutus, and that Michelangelo himself, even late in life, was not unfriendly to ideas of this kind, may be inferred from his bust of Brutus in the Bargello. He left it unfinished, like nearly all his works, but certainly not because the murder of Cesare was repugnant to his feeling, as the couplet beneath declares.
A popular radicalism in the form in which it is opposed to the monarchies of later times is not to be found in the despotic states of the Renaissance. Each individual protested inwardly against despotism but was rather disposed to make tolerable or profitable terms with it, than to combine with others for its destruction. Things must have been as bad as at Camerino, Fabriano or Rimini before the citizens united to destroy or expel the ruling house. They knew in most cases only too well that this would but mean a change of masters. The star of the republics was certainly on the decline.
The Republics: Venice and Florence
The Italian municipalities had, in earlier days, given signal proof of that force which transforms the city into the state. It remained only that these cities should combine in a great confederation; and this idea was constantly recurring to Italian statesmen, whatever differences of form it might from time to time display. In fact, during the struggles of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, great and formidable leagues actually were formed by the cities; and Sismondi is of the opinion that the time of the final armaments of the Lombard confederation against Barbarossa (from 1168 on) was the moment when a universal Italian league was possible. But the more powerful states had already developed characteristic features which made any such scheme impracticable. In their commercial dealings they shrank from no measures, however extreme, which might damage their competitors; they held their weaker neighbours in a condition of helpless dependence — in short, they each fancied they could get on by themselves without the assistance of the rest, and thus paved the way for future usurpation. The usurper was forthcoming when long conflicts between the nobility and the people, and between the different factions of the nobility, had awakened the desire for a strong government, and when bands of mercenaries ready and willing to sell their aid to the highest bidder had superseded the general levy of the citizens, which party leaders now found unsuited to their purposes. The tyrants destroyed the freedom of most of the cities; here and there they were expelled, but not thoroughly, or only for a short time; and they were always restored, since the inward conditions were favourable to them, and the opposing forces were exhausted.
Among the cities which maintained their independence are two of deep significance for the history of the human race: Florence, the city of incessant movement, which has left us a record of the thoughts and aspirations of each and all who, for three centuries, took part in this movement, and Venice, the city of apparent stagnation and of political secrecy. No contrast can be imagined stronger than that which is offered us by these two, and neither can be compared to anything else which the world had hitherto produced.
Venice recognized itself from the first as a strange and mysterious creation — the fruits of a higher power than human ingenuity. The solemn foundation of the city was the subject of a legend. On 25 March 413, at midday, the emigrants from Padua laid the first stone at the Rialto, that they might have a sacred, inviolable asylum amid the devastations of the barbarians. Later writers attributed to the founders the presentiment of the future greatness of the city; M. Antonio Sabellico, who has celebrated the event in the dignified flow of his hexameters, makes the priest who completes the act of consecration cry to heaven, 'When we hereafter attempt great things, grant us prosperity! Now we kneel before a poor altar; but if our vows are not made in vain, a hundred temples, O God, of gold and marble shall arise to Thee.' The island city at the end of the fifteenth century was the jewel-casket of the world. It is so described by the same Sabellico, with its ancient cupolas, its leaning towers, its inlaid marble facades, its compressed splendour, when the richest decoration did not hinder the practical employment of every corner of space. He takes us to the crowded piazza before San Giacometto at the Rialto, where the business of the world is transacted, not amid shouting and confusion, but with the subdued hum of many voices; where in the porticoes round the square and in those of the adjoining streets sit hundreds of money-changers and goldsmiths, with endless rows of shops and warehouses above their heads. He describes the great Fondaco of the Germans beyond the bridge, where their goods and their dwellings lay, and before which their ships are drawn up side by side in the canal; higher up is a whole fleet laden with wine and oil, and parallel with it, on the shore swarming with porters, are the vaults of the merchants; then from the Rialto to the square of St Mark come the inns and the perfumers' cabinets. So he conducts the reader from one quarter of the city to another till he comes at last to the two hospitals which were among those institutions of public utility nowhere so numerous as at Venice. Care for the people, in peace as well as in war, was characteristic of this government, and its attention to the wounded, even to those of the enemy, excited the admiration of other states.
Public institutions of every kind found in Venice their pattern; the pensioning of retired servants was carried out systematically, and included a provision for widows and orphans. Wealth, political security and acquaintance with other countries had matured the understanding of such questions. These slender fair-haired men with quiet cautious steps and deliberate speech differed but slightly in costume and bearing from one another; ornaments, especially pearls, were reserved for the women and girls. At that time the general prosperity, notwithstanding the losses sustained from the Turks, was still dazzling; the stores of energy which the city possessed and the prejudice in its favour diffused throughout Europe enabled it at a much later time to survive the heavy blows which were inflicted by the discovery of the sea route to the Indies, by the fall of the Mamelukes in Egypt, and by the war of the League of Cambrai.
Sabellico, born in the neighbourhood of Tivoli, and accustomed to the frank loquacity of the scholars of his day, remarks elsewhere with some astonishment that the young nobles who came of a morning to hear his lectures could not be prevailed on to enter into political discussions. 'When I ask them what people think, say and expect about this or that movement in Italy, they all answer with one voice that they know nothing about the matter.' Still, in spite of the strict imposition of the state, much was to be learned from the more corrupt members of the aristocracy by those who were willing to pay enough for it. In the last quarter of the fifteenth century there were traitors among the highest officials; the popes, the Italian princes, and even second-rate condottieri in the service of the government had informers in their pay, sometimes with regular salaries; things went so far that the Council of Ten found it prudent to conceal important political news from the Council of the Pregadi, and it was even supposed that Lodovico il Moro had control of a definite number of votes among the latter. Whether the hanging of single offenders and the high rewards — such as a life-pension of sixty ducats paid to those who informed against them — were of much avail, it is hard to decide; one of the chief causes of this evil, the poverty of many of the nobility, could not be removed in a day. In the year 1492 a proposal was urged by two of that order, that the state should spend 70,000 ducats for the relief of those poorer nobles who held no public office; the matter was near coming before the Great Council, in which it might have had a majority, when the Council of Ten interfered in time and banished the two proposers for life to Nicosia in Cyprus. About this time a Soranzo was hanged, though not in Venice itself, for sacrilege, and a Contarini put in chains for burglary; another of the same family came in 1499 before the Signoria, and complained that for many years he had been without an office, that he had only sixteen ducats a year and nine children, that his debts amounted to sixty ducats, that he knew no trade and had lately been turned on to the streets. We can understand why some of the wealthier nobles built houses, sometimes whole rows of them, to provide free lodging for their needy comrades. Such works figure in wills among deeds of charity.
But if the enemies of Venice ever founded serious hopes upon abuses of this kind, they were greatly in error. It might be thought that the commercial activity of the city, which put within reach of the humblest a rich reward for their labour, and the colonies on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean would have diverted from political affairs the dangerous elements of society. But had not the political history of Genoa, notwithstanding similar advantages, been of the stormiest? The cause of the stability of Venice lies rather in a combination of circumstances which were found in union nowhere else. Unassailable from its position, it had been able from the beginning to treat of foreign affairs with the fullest and calmest reflection and ignore nearly altogether the parties which divided the rest of Italy, to escape the entanglement of permanent alliances, and to set the highest price on those which it thought fit to make. The keynote of the Venetian character was, consequently, a spirit of proud and contemptuous isolation, which, joined to the hatred felt for the city by the other states of Italy, gave rise to a strong sense of solidarity within. The inhabitants meanwhile were united by the most powerful ties of interest in dealing both with the colonies and with the possessions on the mainland, forcing the population of the latter, that is, of all the towns up to Bergamo, to buy and sell in Venice alone. A power which rested on means so artificial could only be maintained by internal harmony and unity; and this conviction was so widely diffused among the citizens that the conspirator found few elements to work upon. And the discontented, if there were such, were held so far apart by the division between the noble and the burgher that a mutual understanding was not easy. On the other hand, within the ranks of the nobility itself, travel, commercial enterprise and the incessant wars with the Turks saved the wealthy and dangerous from that fruitful source of conspiracies — idleness. In these wars they were spared, often to a criminal extent, by the general in command, and the fall of the city was predicted by a Venetian Cato, if this fear of the nobles 'to give one another pain' should continue at the expense of justice. Nevertheless this free movement in the open air gave the Venetian aristocracy, as a whole, a healthy bias.
And when envy and ambition called for satisfaction an official victim was forthcoming, and legal means and authorities were ready. The moral torture, which for years the Doge Francesco Foscari (d. 1457) suffered before the eyes of all Venice, is a frightful example of a vengeance possible only in an aristocracy. The Council of Ten, which had a hand in everything, which disposed without appeal of life and death, of financial affairs and military appointments, which included the Inquisitors among its number, and which overthrew Foscari, as it had overthrown so many powerful men before — this council was yearly chosen afresh from the whole governing body, the Gran Consiglio, and was consequently the most direct expression of its will. It is not probable that serious intrigues occurred at these elections, as the short duration of the office and the accountability which followed rendered it an object of no great desire. But violent and mysterious as the proceedings of this and other authorities might be, the genuine Venetian courted rather than fled their sentence, not only because the republic had long arms, and if it could not catch him might punish his family, but because in most cases it acted from rational motives and not from a thirst for blood. No state, indeed, has ever exercised a greater moral influence over its subjects, whether abroad or at home. If traitors were to be found among the Pregadi, there was ample compensation for this in the fact that every Venetian away from home was a born spy for his government. It was a matter of course that the Venetian cardinals at Rome sent home news of the transactions of the secret papal consistories. The Cardinal Domenico Grimani had the dispatches intercepted in the neighbourhood of Rome (1500) which Ascanio Sforza was sending to his brother Lodovico it Moro, and forwarded them to Venice; his father, then exposed to a serious accusation, claimed public credit for this service of his son before the Gran Consiglio; in other words, before all the world.
The conduct of the Venetian government to the condottieri in its pay has been spoken of already. The only further guarantee of their fidelity which could be obtained lay in their great number, by which treachery was made as difficult as its discovery was easy. In looking at the Venetian army list, one is only surprised that among forces of such miscellaneous composition any common action was possible. In the catalogue for the campaign of 1495 we find 15,526 horsemen, broken up into a number of small divisions. Gonzaga of Mantua alone had as many as 1,200, and Gioffredo Borgia 740; then follow six officers with a contingent of 600 to 700, ten with 400, twelve with 400 to 200, fourteen or thereabouts with 200 to 100, nine with 80, six with 50 to 60, and so forth. These forces were partly composed of old Venetian troops, partly of veterans led by Venetian city or country nobles; the majority of the leaders were, however, princes and rulers of cities or their relatives. To these forces must be added 24,000 infantry — we are not told how they were raised or commanded — with 3,300 additional troops, who probably belonged to the special services. In time of peace the cities of the mainland were wholly unprotected or occupied by insignificant garrisons. Venice relied, if not exactly on the loyalty, at least on the good sense of its subjects; in the war of the League of Cambrai (1509) it absolved them, as is well known, from their oath of allegiance, and let them compare the amenities of a foreign occupation with the mild government to which they had been accustomed. As there had been no treason in their desertion of St Mark, and consequently no punishment was to be feared, they returned to their old masters with the utmost eagerness. This war, we may remark parenthetically, was the result of a century's outcry against the Venetian desire for aggrandizement. The Venetians, in fact, were not free from the mistake of those over-lever people who will credit their opponents with no irrational and inconsiderate conduct. Misled by this optimism, which is, perhaps, a peculiar weakness of aristocracies, they had utterly ignored not only the preparations of Muhammad II for the capture of Constantinople, but even the armaments of Charles VIII, till the unexpected blow fell at last. The League of Cambrai was an event of the same character, in so far as it was clearly opposed to the interests of the two chief members, Louis XII and Julius II. The hatred of all Italy against the victorious city seemed to be concentrated in the mind of the pope, and to have blinded him to the evils of foreign intervention; and as to the policy of Cardinal d'Amboise and his king, Venice ought long before to have recognized it as a piece of malicious imbecility, and to have been thoroughly on its guard. The other members of the League took part in it from that envy which may be a salutary corrective to great wealth and power, but which in itself is a beggarly sentiment. Venice came out of the conflict with honour, but not without lasting damage.
A power, whose foundations were so complicated, whose activity and interests filled so wide a stage, cannot be imagined without a systematic oversight of the whole, without a regular estimate of means and burdens, of profits and losses. Venice can fairly make good its claim to be the birthplace of statistical science, together, perhaps, with Florence, and followed by the more enlightened despotisms. The feudal state of the Middle Ages knew of nothing more than catalogues of signorial rights and possessions (urbaria); it looked on production as a fixed quantity, which it approximately is, so long as we have to do with landed property only. The towns, on the other hand, throughout the West must from very early times have treated production, which with them depended on industry and commerce, as exceedingly variable; but, even in the most flourishing times of the Hanseatic League, they never got beyond a simple commercial balance-sheet. Fleets, armies, political power and influence fall under the debit and credit of a trader's ledger. In the Italian states a clear political consciousness, the pattern of Muhammadan administration, and the long and active exercise of trade and commerce combined to produce for the first time a true science of statistics. The absolute monarchy of Frederick II in Lower Italy was organized with the sole object of securing a concentrated power for the death-struggle in which he was engaged. In Venice, on the contrary, the supreme objects were the enjoyment of life and power, the increase of inherited advantages, the creation of the most lucrative forms of industry, and the opening of new channels for commerce.
The writers of the time speak of these things with the greatest freedom. We learn that the population of the city amounted in the year 1422 to 190,000 souls; the Italians were, perhaps, the first to reckon, not according to hearths, or men able to bear arms, or people able to walk, and so forth, but according to animae, and thus to get the most neutral basis for further calculation. About this time, when the Florentines wished to form an alliance with Venice against Filippo Maria Visconti, they were for the moment refused, in the belief, resting on accurate commercial returns, that a war between Venice and Milan, that is, between seller and buyer, was foolish. Even if the duke simply increased his army, the Milanese, through the heavier taxation they must pay, would become worse customers. 'Better let the Florentines be defeated, and then, used as they are to the life of a free city, they will settle with us and bring their silk and woollen industry with them, as the Lucchese did in their distress.' The speech of the dying Doge Mocenigo (1423) to a few of the senators whom he had sent for to his bedside is still more remarkable. It contains the chief elements of a statistical account of the whole resources of Venice. I cannot say whether or where a thorough elucidation of this perplexing document exists; by way of illustration, the following facts may be quoted. After repaying a war-loan of four million ducats, the public debt (il monte) still amounted to six million ducats; the current trade (so it seems) ten million, which yielded, the text informs us, a profit of four million. The 3,000 navigli, the 300 navi, and the 45 galleys were manned respectively by 17,000, 8,000 and 11,ooo seamen (more than 200 for each galley). To these must be added 16,000 shipwrights. The houses in Venice were valued at seven million, and brought in a rent of half a million. There were 1,000 nobles whose income ranged from 70 to 4,000 ducats. In another passage the ordinary income of the state in that same year is put at 1,100,000 ducats; through the disturbance of trade caused by the wars it sank about the middle of the century to 800,000 ducats.
If Venice, by this spirit of calculation, and by the practical turn which she gave it, was the first fully to represent one important side of modern political life, in that culture, on the other hand, which Italy then prized most highly she did not stand in the front rank. The literary impulse, in general, was here wanting, and especially that enthusiasm for classical antiquity which prevailed elsewhere. The aptitude of the Venetians, says Sabellico, for philosophy and eloquence was in itself not less remarkable than for commerce and politics. George of Trebizond, who, in 1459, laid the Latin translation of Plato's Laws at the feet of the doge, was appointed professor of philology with a yearly salary of 150 ducats, and finally dedicated his Rhetoric to the Signoria. If, however, we look through the history of Venetian literature which Francesco Sansovino has appended to his well-known book, we shall find in the fourteenth century almost nothing but history, and special works on theology, jurisprudence and medicine; and in the fifteenth century, till we come to Ermolao Barbaro and Aldo Manucci, humanistic culture is, for a city of such importance, most scantily represented. The library which Cardinal Bessarion bequeathed to the state (1468) narrowly escaped dispersion and destruction. Learning was certainly cultivated at the university of Padua, where, however, the physicians and the jurists — the latter as the authors of legal opinions — received by far the highest pay. The share of Venice in the poetical creations of the country was long insignificant, till, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, her deficiencies were made good. Even the art of the Renaissance was imported into the city from without, and it was not before the end of the fifteenth century that she learned to move in this field with independent freedom and strength. But we find more striking instances still of intellectual backwardness. This government, which had the clergy so thoroughly in its control, which reserved to itself the appointment to all important ecclesiastical offices, and which, one time after another, dared to defy the court of Rome, displayed an official piety of a most singular kind. The bodies of saints and other relics imported from Greece after the Turkish conquest were bought at the greatest sacrifices and received by the doge in solemn procession. For the coat without a seam it was decided (1455) to offer 10,000 ducats, but it was not to be had. These measures were not the fruit of any popular excitement, but of the tranquil resolutions of the heads of the government, and might have been omitted without attracting any comment, and at Florence, under similar circumstances, would certainly have been omitted. We shall say nothing of the piety of the masses, and of their firm belief in the indulgences of an Alexander VI. But the state itself, after absorbing the Church to a degree unknown elsewhere, had in truth a certain ecclesiastical element in its composition, and the doge, the symbol of the state, appeared in twelve great processions (andate) in a half-clerical character. They were almost all festivals in memory of political events, and competed in splendour with the great feasts of the Church; the most brilliant of all, the famous marriage with the sea, fell on Ascension Day.
The most elevated political thought and the most varied forms of human development are found united in the history of Florence, which in this sense deserves the name of the most modern state in the world. Here the whole people are busied with what in the despotic cities is the affair of a single family. That wondrous Florentine spirit, at once keenly critical and artistically creative, was incessantly transforming the social and political condition of the state, and as incessantly describing and judging the change. Florence thus became the home of political doctrines and theories, of experiments and sudden changes, but also, like Venice, the home of statistical science, and alone and above all other states in the world, the home of historical representation in the modern sense of the phrase. The spectacle of ancient Rome and a familiarity with its leading writers were not without influence; Giovanni Villani confesses that he received the first impulse to his great work at the jubilee of the year 1300, and began it immediately on his return home. Yet how many among the 200,000 pilgrims of that year may have been like him in gifts and tendencies and still did not write the history of their native cities! For not all of them could encourage themselves with the thought, 'Rome is sinking; my native city is rising, and ready to achieve great things, and therefore I wish to relate its past history, and hope to continue the story to the present time, and as long as my life shall last.' And besides the witness to its past, Florence obtained through its historians something further — a greater fame than fell to the lot of any other city of Italy.
Our present task is not to write the history of this remarkable state, but merely to give a few indications of the intellectual freedom and independence for which the Florentines were indebted to this history.
In no other city of Italy were the struggles of political parties so bitter, of such early origin, and so permanent. The descriptions of them, which belong, it is true, to a somewhat later period, give clear evidence of the superiority of Florentine criticism.
And what a politician is the great victim of these crises, Dante Alighieri, matured alike by home and by exile! He uttered his scorn of the incessant changes and experiments in the constitution of his native city in verses of adamant, which will remain proverbial so long as political events of the same kind recur; he addressed his home in words of defiance and yearning which must have stirred the hearts of his countrymen. But his thoughts ranged over Italy and the whole world; and if his passion for the Empire, as he conceived it, was no more than an illusion, it must yet be admitted that the youthful dreams of a newborn political speculation are in his case not without a poetical grandeur. He is proud to be the first who trod this path, certainly in the footsteps of Aristotle, but in his own way independently. His ideal emperor is a just and humane judge, dependent on God only, the heir of the universal sway of Rome to which belonged the sanction of nature, of right and of the will of God. The conquest of the world was, according to this view, rightful, resting on a divine judgement between Rome and the other nations of the earth, and God gave his approval to this Empire, since under it he became Man, submitting at his birth to the census of the Emperor Augustus, and at his death to the judgement of Pontius Pilate. We may find it hard to appreciate these and other arguments of the same kind, but Dante's passion never fails to carry us with him. In his letters he appears as one of the earliest publicists, and is perhaps the first layman to publish political tracts in this form. He began early. Soon after the death of Beatrice he addressed a pamphlet on the state of Florence 'to the Great ones of the Earth', and the public utterances of his later years, dating from the time of his banishment, are all directed to emperors, princes and cardinals. In these letters and in his book De Vulgari Eloquio the feeling, bought with such bitter pains, is constantly recurring that the exile may find elsewhere than in his native place an intellectual home in language and culture, which cannot be taken from him. On this point we shall have more to say in the sequel.
To the two Villani, Giovanni as well as Matteo, we owe not so much deep political reflection as fresh and practical observations, together with the elements of Florentine statistics and important notices of other states. Here too trade and commerce had given the impulse to economical as well as political science. Nowhere else in the world was such accurate information to be had on financial affairs. The wealth of the papal court at Avignon, which at the death of John XXII amounted to 25 million gold florins, would be incredible on any less trustworthy authority. Here only, at Florence, do we meet with colossal loans like that which the King of England contracted from the Florentine houses of Bardi and Peruzzi, who lost to His Majesty the sum of 1,365,000 gold florins (1338) — their own money and that of their partners — and nevertheless recovered from the shock. Most important facts are here recorded as to the condition of Florence at this time: the public income (over 300,000 gold florins) and expenditure; the population of the city, here only roughly estimated, according to the consumption of bread, in bocche, i. e. mouths, put at 90,000, and the population of the whole territory; the excess of 300 to 500 male children among the 5,800 to 6,000 annually baptized; the schoolchildren, of whom 8,000 to 10,000 learned reading, 1,000 to 1,200 in six schools arithmetic; and besides these, 600 scholars who were taught Latin grammar and logic in four schools. Then follow the statistics of the churches and monasteries; of the hospitals, which held more than a thousand beds; of the wool-trade, with its most valuable details; of the mint, the provisioning of the city, the public officials, and so on. Incidentally we learn many curious facts; how, for instance, when the public funds (monte) were first established, in the year 1353, the Franciscans spoke from the pulpit in favour of the measure, the Dominicans and Augustinians against it. The economical results of the black death were and could be observed and described nowhere else in all Europe as in this city. Only a Florentine could have left it on record how it was expected that the scanty population would have made everything cheap, and how instead of that labour and commodities doubled in price; how the common people at first would do no work at all, but simply gave themselves up to enjoyment; how in the city itself servants and maids were not to be had except at extravagant wages; how the peasants would only till the best lands, and left the rest uncultivated; and how the enormous legacies bequeathed to the poor at the time of the plague seemed afterwards useless, since the poor had either died or had ceased to be poor. Lastly, on the occasion of a great bequest, by which a childless philanthropist left six danari to every beggar in the city, the attempt is made to give a comprehensive statistical account of Florentine mendicancy.
This statistical view of things was at a later time still more highly cultivated at Florence. The noteworthy point about it is that, as a rule, we can perceive its connection with the higher aspects of history, with art, and with culture in general. An inventory of the year 1422 mentions, within the compass of the same document, the seventy-two exchange offices which surrounded the Mercato Nuovo; the amount of coined money in circulation (2 million golden florins); the then new industry of gold spinning; the silk wares; Filippo Brunellesco, then busy in digging classical architecture from its grave; and Leonardo Aretino, secretary of the republic, at work at the revival of ancient literature and eloquence; lastly, it speaks of the general prosperity of the city, then free from political conflicts, and of the good fortune of Italy, which had rid itself of foreign mercenaries. The Venetian statistics quoted above, which date from about the same year, certainly give evidence of larger property and profits and of a more extensive scene of action; Venice had long been mistress of the seas before Florence sent out its first galleys (1422) to Alexandria. But no reader can fail to recognize the higher spirit of the Florentine documents. These and similar lists recur at intervals of ten years, systematically arranged and tabulated, while elsewhere we find at best occasional notices. We can form an approximate estimate of the property and the business of the first Medici; they paid for charities, public buildings and taxes from 1434 to 1471 no less than 663,755 gold florins, of which more than 400,000 fell on Cosimo alone, and Lorenzo il Magnifico was delighted that the money had been so well spent. In 1478 we have again a most important and in its way complete view of the commerce and trades of this city, some of which may be wholly or partly reckoned among the fine arts — such as those which had to do with damasks and gold or silver embroidery, with woodcarving and intarsia, with the sculpture of arabesques in marble and sandstone, with portraits in wax, and with jewellery and work in gold. The inborn talent of the Florentines for the systematization of outward life is shown by their books on agriculture, business and domestic economy, which are markedly superior to those of other European people in the fifteenth century. It has been rightly decided to publish selections of these works, although no little study will be needed to extract clear and definite results from them. At all events, we have no difficulty in recognizing the city, where dying parents begged the government in their wills to fine their sons 1,000 florins if they declined to practise a regular profession.
For the first half of the sixteenth century probably no state in the world possesses a document like the magnificent description of Florence by Varchi. In descriptive statistics, as in so many things besides, yet another model is left to us, before the freedom and greatness of the city sank into the grave.
This statistical estimate of outward life is, however, uniformly accompanied by the narrative of political events to which we have already referred.
Florence not only existed under political forms more varied than those of the free states of Italy and of Europe generally, but it reflected upon them far more deeply. It is a faithful mirror of the relations of individuals and classes to a variable whole. The pictures of the great civic democracies in France and in Flanders, as they are delineated in Froissart, and the narratives of the German chroniclers of the fourteenth century, are in truth of high importance; but in comprehensiveness of thought and in the rational development of the story none will bear comparison with the Florentines. The rule of the nobility, the tyrannies, the struggles of the middle class with the proletariat, limited and unlimited democracy, pseudo-democracy, the primacy of a single house, the theocracy of Savonarola, and the mixed forms of government which prepared the way for the Medicean despotism — all are so described that the inmost motives of the actors are laid bare to the light. At length Machiavelli in his Florentine history (down to 1492) represents his native city as a living organism and its development as a natural and individual process; he is the first of the moderns who has risen to such a conception. It lies without our province to determine whether and in what points Machiavelli may have done violence to history, as is notoriously the case in his life of Castruccio Castracani — a fancy picture of the typical despot. We might find something to say against every line of the Storie Fiorentine, and yet the great and unique value of the whole would remain unaffected. And his contemporaries and successors, Jacopo Pitti, Guicciardini, Segni, Varchi, Vettori, what a circle of illustrious names! And what a story it is which these masters tell us! The great and memorable drama of the last decades of the Florentine republic is here unfolded. The voluminous record of the collapse of the highest and most original life which the world could then show may appear to one but as a collection of curiosities, may awaken in another a devilish delight at the shipwreck of so much nobility and grandeur, to a third may seem like a great historical assize; for all it will be an object of thought and study to the end of time. The evil, which was for ever troubling the peace of the city, was its rule over once powerful and now conquered rivals like Pisa — a rule of which the necessary consequence was a chronic state of violence. The only remedy, certainly an extreme one and which none but Savonarola could have persuaded Florence to accept, and that only with the help of favourable chances, would have been the well-timed dissolution of Tuscany into a federal union of free cities. At a later period this scheme, then no more than the dream of a past age, brought (1548) a patriotic citizen of Lucca to the scaffold. From this evil and from the ill-starred Guelph sympathies of Florence for a foreign prince, which familiarized it with foreign intervention, came all the disasters which followed. But who does not admire the people, which was wrought up by its venerated preacher to a mood of such sustained loftiness, that for the first time in Italy it set the example of sparing a conquered foe, while the whole history of its past taught nothing but vengeance and extermination? The glow which melted patriotism into one with moral regeneration may seem, when looked at from a distance, to have soon passed away; but its best results shine forth again in the memorable siege of 1529—30. They were 'fools', as Guicciardini then wrote, who drew down this storm upon Florence, but he confesses himself that they achieved things which seemed incredible; and when he declares that sensible people would have got out of the way of the danger, he means no more than that Florence ought to have yielded itself silently and ingloriously into the hands of its enemies. It would no doubt have preserved its splendid suburbs and gardens, and the lives and prosperity of countless citizens; but it would have been the poorer by one of its greatest and most ennobling memories.
In many of their chief merits the Florentines are the pattern and the earliest type of Italians and modern Europeans generally; they are so also in many of their defects. When Dante compares the city which was always mending its constitution with the sick man who is continually changing his posture to escape from pain, he touches with the comparison a permanent feature of the political life of Florence. The great modern fallacy that a constitution can be made, can be manufactured by a combination of existing forces and tendencies, was constantly cropping up in stormy times; even Machiavelli is not wholly free from it. Constitutional artists were never wanting who by an ingenious distribution and division of political power, by indirect elections of the most complicated kind, by the establishment of nominal offices, sought to found a lasting order of things, and to satisfy or to deceive the rich and the poor alike. They naïvely fetch their examples from classical antiquity, and borrow the party names ottimati, aristocrazia, as a matter of course. The world since then has become used to these expressions and given them a conventional European sense, whereas all former party names were purely national, and either characterized the cause at issue or sprang from the caprice of accident. But how a name colours or discolours a political cause!
But of all who thought it possible to construct a state, the greatest beyond all comparison was Machiavelli. He treats existing forces as living and active, takes a large and an accurate view of alternative possibilities, and seeks to mislead neither himself nor others. No man could be freer from vanity or ostentation; indeed, he does not write for the public, but either for princes and administrators or for personal friends. The danger for him does not lie in an affectation of genius or in a false order of ideas, but rather in a powerful imagination which he evidently controls with difficulty. The objectivity of his political judgement is sometimes appalling in its sincerity; but it is the sign of a time of no ordinary need and peril, when it was a hard matter to believe in right, or to credit others with just dealing. Virtuous indignation at his expense is thrown away upon us who have seen in what sense political morality is understood by the statesmen of our own century. Machiavelli was at all events able to forget himself in his cause. In truth, although his writings, with the exception of very few words, are altogether destitute of enthusiasm, and although the Florentines themselves treated him at last as a criminal, he was a patriot in the fullest meaning of the word. But free as he was, like most of his contemporaries, in speech and morals, the welfare of the state was yet his first and last thought.
His most complete programme for the construction of a new political system at Florence is set forth in the memorial to Leo X, composed after the death of the younger Lorenzo Medici, Duke of Urbino (d. 1519), to whom he had dedicated his Prince. The state was by that time in extremities and utterly corrupt, and the remedies proposed are not always morally justifiable; but it is most interesting to see how he hopes to set up the republic in the form of a moderate democracy, as heiress to the Medici. A more ingenious scheme of concessions to the pope, to the pope's various adherents, and to the different Florentine interests cannot be imagined; we might fancy ourselves looking into the works of a clock. Principles, observations, comparisons, political forecasts and the like are to be found in numbers in the Discorsi, among them flashes of wonderful insight. He recognizes, for example, the law of a continuous though not uniform development in republican institutions, and requires the constitution to be flexible and capable of change, as the only means of dispensing with bloodshed and banishments. For a like reason, in order to guard against private violence and foreign interference — 'the death of all freedom' — he wishes to see introduced a judicial procedure (accusa) against hated citizens, in place of which Florence had hitherto had nothing but the court of scandal. With a masterly hand the tardy and involuntary decisions are characterized, which at critical moments play so important a part in republican states. Once, it is true, he is misled by his imagination and the pressure of events into unqualified praise of the people, which chooses its officers, he says, better than any prince, and which can be cured of its errors by 'good advice'. With regard to the government of Tuscany, he has no doubt that it belongs to his native city, and maintains, in a special Discorso, that the reconquest of Pisa is a question of life or death; he deplores that Arezzo, after the rebellion of 1502, was not razed to the ground; he admits in general that Italian republics must be allowed to expand freely and add to their territory in order to enjoy peace at home, and not to be themselves attacked by others, but declares that Florence had always begun at the wrong end, and from the first made deadly enemies of Pisa, Lucca and Siena, while Pistoia, 'treated like a brother', had voluntarily submitted to her.
It would be unreasonable to draw a parallel between the few other republics which still existed in the fifteenth century and this unique city — the most important workshop of the Italian, and indeed of the modern European spirit. Siena suffered from the gravest organic maladies, and its relative prosperity in art and industry must not mislead us on this point. Aeneas Sylvius looks with longing from his native town over to the 'merry' German imperial cities, where life is embittered by no confiscations of land and goods, by no arbitrary officials, and by no political factions. Genoa scarcely comes within range of our task, as before the time of Andrea Doria it took almost no part in the Renaissance. Indeed, the inhabitant of the Riviera was proverbial among Italians for his contempt of all higher culture. Party conflicts here assumed so fierce a character, and disturbed so violently the whole course of life, that we can hardly understand how, after so many revolutions and invasions, the Genoese ever contrived to return to an endurable condition. Perhaps it was owing to the fact that nearly all who took part in public affairs were at the same time almost without exception active men of business. The example of Genoa shows in a striking manner with what insecurity wealth and vast commerce, and with what internal disorder the possession of distant colonies, are compatible.
Lucca is of small significance in the fifteenth century.
Foreign Policy
As the majority of the Italian states were in their internal constitution works of art, that is, the fruit of reflection and careful adaptation, so was their relation to one another and to foreign countries also a work of art. That nearly all of them were the result of recent usurpations was a fact which exercised as fatal an influence in their foreign as in their internal policy. Not one of them recognized another without reserve; the same play of chance which had helped to found and consolidate one dynasty might upset another. Nor was it always a matter of choice with the despot whether to keep quiet or not. The necessity of movement and aggrandizement is common to all illegitimate powers. Thus Italy became the scene of a 'foreign policy' which gradually, as in other countries also, acquired the position of a recognized system of public law. The purely objective treatment of international affairs, as free from prejudice as from moral scruples, attained a perfection which sometimes is not without a certain beauty and grandeur of its own. But as a whole it gives us the impression of a bottomless abyss.
Intrigues, armaments, leagues, corruption and treason make up the outward history of Italy at this period. Venice in particular was long accused on all hands of seeking to conquer the whole peninsula, or gradually so to reduce its strength that one state after another must fall into her hands. But on a closer view it is evident that this complaint did not come from the people, but rather from the courts and official classes, which were commonly abhorred by their subjects, while the mild government of Venice had secured for it general confidence. Even Florence, with its restive subject cities, found itself in a false position with regard to Venice, apart from all commercial jealousy and from the progress of Venice in Romagna. At last the League of Cambrai actually did strike a serious blow at the state which all Italy ought to have supported with united strength.
The other states, also, were animated by feelings no less unfriendly, and were at all times ready to use against one another any weapon which their evil conscience might suggest. Lodovico il Moro, the Aragonese kings of Naples and Sixtus IV — to say nothing of the smaller powers — kept Italy in a constant perilous agitation. It would have been well if the atrocious game had been confined to Italy; but it lay in the nature of the case that intervention and help should at last be sought from abroad — in particular from the French and the Turks.
The sympathies of the people at large were throughout on the side of France. Florence had never ceased to confess with shocking naïveté its old Guelph preference for the French. And when Charles VIII actually appeared on the south of the Alps, all Italy accepted him with an enthusiasm which to himself and his followers seemed unaccountable. In the imagination of the Italians, to take Savonarola for an example, the ideal picture of a wise, just and powerful saviour and ruler was still living, with the difference that he was no longer the emperor invoked by Dante, but the Capetian King of France. With his departure the illusion was broken; but it was long before all understood how completely Charles VIII, Louis XII and Francis I had mistaken their true relation to Italy, and by what inferior motives they were led. The princes, for their part, tried to make use of France in a wholly different way. When the Franco-English wars came to an end, when Louis XI began to cast about his diplomatic nets on all sides, and Charles of Burgundy to embark on his foolish adventures, the Italian Cabinets came to meet them at every point. It became clear that the intervention of France was only a question of time, even though the claims on Naples and Milan had never existed, and that the old interference with Genoa and Piedmont was only a type of what was to follow. The Venetians, in fact, expected it as early as 1462. The mortal terror of the Duke Galeazzo Maria of Milan during the Burgundian war, in which he was apparently the ally of Charles as well as of Louis, and consequently had reason to dread an attack from both, is strikingly shown in his correspondence. The plan of an equilibrium of the four chief Italian powers, as understood by Lorenzo the Magnificent, was but the assumption of a cheerful optimistic spirit, which had outgrown both the recklessness of an experimental policy and the superstitions of Florentine Guelphism, and persisted in hoping for the best. When Louis XI offered him aid in the war against Ferrante of Naples and Sixtus IV, he replied, 'I cannot set my own advantage above the safety of all Italy; would to God it never came into the mind of the French kings to try their strength in this country! Should they ever do so, Italy is lost.' For the other princes, the King of France was alternately a bugbear to themselves and to their enemies, and they threatened to call him in whenever they saw no more convenient way out of their difficulties. The popes, in their turn, fancied that they could make use of France without any danger to themselves, and even Innocent VIII imagined that he could withdraw to sulk in the North, and return as a conqueror to Italy at the head of a French army.
Thoughtful men, indeed, foresaw the foreign conquest long before the expedition of Charles VIII. And when Charles was back again on the other side of the Alps, it was plain to every eye that an era of intervention had begun. Misfortune now followed on misfortune; it was understood too late that France and Spain, the two chief invaders, had become great European powers, that they would be no longer satisfied with verbal homage, but would fight to the death for influence and territory in Italy. They had begun to resemble the centralized Italian states, and indeed to copy them, only on a gigantic scale. Schemes of annexation or exchange of territory were for a time indefinitely multiplied. The end, as is well known, was the complete victory of Spain, which, as sword and shield of the Counter-Reformation, long held the papacy among its other subjects. The melancholy reflections of the philosophers could only show them how those who had called in the barbarians all came to a bad end.
Alliances were at the same time formed with the Turks too, with as little scruple or disguise; they were reckoned no worse than any other political expedients. The belief in the unity of Western Christendom had at various times in the course of the Crusades been seriously shaken, and Frederick II had probably outgrown it. But the fresh advance of the oriental nations, the need and the ruin of the Greek empire, had revived the old feeling, though not in its former strength, throughout Western Europe. Italy, however, was a striking exception to this rule. Great as was the terror felt for the Turks, and the actual danger from them, there was yet scarcely a government of any consequence which did not conspire against other Italian states with Muhammad II and his successors. And when they did not do so, they still had the credit of it; nor was it worse than the sending of emissaries to poison the cisterns of Venice, which was the charge brought against the heirs of Alfonso, King of Naples. From a scoundrel like Sigismondo Malatesta nothing better could be expected than that he should call the Turks into Italy. But the Aragonese monarchs of Naples, from whom Muhammad — at the instigation, we read, of other Italian governments, especially of Venice — had once wrested Otranto (1480), afterwards hounded on the Sultan Bajazet II against the Venetians. The same charge was brought against Lodovico il Moro. 'The blood of the slain, and the misery of the prisoners in the hands of the Turks, cry to God for vengeance against him,' says the state historian. In Venice, wherethe government was informed of everything, it was known that Giovanni Sforza, ruler of Pesaro, the cousin of the Moor, had entertained the Turkish ambassadors on their way to Milan. The two most respectable among the popes of the fifteenth century, Nicholas V and Pius II, died in the deepest grief at the progress of the Turks, the latter indeed amid the preparations for a crusade which he was hoping to lead in person; their successors embezzled the contributions sent for this purpose from all parts of Christendom, and degraded the indulgences granted in return for them into a private commercial speculation. Innocent VIII consented to be gaoler to the fugitive Prince Djem, for a salary paid by the prisoner's brother Bajazet II, and Alexander VI supported the steps taken by Lodovico il Moro in Constantinople to further a Turkish assault upon Venice (1498), whereupon the latter threatened him with a Council. It is clear the notorious alliance between Francis I and Soliman II was nothing new or unheard of.
Indeed, we find instances of whole populations to whom it seemed no particular crime to go over bodily to the Turks. Even if it were only held out as a threat to oppressive governments, this is at least a proof that the idea had become familiar. As early as 1480 Battista Mantovano gives us clearly to understand that most of the inhabitants of the Adriatic coast foresaw something of this kind, and that Ancona in particular desired it. When Romagna was suffering from the oppressive government of Leo X, a deputy from Ravenna said openly to the legate, Cardinal Giulio Medici: 'Monsignore, the honourable Republic of Venice will not have us, for fear of a dispute with the Holy See; but if the Turk comes to Ragusa we will put ourselves into his hands.'
It was a poor but not wholly groundless consolation for the enslavement of Italy then begun by the Spaniards that the country was at least secured from the relapse into barbarism which would have awaited it under the Turkish rule. By itself, divided as it was, it could hardly have escaped this fate.
If, with all these drawbacks, the Italian statesmanship of this period deserves our praise, it is only on the ground of its practical and unprejudiced treatment of those questions which were not affected by fear, passion or malice, Here was no feudal system after the northern fashion, with its artificial scheme of rights; but the power which each possessed he held in practice as in theory. Here was no attendant nobility to foster in the mind of the prince the medieval sense of honour, with all its strange consequences; but princes and counsellors were agreed in acting according to the exigencies of the particular case and to the end they had in view. Towards the men whose services were used and towards allies, come from what quarter they might, no pride of caste was felt which could possibly estrange a supporter; and the class of the condottieri, in which birth was a matter of indifference, shows clearly enough in what sort of hands the real power lay; and lastly, the government, in the hands of an enlightened despot, had an incomparably more accurate acquaintance with its own country and that of its neighbours than was possessed by northern contemporaries, and estimated the economical and moral capacities of friend and foe down to the smallest particular. The rulers were, notwithstanding grave errors, born masters of statistical science. With such men negotiation was possible; it might be presumed that they would be convinced and their opinion modified when practical reasons were laid before them. When the great Alfonso of Naples was (1434) a prisoner of Filippo Maria Visconti, he was able to satisfy his gaoler that the rule of the House of Anjou instead of his own at Naples would make the French masters of Italy; Filippo Maria set him free without ransom and made an alliance with him. A northern prince would scarcely have acted in the same way, certainly not one whose morality in other respects was like that of Visconti. What confidence was felt in the power of self-interest is shown by the celebrated visit which Lorenzo the Magnificent, to the universal astonishment of the Florentines, paid the faithless Ferrante at Naples — a man who would be certainly tempted to keep him a prisoner, and was by no means too scrupulous to do so. For to arrest a powerful monarch, and then to let him go alive, after extorting his signature and otherwise insulting him, as Charles the Bold did to Louis XI at Peronne (1468), seemed madness to the Italians; so that Lorenzo was expected to come back covered with glory, or else not to come back at all. The art of political persuasion was at this time raised to a point — especially by the Venetian ambassadors — of which northern nations first obtained a conception from the Italians, and of which the official addresses give a most imperfect idea. These are mere pieces of humanistic rhetoric. Nor, in spite of an otherwise ceremonious etiquette, was there in case of need any lack of rough and frank speaking in diplomatic intercourse. A man like Machiavelli appears in his Legazioni in an almost pathetic light. Furnished with scanty instructions, shabbily equipped, and treated as an agent of inferior rank, he never loses his gift of free and wide observation or his pleasure in picturesque description.
A special division of this work will treat of the study of man individually and nationally, which among the Italians went hand in hand with the study of the outward conditions of human life.
War as a Work of Art
It must here be briefly indicated by what steps the art of war assumed the character of a product of reflection. Throughout the countries of the West the education of the individual soldier in the Middle Ages was perfect within the limits of the then prevalent system of defence and attack: nor was there any want of ingenious inventors in the arts of besieging and of fortification. But the development both of strategy and of tactics was hindered by the character and duration of military service, and by the ambition of the nobles, who disputed questions of precedence in the face of the enemy, and through simple want of discipline caused the loss of great battles like Crécy and Maupertuis. Italy, on the contrary, was the first country to adopt the system of mercenary troops, which demanded a wholly different organization; and the early introduction of firearms did its part in making war a democratic pursuit, not only because the strongest castles were unable to withstand a bombardment, but because the skill of the engineer, of the gun-founder and of the artillerist — men belonging to another lass than the nobility — was now of the first importance in a campaign. It was felt, with regret, that the value of the individual, which had been the soul of the small and admirably organized bands of mercenaries, would suffer from these novel means of destruction, which did their work at a distance; and there were condottieri who opposed to the utmost the introduction at least of the musket, which had been lately invented in Germany. We read that Paolo Vitelli, while recognizing and himself adopting the cannon, put out the eyes and cut off the hands of the captured schioppettieri of the enemy, because he held it unworthy that a gallant, and it might be noble, knight should be wounded and laid low by a common, despised foot soldier. On the whole, however, the new discoveries were accepted and turned to useful account, till the Italians became the teachers of all Europe, both in the building of fortifications and in the means of attacking them. Princes like Federigo of Urbino and Alfonso of Ferrara acquired a mastery of the subject compared to which the knowledge even of Maximilian I appears superficial. In Italy, earlier than elsewhere, there existed a comprehensive science and art of military affairs; here, for the first time, that impartial delight is taken in able generalship for its own sake which might, indeed, be expected from the frequent change of party and from the wholly unsentimental mode of action of the condottieri. During the Milano-Venetian war of 1451 and 1452, between Francesco Sforza and Jacopo Piccinino, the headquarters of the latter were attended by the scholar Gian Antonio Porcello dei Pandoni, commissioned by Alfonso of Naples to write a report of the campaign. It is written, not in the purest, but in a fluent Latin, a little too much in the style of the humanistic bombast of the day, is modelled on Caesar's Commentaries, and interspersed with speeches, prodigies and the like. Since for the past hundred years it had been seriously disputed whether Scipio Africanus or Hannibal was the greater, Piccinino through the whole book must needs be called Scipio and Sforza Hannibal. But something positive had to be reported, too, respecting the Milanese army; the sophist presented himself to Sforza, was led along the ranks, praised highly all that he saw, and promised to hand it down to posterity. Apart from him the Italian literature of the day is rich in descriptions of wars and strategic devices, written for the use of educated men in general as well as of specialists, while the contemporary narratives of northerns, such as the Burgundian War by Diebold Schilling, still retain the shapelessness and matter-of-fact dryness of a mere chronicle. The greatest dilettante who has ever treated in that character of military affairs, Machiavelli, was then busy writing his Arte della Guerra. But the development of the individual soldier found its most complete expression in those public and solemn conflicts between one or more pairs of combatants which were practised long before the famous 'Challenge of Barletta' (1503). The victor was assured of the praises of poets and scholars, which were denied to the northern warrior. The result of these combats was no longer regarded as a divine judgement, but as a triumph of personal merit, and to the minds of the spectators seemed to be both the decision of an exciting competition and a satisfaction for the honour of the army or the nation.
It is obvious that this purely rational treatment of warlike affairs allowed, under certain circumstances, of the worst atrocities, even in the absence of a strong political hatred, as, for instance, when the plunder of a city had been promised to the troops. After the forty days' devastation of Piacenza, which Sforza was compelled to permit to his soldiers (1447), the town long stood empty, and at last had to be peopled by force. Yet outrages like these were nothing compared with the misery which was afterwards brought upon Italy by foreign troops, and most of all by the Spaniards, in whom perhaps a touch of oriental blood, perhaps familiarity with the spectacles of the Inquisition, had unloosed the devilish element of human nature. After seeing them at work at Prato, Rome and elsewhere, it is not easy to take any interest of the higher sort in Ferdinand the Catholic and Charles V, who knew what these hordes were, and yet unchained them. The mass of documents which are gradually brought to light from the Cabinets of these rulers will always remain an important source of historical information; but from such men no fruitful political conception can be looked for.
The Papacy
The papacy and the dominions of the Church are creations of so peculiar a kind that we have hitherto, in determining the general characteristics of Italian states, referred to them only occasionally. The deliberate choice and adaptation of political expedients, which gives so great an interest to the other states, is what we find least of all at Rome, since here the spiritual power could constantly conceal or supply the defects of the temporal. And what fiery trials did this state undergo in the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth century, when the papacy was led captive to Avignon! All, at first, was thrown into confusion; but the pope had money, troops and a great statesman and general, the Spaniard Albornoz, who again brought the ecclesiastical state into complete subjection. The danger of a final dissolution was still greater at the time of the schism, when neither the Roman nor the French pope was rich enough to reconquer the newly lost state; but this was done under Martin V, after the unity of the Church was restored, and done again under Eugenius IV, when the same danger was renewed. But the ecclesiastical state was and remained a thorough anomaly among the powers of Italy; in and near Rome itself, the papacy was defied by the great families of the Colonna, Orsini, Savelli and Anguilara; in Umbria, in the Marches and in Romagna, those civic republics had almost ceased to exist, for whose devotion the papacy had showed so little gratitude; their place had been taken by a crowd of princely dynasties, great or small, whose loyalty and obedience signified little. As self-dependent powers, standing on their own merits, they have an interest of their own; and from this point of view the most important of them have already been discussed.
Nevertheless, a few general remarks on the papacy can hardly be dispensed with. New and strange perils and trials came upon it in the course of the fifteenth century, as the political spirit of the nation began to lay hold upon it on various sides, and to draw it within the sphere of its action. The least of these dangers came from the populace or from abroad; the most serious had their ground in the characters of the popes themselves.
Let us, for this moment, leave out of consideration the countries beyond the Alps. At the time when the papacy was exposed to mortal danger in Italy, it neither received nor could receive the slightest assistance either from France, then under Louis XI, or from England, distracted by the Wars of the Roses, or from the then disorganized Spanish monarchy, or from Germany, but lately betrayed at the Council of Basel. In Italy itself there was a certain number of instructed and even uninstructed people whose national vanity was flattered by the Italian character of the papacy; the personal interests of very many depended on its having and retaining this character; and vast masses of the people still believed in the virtue of the papal blessing and consecration; among them notorious transgressors like Vitelozzo Vitelli, who still prayed to be absolved by Alexander VI, when the pope's son had him strangled. But all these grounds of sympathy put together would not have sufficed to save the papacy from its enemies, had the latter been really in earnest, and had they known how to take advantage of the envy and hatred with which the institution was regarded.
And at the very time when the prospect of help from without was so small, the most dangerous symptoms appeared within the papacy itself. Living, as it now did, and acting in the spirit of the secular Italian principalities, it was compelled to go through the same dark experiences as they; but its own exceptional nature gave a peculiar colour to the shadows.
As far as the city of Rome itself is concerned, small account was taken of its internal agitations, so many were the popes who had returned after being expelled by popular tumult, and so greatly did the presence of the Curia minister to the interests of the Roman people. But Rome not only displayed at times a specific anti-papal radicalism, but in the most serious plots which were then contrived, gave proof of the working of unseen hands from without. It was so in the case of the conspiracy of Stefano Porcari against Nicholas V (1453), the very pope who had done most for the prosperity of the city. Porcari aimed at the complete overthrow of the papal authority, and had distinguished accomplices, who, though their names are not handed down to us, are certainly to be looked for among the Italian governments of the time. Under the pontificate of the same man, Lorenzo Valla concluded his famous declamation against the gift of Constantine with the wish for the speedy secularization of the states of the Church.
The Catilinarian gang, with which Pius II had to contend (1460), avowed with equal frankness their resolution to overthrow the government of the priests, and its leader, Tburzio, threw the blame on the soothsayers, who had fixed the accomplishment of his wishes for this very year. Several of the chief men of Rome, the Prince of Taranto and the condottiere Jacopo Piccinino were accomplices and supporters of Tiburzio. Indeed, when we think of the booty which was accumulated in the palaces of wealthy prelates — the conspirators had the Cardinal of Aquileia especially in view — we are surprised that, in an almost unguarded city, such attempts were not more frequent and more successful. It was not without reason that Pius II preferred to reside anywhere rather than in Rome, and even Paul II was exposed to no small anxiety through a plot formed by some discharged abbreviators, who, under the command of Platina, besieged the Vatican for twenty days. The papacy must sooner or later have fallen a victim to such enterprises, if it had not stamped out the aristocratic factions under whose protection these bands of robbers grew to a head.
This task was undertaken by the terrible Sixtus IV. He was the first pope who had Rome and the neighbourhood thoroughly under his control, especially after his successful attack on the House of Colonna, and consequently, both in his Italian policy and in the internal affairs of the Church, he could venture to act with a defiant audacity, and to set at nought the complaints and threats to summon a Council which arose from all parts of Europe. He supplied himself with the necessary funds by simony, which suddenly grew to unheard-of proportions, and which extended from the appointment of cardinals down to the granting of the smallest favours. Sixtus himself had not obtained the papal dignity without recourse to the same means.
A corruption so universal might sooner or later bring disastrous consequences on the Holy See, but they lay in the uncertain future. It was otherwise with nepotism, which threatened at one time to destroy the papacy altogether. Of all the nipoti, Cardinal Pietro Riario enjoyed at first the chief and almost exclusive favour of Sixtus. He soon drew upon him the eyes of all Italy, partly by the fabulous luxury of his life, partly through the reports which were current of his irreligion and his political plans. He bargained with Duke Galeazzo Maria of Milan (1473) that the latter should become King of Lombardy, and then aid him with money and troops to return to Rome and ascend the papal throne; Sixtus, it appears, would have voluntarily yielded to him. This plan, which, by making the papacy hereditary, would have ended in the secularization of the papal state, failed through the sudden death of Pietro. The second nipote, Girolamo Riario, remained a layman, and did not seek the pontificate. From this time the nipoti, by their endeavours to found principalities for themselves, became a new source of confusion to Italy. It had already happened that the popes tried to make good their feudal claims on Naples in favour of their relatives! But since the failure of Calixtus III, such a scheme was no longer practicable, and Girolamo Riario, after the attempt to conquer Florence (and who knows how many other places) had failed, was forced to content himself with founding a state within the limits of the papal dominions themselves. This was justifiable in so far as Romagna, with its princes and civic despots, threatened to shake off the papal supremacy altogether, and ran the risk of shortly falling a prey to Sforza or the Venetians, when Rome interfered to prevent it. But who, at times and in circumstances like these, could guarantee the continued obedience of nipoti and their descendants, now turned into sovereign rulers, to popes with whom they had no further concern? Even in his lifetime the pope was not always sure of his own son or nephew, and the temptation was strong to expel the nipote of a precedessor and replace him with one of his own. The reaction of the whole system on the papacy itself was of the most serious character; all means of compulsion, whether temporal or spiritual, were used without scruple for the most questionable ends, and to these all the other objects of the Apostolic See were made subordinate. And when they were attained, at whatever cost of revolutions and proscriptions, a dynasty was founded which had no stronger interest than the destruction of the papacy.
At the death of Sixtus, Girolamo was only able to maintain himself in his usurped principality of Forlì and Imola by the utmost exertions of his own, and by the aid of the House of Sforza, to which his wife belonged. In the conclave (1484) which followed the death of Sixtus — that in which Innocent VIII was elected — an incident occurred which seemed to furnish the papacy with a new external guarantee. Two cardinals, who, at the same time, were princes of ruling houses, Giovanni d'Aragona, son of King Ferrante, and Ascanio Sforza, brother of the Moor, sold their votes with the most shameless effrontery; so that, at any rate, the ruling houses of Naples and Milan became interested, by their participation in the booty, in the continuance of the papal system. Once again, in the following conclave, when all the cardinals but five sold themselves, Ascanio received enormous sums in bribes, but without cherishing the hope that at the next election he would himself be the favoured candidate.
Lorenzo the Magnificent, for his part, was anxious that the House of Medici should not be sent away with empty hands. He married his daughter Maddalena to the son of the new pope — the first who publicly acknowledged his children — Franceschetto Cibò, and expected not only favours of all kinds for his own son, Cardinal Giovanni, afterwards Leo X, but also the rapid promotion of his son-in-law. But with respect to the latter, he demanded impossibilities. Under Innocent VIII there was no opportunity for the audacious nepotism by which states had been founded, since Franceschetto himselfwas a poor creature who, like his father the pope, sought power only for the lowest purpose of all — the acquisition and accumulation of money. The manner, however, in which father and son practised this occupation must have led sooner or later to a final catastrophe — the dissolution of the state. If Sixtus had filled his treasury by the sale of spiritual dignities and favours, Innocent and his son, for their part, established an office for the sale of secular favours, in which pardons for murder and manslaughter were sold for large sums of money. Out of every fine 150 ducats were paid into the papal exchequer, and what was over to Franceschetto. Rome, during the latter part of this pontificate, swarmed with licensed and unlicensed assassins; the factions, which Sixtus had begun to put down, were again as active as ever; the pope, well guarded in the Vatican, was satisfied with now and then laying a trap, in which a wealthy misdoer was occasionally caught. For Franceschetto the chief point was to know by what means, when the pope died, he could escape with well-filled coffers. He betrayed himself at last, on the occasion of a false report (1490) of his father's death; he endeavoured to carry off all the money in the papal treasury, and when this proved impossible, insisted that, at all events, the Turkish prince, Djem, should go with him, and serve as a living capital, to be advantageously disposed of, perhaps to Ferrante of Naples. It is hard to estimate the political possibilities of remote periods, but we cannot help asking ourselves the question, if Rome could have survived two or three pontificates of this kind. Even with reference to the believing countries of Europe, it was imprudent to let matters go so far that not only travellers and pilgrims, but a whole embassy of Maximilian, King of the Romans, were stripped to their shirts in the neighbourhood of Rome, and that envoys had constantly to turn back without setting foot within the city.
Such a condition of things was incompatible with the conception of power and its pleasures which inspired the gifted Alexander VI (1492—1503), and the first event that happened was the restoration, at least provisionally, of public order, and the punctual payment of every salary.
Strictly speaking, as we are now discussing phases of Italian civilization, this pontificate might be passed over, since the Borgias are no more Italian than the House of Naples. Alexander spoke Spanish in public with Cesare; Lucrezia, at her entrance to Ferrara, where she wore a Spanish costume, was sung to by Spanish buffoons; their confidential servants consisted of Spaniards, as did also the most ill-famed company of the troops of Cesare in the war of 1500; and even his hangman, Don Micheletto, and his poisoner, Sebastian Pinzon Cremonese, seem to have been of the same nation. Among his other achievements, Cesare, in true Spanish fashion, killed, according to the rules of the craft, six wild bulls in an enclosed court. But the Roman corruption, which seemed to culminate in this family, was already far advanced when they came to the city.
What they were and what they did has been often and fully described. Their immediate purpose, which, in fact, they attained, was the complete subjugation of the pontifical state. All the petty despots, who were mostly more or less refractory vassals of the Church, were expelled or destroyed; and in Rome itself the two great factions were annihilated, the so-called Guelph Orsini as well as the so-called Ghibel-line Colonna. But the means employed were of so frightful a character that they must certainly have ended in the ruin of the papacy, had not the contemporaneous death of both father and son by poison suddenly intervened to alter the whole aspect of the situation. The moral indignation of Christendom was certainly no great source of danger to Alexander; at home he was strong enough to extort terror and obedience; foreign rulers were won over to his side, and Louis XII even aided him to the utmost of his power. The mass of the people throughout Europe had hardly a conception of what was passing in Central Italy. The only moment which was really fraught with danger — when Charles VIII was in Italy — went by with unexpected fortune, and even then it was not the papacy as such that was in peril, but Alexander, who risked being supplanted by a more respectable pope. The great, permanent and increasing danger for the papacy lay in Alexander himself, and, above all, in his son Cesare Borgia.
In the nature of the father, ambition, avarice and sensuality were combined with strong and brilliant qualities. All the pleasures of power and luxury he granted himself from the first day of his pontificate in the fullest measure. In the choice of means to this end he was wholly without scruple; it was known at once that he would more than compensate himself for the sacrifices which his election had involved, and that the simony of the seller would far exceed the simony of the buyer. It must be remembered that the vice-chancellorship and other offices which Alexander had formerly held had taught him to know better and turn to more practical account the various sources of revenue than any other member of the Curia. As early as 1494, a Carmelite, Adam of Genoa, who had preached at Rome against simony, was found murdered in his bed with twenty wounds. Hardly a single cardinal was appointed without the payment of enormous sums of money.
But when the pope in course of time fell under the influence of his son Cesare Borgia, his violent measures assumed that character of devilish wickedness which necessarily reacts upon the ends pursued. What was done in the struggle with the Roman nobles and with the tyrants of Romagna exceeded in faithlessness and barbarity even that measure to which the Aragonese rulers of Naples had already accustomed the world; and the genius for deception was also greater. The manner in which Cesare isolated his father, murdering brother, brother-in-law and other relations or courtiers, whenever their favour with the pope or their position in any other respect became inconvenient to him, is literally appalling. Alexander was forced to acquiesce in the murder of his best-loved son, the Duke of Gandia, since he himself lived in hourly dread of Cesare.
What were the final aims of the latter? Even in the last months of his tyranny, when he had murdered the condottieri at Sinigaglia, and was to all intents and purposes master of the ecclesiastical state (1503), those who stood near him gave the modest reply that the duke merely wished to put down the factions and the despots, and all for the good of the Church only; that for himself he desired nothing more than the lordship of the Romagna, and that he had earned the gratitude of all the following popes by riding them of the Orsini and Colonna. But no one will accept this as his ultimate design. The Pope Alexander himself, in his discussions with the Venetian ambassador, went further than this, when committing his son to the protection of Venice: 'I will see to it,' he said, 'that one day the papacy shall belong either to him or to you.' Cesare certainly added that no one could become pope without the consent of Venice, and for this end the Venetian cardinals had only to keep well together. Whether he referred to himself or not we are unable to say; at all events, the declaration of his father is sufficient to prove his designs on the pontifical throne. We further obtain from Lucrezia Borgia a certain amount of indirect evidence, in so far as certain passages in the poems of Ercole Strozza may be the echo of expressions which she as Duchess of Ferrara may easily have permitted herself to use. Here, too, Cesare's hopes of the papacy are chiefly spoken of; but now and then a supremacy over all Italy is hinted at, and finally we are given to understand that as temporal ruler Cesare's projects were of the greatest, and that for their sake he had formerly surrendered his cardinalate. In fact, there can be no doubt whatever that Cesare, whether chosen pope or not after the death of Alexander, meant to keep possession of the pontifical state at any cost, and that this, after all the enormities he had committed, he could not as pope have succeeded in doing permanently. He, if anybody, could have secularized the States of the Church, and he would have been forced to do so in order to keep them. Unless we are much deceived, this is the real reason of the secret sympathy with which Machiavelli treats the great criminal; from Cesare, or from nobody, could it be hoped that he 'would draw the steel from the wound', in other words, annihilate the papacy — the source of all foreign intervention and of all the divisions of Italy. The intriguers who thought to divine Cesare's aims, when holding out to him hopes of the kingdom of Tuscany, seem to have been dismissed with contempt.
But all logical conclusions from his premises are idle, not because of the unaccountable genius which in fact characterized him as little as it did Wallenstein, but because the means which he employed were not compatible with any large and consistent course of action. Perhaps, indeed, in the very excess of his wickedness some prospect of salvation for the papacy may have existed even without the accident which put an end to his rule.
Even if we assume that the destruction of the petty despots in the pontifical state had gained for him nothing but sympathy, even if we take as proof of his great projects the army, composed of the best soldiers and officers in Italy, with Leonardo da Vinci as chief engineer, which followed his fortunes in 1502, other facts nevertheless wear such a character of unreason that our judgement, like that of contemporary observers, is wholly at a loss to explain them. One fact of this kind is the devastation and maltreatment of the newly won state, which Cesare still intended to keep and to rule over. Another is the condition of Rome and of the Curia in the last decades of the pontificate. Whether it were that father and son had drawn up a formal list of proscribed persons, or that the murders were resolved upon one by one, in either case the Borgias were bent on the secret destruction of all who stood in their way or whose inheritance they coveted. Of this money and movable goods formed the smallest part; it was a much greater source of profit for the pope that the incomes of the clerical dignitaries in question were suspended by their death, and that he received the revenues of their offices while vacant, and the price of these offices when they were filled by the successors of the murdered men. The Venetian ambassador Paolo Capello announces in the year 1500: 'Every night four or five murdered men are discovered — bishops, prelates and others — so that all Rome is trembling for fear of being destroyed by the duke [Cesare].' He himself used to wander about Rome in the night-time with his guards, and there is every reason to believe that he did so not only because, like Tiberius, he shrank from showing his now repulsive features by daylight, but also to gratify his insane thirst for blood, perhaps even on the persons of those unknown to him.
As early as the year 1499 the despair was so great and so general that many of the papal guards were waylaid and put to death. But those whom the Borgias could not assail with open violence fell victims to their poison. For the cases in which a certain amount of discretion seemed requisite, a white powder of an agreeable taste was made use of, which did not work on the spot, but slowly and gradually, and which could be mixed without notice in any dish or goblet. Prince Djem had taken some of it in a sweet draught, before Alexander surrendered him to Charles VIII (1495), and at the end of their career father and son poisoned themselves with the same powder by accidentally tasting a sweetmeat intended for a wealthy cardinal. The official epitomizer of the history of the popes, Onofrio Panvinio, mentions three cardinals, Orsini, Ferrerio and Michiel, whom Alexander caused to be poisoned, and hints at a fourth, Giovanni Borgia, whom Cesare took into his own charge — though probably wealthy prelates seldom died in Rome at that time without giving rise to suspicions of this sort. Even tranquil scholars who had withdrawn to some provincial town were not out of reach of the merciless poison. A secret horror seemed to hang about the pope; storms and thunderbolts, crushing in walls and chambers, had in earlier times often visited and alarmed him; in the year 1500, when these phenomena were repeated, they were held to be cosa diabolica. The report of these events seems at last, through the well-attended jubilee of 1500, to have been carried far and wide throughout the countries of Europe, and the infamous traffic in indulgences did what else was needed to draw all eyes upon Rome. Besides the returning pilgrims, strange white-robed penitents came from Italy to the North, among them disguised fugitives from the papal state, who are not likely to have been silent. Yet none can calculate how far the scandal and indignation of Christendom might have gone before they became a source of pressing danger to Alexander. 'He would,' says Panvinio elsewhere, 'have put all the other rich cardinals and prelates out of the way, to get their property, had he not, in the midst of his great plans for his son, been struck down by death.' And what might not Cesare have achieved if, at the moment when his father died, he had not himself been laid upon a sickbed! What a conclave would that have been, in which, armed with all his weapons, he had extorted his election from a college whose numbers he had judiciously reduced by poison — and this at a time when there was no French army at hand! In pursuing such a hypothesis the imagination loses itself in an abyss.
Instead of this followed the conclave in which Pius III was elected, and, after his speedy death, that which chose Julius II — both elections the fruits of a general reaction.
Whatever may have been the private morals of Julius II, in all essential respects he was the saviour of the papacy. His familiarity with the course of events since the pontificate of his uncle Sixtus had given him a profound insight into the grounds and conditions of the papal authority. On these he founded his own policy, and devoted to it the whole force and passion of his unshaken soul. He ascended the steps of St Peter's chair without simony and amid general applause, and with him ceased, at all events, the undisguised traffic in the highest offices of the Church. Julius had favourites, and among them were some the reverse of worthy, but a special fortune put him above the temptation to nepotism. His brother, Giovanni della Rovere, was the husband of the heiress of Urbino, sister of the last Montefeltro Guidobaldo, and from this marriage was born, in 1491, a son, Francesco Maria della Rovere, who was at the same time papal nipote and lawful heir to the duchy of Urbino. What Julius elsewhere acquired, either on the field of battle or by diplomatic means, he proudly bestowed on the Church, not on his family; the ecclesiastical territory, which he found in a state of dissolution, he bequeathed to his successor completely subdued, and increased by Parma and Piacenza. It was not his fault that Ferrara too was not added to the dominions of the Church. The 700,000 ducats which were stored up in the Castel Sant' Angelo were to be delivered by the governor to none but the future pope. He made himself heir of the cardinals, and, indeed, of all the clergy who died in Rome, and this by the most despotic means; but he murdered or poisoned none of them. That he should himself lead his forces to battle was for him an unavoidable necessity, and certainly did him nothing but good at a time when a man in Italy was forced to be either hammer or anvil, and when personality was a greater power than the most indisputable right. If, despite all his high-sounding 'Away with the barbarians!' he nevertheless contributed more than any man to the firm settlement of the Spaniards in Italy, he may have thought it a matter of indifference to the papacy, or even, as things stood, a relative advantage. And to whom, sooner than to Spain, could the Church look for a sincere and lasting respect, in an age when the princes of Italy cherished none but the sacrilegious projects against her? Be this as it may, the powerful, original nature, which could swallow no anger and conceal no genuine good-will, made on the whole the impression most desirable in his situation — that of the pontefice terribile. He could even, with a comparatively clear conscience, venture to summon a Council to Rome, and so bid defiance to that outcry for a Council which was raised by the opposition all over Europe. A ruler of this stamp needed some great outward symbol of his conceptions; Julius found it in the reconstruction of St Peter's. The plan of it, as Bramante wished to have it, is perhaps the grandest expression of power in unity which can be imagined. In other arts besides architecture the face and the memory of the pope live on in their most ideal form, and it is not without significance that even the Latin poetry of those days gives proof of a wholly different enthusiasm for Julius than that shown for his predecessors. The entry into Bologna, at the end of the Iter Julii Secundi, by the Cardinal Adriano da Corneto, has a splendour of its own, and Giovan Antonio Flaminio, in one of the finest elegies, appealed to the patriot in the pope to grant his protection to Italy.
In a constitution of his Lateran Council, Julius had solemnly denounced the simony of the papal elections. After his death in 1513, the money-loving cardinals tried to evade the prohibition by proposing that the endowments and offices hitherto held by the chosen candidate should be equally divided among themselves, in which case they would have elected the best-endowed cardinal, the incompetent Raphael Riario. But a reaction, chiefly arising from the younger members of the Sacred College, who, above all things, desired a liberal pope, rendered the miserable combination futile; Giovanni Medici was elected — the famous Leo X.
We shall often meet with him in treating of the noonday of the Renaissance; here we wish only to point out that under him the papacy was again exposed to great inward and outward dangers. Among these we do not reckon the conspiracy of the Cardinals Petrucci, De Saulis, Riario and Corneto (1517), which at most could have occasioned a change of persons, and to which Leo found the true antidote in the unheard-of creation of thirty-one new cardinals, a measure which had the additional advantage of rewarding, in some cases at least, real merit.
But some of the paths which Leo allowed himself to tread during the first two years of his office were perilous to the last degree. He seriously endeavoured to secure, by negotiation, the kingdom of Naples for his brother Giuliano, and for his nephew Lorenzo a powerful North Italian state, to comprise Milan, Tuscany, Urbino and Ferrara. It is clear that the pontifical state, thus hemmed in on all sides, would have become a mere Medicean appanage, and that, in fact, there would have been no further need to secularize it.
The plan found an insuperable obstacle in the political conditions of the time. Giuliano died early. To provide for Lorenzo, Leo undertook to expel the Duke Francesco Maria della Rovere from Urbino, but reaped from the war nothing but hatred and poverty, and was forced, when in 1519 Lorenzo followed his uncle to the grave, to hand over the hard-won conquests to the Church. He did on compulsion and without credit what, if it had been done voluntarily, would have been to his lasting honour. What he attempted against Alfonso of Ferrara, and actually achieved against a few petty despots and condottieri, was assuredly not of a kind to raise his reputation. And this was at a time when the monarchs of the West were yearly growing more and more accustomed to political gambling on a colossal scale, of which the stakes were this or that province of Italy. Who could guarantee that, since the last decades had seen so great an increase of their power at home, their ambition would stop short of the States of the Church? Leo himself witnessed the prelude of what was fulfilled in the year 1527; a few bands of Spanish infantry appeared — of their own accord, it seems — at the end of 1520, on the borders of the pontifical territory, with a view of laying the pope under contribution, but were driven back by the papal forces. The public feeling, too, against the corruptions of the hierarchy had of late years been drawing rapidly to a head, and men with an eye for the future, like the younger Pico della Mirandola, called urgently for reform. Meantime Luther had already appeared upon the scene.
Under Adrian VI (1522—3), the few and timid improvements, carried out in the face of the great German Reformation, came too late. He could do little more than proclaim his horror of the course which things had taken hitherto, of simony, nepotism, prodigality, brigandage and profligacy. The danger from the side of the Lutherans was by no means the greatest; an acute observer from Venice, Girolamo Negro, uttered his fears that a speedy and terrible disaster would befall the city of Rome itself.
Under Clement VII the whole horizon of Rome was filled with vapours, like that leaden veil which the scirocco drew over the Campagna, and which made the last months of summer so deadly. The pope was no less detested at home than abroad. Thoughtful people were filled with anxiety, hermits appeared upon the streets and squares of Rome, foretelling the fate of Italy and of the world, and calling the pope by the name of Antichrist; the faction of the Colonna raised its head defiantly; the indomitable Cardinal Pompeo Colonna, whose mere existence was a permanent menace to the papacy, ventured to surprise the city in 1526, hoping, with the help of Charles V, to become pope then and there, as soon as Clement was killed or captured. It was no piece of good fortune for Rome that the latter was able to escape to the Castel Sant' Angelo, and the fate for which he himself was reserved may well be called worse than death.
By a series of those falsehoods, which only the powerful can venture on, but which bring ruin upon the weak, Clement brought about the advance of the Germano-Spanish army under Bourbon and Frundsberg (1527). It is certain that the Cabinet of Charles V intended to inflict on him a severe castigation, and that it could not calculate beforehand how far the zeal of its unpaid hordes would carry them. It would have been vain to attempt to enlist men in Germany without paying any bounty, if it had not been well known that Rome was the object of the expedition. It may be that the written orders to Bourbon will be found some day or other, and it is not improbable that they will prove to be worded mildly. But historical criticism will not allow itself to be led astray. The Catholic king and emperor owed it to his luck and nothing else that pope and cardinals were not murdered by his troops. Had this happened, no sophistry in the world could clear him of his share in the guilt. The massacre of countless people of less consequence, the plunder of the rest, and all the horrors of torture and traffic in human life show clearly enough what was possible in the Sacco di Roma.
Charles seems to have wished to bring the pope, who had fled a second time to the Castel Sant' Angelo, to Naples, after extorting from him vast sums of money, and Clement's flight to Orvieto must have happened without any connivance on the part of Spain. Whether the emperor ever thought seriously of the secularization of the States of the Church, for which everybody was quite prepared, and whether he was really dissuaded from it by the representations of Henry VIII of England, will probably never be made clear.
But if such projects really existed, they cannot have lasted long: from the devastated city arose a new spirit of reform both in Church and state. It made itself felt in a moment. Cardinal Sadoleto, one witness of many, thus writes:
If through our suffering a satisfaction is made to the wrath and justice of God, if these fearful punishments again open the way to better laws and morals, then is our misfortune perhaps not of the greatest ... What belongs to God He will take care of; before us lies a life of reformation, which no violence can take from us. Let us so rule our deeds and thoughts as to seek in God only the true glory of the priesthood and our own true greatness and power.
In point of fact, this critical year, 1527, so far bore fruit that the voices of serious men could again make themselves heard. Rome had suffered too much to return, even under a Paul III, to the gay corruption of Leo X.
The papacy, too, when its sufferings became so great, began to excite a sympathy half religious and half political. The kings could not tolerate that one of their number should arrogate to himself the rights of papal gaoler, and concluded (18 August 1527) the Treaty of Amiens, one of the objects of which was the deliverance of Clement. They thus, at all events, turned to their own account the unpopularity which the deeds of the imperial troops had excited. At the same time the emperor became seriously embarrassed, even in Spain, where the prelates and grandees never saw him without making the most urgent remonstrances. When a general deputation of the clergy and laity, all clothed in mourning, was projected, Charles, fearing that troubles might arise out of it, like those of the insurrection quelled a few years before, forbade the scheme. Not only did he not dare to prolong the maltreatment of the pope, but he was absolutely compelled, even apart from all considerations of foreign politics, to be reconciled with the papacy which he had so grievously wounded. For the temper of the German people, which certainly pointed to a different course, seemed to him, like German affairs generally, to afford no foundation for a policy. It is possible, too, as a Venetian maintains, that the memory of the sack of Rome lay heavy on his conscience, and tended to hasten that expiation which was sealed by the permanent subjection of the Florentines to the Medicean family of which the pope was a member. The nipote and new duke, Alessandro Medici, was married to the natural daughter of the emperor.
In the following years the plan of a Council enabled Charles to keep the papacy in all essential points under his control, and at one and the same time to protect and to oppress it. The greatest danger of all — secularization — the danger which came from within, from the popes themselves and their nipoti, was adjourned for centuries by the German Reformation. Just as this alone had made the expedition against Rome (1527) possible and successful, so did it compel the papacy to become once more the expression of a world-wide spiritual power, to raise itself from the soulless debasement in which it lay, and to place itself at the head of all the enemies of this Reformation. The institution thus developed during the latter years of Clement VII, and under Paul III, Paul IV, and their successors, in the face of the defection of half Europe, was a new, regenerated hierarchy, which avoided all the great and dangerous scandals of former times, particularly nepotism, with its attempts at territorial aggrandizement, and which, in alliance with the Catholic princes, and impelled by a new-born spiritual force, found its chief work in the recovery of what had been lost. It only existed and is only intelligible in opposition to the seceders. In this sense it can be said with perfect truth that the moral salvation of the papacy is due to its mortal enemies. And now its political position, too, though certainly under the permanent tutelage of Spain, became impregnable; almost without effort it inherited, on the extinction of its vassals, the legitimate line of Este and the house of della Rovere, the duchies of Ferrara and Urbino. But without the Reformation — if, indeed, it is possible to think it away — the whole ecclesiastical state would long ago have passed into secular hands.
Patriotism
In conclusion, let us briefly consider the effect of these political circumstances on the spirit of the nation at large.
It is evident that the general political uncertainty in Italy during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was of a kind to excite in the better spirits of the time a patriotic disgust and opposition. Dante and Petrarch, in their day, proclaimed loudly a common Italy, the object of the highest efforts of all her children. It may be objected that this was only the enthusiasm of a few highly instructed men, in which the mass of the people had no share; but it can hardly have been otherwise even in Germany, although in name at least that country was united, and recognized in the emperor one supreme head. The first patriotic utterances of German literature, if we except some verses of the Minnesänger, belong to the humanists of the time of Maximilian I and after, and read like an echo of Italian declamations. And yet, as a matter of fact, Germany had been long a nation in a truer sense than Italy ever was since the Roman days. France owes the consciousness of its national unity mainly to its conflicts with the English, and Spain has never permanently succeeded in absorbing Portugal, closely related as the two countries are. For Italy, the existence of the ecclesiastical state, and the conditions under which alone it could continue, were a permanent obstacle to national unity, an obstacle whose removal seemed hopeless. When, therefore, in the political intercourse of the fifteenth century, the common fatherland is sometimes emphatically named, it is done in most cases to annoy some other Italian state. But those deeply serious and sorrowful appeals to national sentiment were not heard again till later, when the time for unity had gone by, when the country was inundated with Frenchmen and Spaniards. The sense of local patriotism may be said in some measure to have taken the place of this feeling, though it was but a poor equivalent for it.
目录
Contents
Introduction to the Chinese Editions of Great Ideas
企鹅口袋书系列·伟大的思想
民族主义
(英汉双语)
[印度]拉宾德拉纳特·泰戈尔 著
刘 涵 汉译
中国出版传媒股份有限公司
中国对外翻译出版有限公司
图书在版编目(CIP)数据
民族主义:英汉双语/(印)泰戈尔(Tagore,R.)著;刘涵译.—北京:中国对外翻译出版有限公司,2014.1
(企鹅口袋书系列·伟大的思想)
ISBN 978-7-5001-3881-5
Ⅰ.①民… Ⅱ.①泰… ②刘… Ⅲ.①英语—汉语—对照读物 ②民族主义—研究 Ⅳ.①H319.4:D
中国版本图书馆CIP数据核字(2014)第000770号
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《伟大的思想》中文版序
企鹅《伟大的思想》丛书2004年开始出版。在英国,已付印80种,尚有20种计划出版。美国出版的丛书规模略小,德国的同类丛书规模更小一些。丛书销量已远远超过200万册,在全球很多人中间,尤其是学生当中,普及了哲学和政治学。中文版《伟大的思想》丛书的推出,迈出了新的一步,令人欢欣鼓舞。
推出这套丛书的目的是让读者再次与一些伟大的非小说类经典著作面对面地交流。太长时间以来,确定版本依据这样一个假设——读者在教室里学习这些著作,因此需要导读、详尽的注释、参考书目等。此类版本无疑非常有用,但我想,如果能够重建托马斯·潘恩《常识》或约翰·罗斯金《艺术与人生》初版时的环境,重新营造更具亲和力的氛围,那也是一件有意思的事。当时,读者除了原作者及其自身的理性思考外没有其他参照。
这样做有一定的缺点:每个作者的话难免有难解或不可解之处,一些重要的背景知识会缺失。例如,读者对亨利·梭罗创作时的情况毫无头绪,也不了解该书的接受情况及影响。不过,这样做的优点也很明显。最突出的优点是,作者的初衷又一次变得重要起来——托马斯·潘恩的愤怒、查尔斯·达尔文的灵光、塞内加的隐逸。这些作家在那么多国家影响了那么多人的生活,其影响不可估量,有的长达几个世纪,读他们书的乐趣罕有匹敌。没有亚当·斯密或阿图尔·叔本华,难以想象我们今天的世界。这些小书的创作年代已很久远,但其中的话已彻底改变了我们的政治学、经济学、智力生活、社会规划和宗教信仰。
《伟大的思想》丛书一直求新求变。地区不同,收录的作家也不同。在中国或美国,一些作家更受欢迎。英国《伟大的思想》收录的一些作家在其他地方则默默无闻。称其为“伟大的思想”,我们亦慎之又慎。思想之伟大,在于其影响之深远,而不意味着这些思想是“好”的,实际上一些书可列入“坏”思想之列。丛书中很多作家受到同一丛书其他作家的很大影响,例如,马塞尔·普鲁斯特承认受约翰·罗斯金影响很大,米歇尔·德·蒙田也承认深受塞内加影响,但其他作家彼此憎恨,如果发现他们被收入同一丛书,一定会气愤难平。不过,读者可自行决定这些思想是否合理。我们衷心希望,您能在阅读这些杰作中得到乐趣。
《伟大的思想》出版者
西蒙·温德尔
Introduction to the Chinese
Editions of Great Ideas
Penguin's Great Ideas series began publication in 2004. In the UK we now have 80 copies in print with plans to publish a further 20. A somewhat smaller list is published in the USA and a related, even smaller series in Germany. The books have sold now well over two million copies and have popularized philosophy and politics for many people around the world — particularly students. The launch of a Chinese Great Ideas series is an extremely exciting new development.
The intention behind the series was to allow readers to be once more face to face with some of the great nonfiction classics. For too long the editions of these books were created on the assumption that you were studying them in the classroom and that the student needed an introduction, extensive notes, a bibliography and so on. While this sort of edition is of course extremely useful, I thought it would be interesting to recreate a more intimate feeling — to recreate the atmosphere in which, for example, Thomas Paine's Common Sense or John Ruskin's On Art and Life was first published — where the reader has no other guide than the original author and his or her own common sense.
This method has its severe disadvantages — there will inevitably be statements made by each author which are either hard or impossible to understand, some important context might be missing. For example the reader has no clue as to the conditions under which Henry Thoreau was writing his book and the reader cannot be aware of the book's reception or influence. The advantages however are very clear — most importantly the original intentions of the author become once more important. The sense of anger in Thomas Paine, of intellectual excitement in Charles Darwin, of resignation in Seneca — few things can be more thrilling than to read writers who have had such immeasurable influence on so many lives, sometimes for centuries, in many different countries. Our world would not make sense without Adam Smith or Arthur Schopenhauer — our politics, economics, intellectual lives, social planning, religious beliefs have all been fundamentally changed by the words in these little books, first written down long ago.
The Great Ideas series continues to change and evolve. In different parts of the world different writers would be included. In China or in the United States there are some writers who are liked much more than others. In the UK there are writers in the Great Ideas series who are ignored elsewhere. We have also been very careful to call the series Great Ideas — these ideas are great because they have been so enormously influential, but this does not mean that they are Good Ideas — indeed some of the books would probably qualify as Bad Ideas. Many of the writers in the series have been massively influenced by others in the series — for example Marcel Proust owned so much to John Ruskin, Michel de Montaigne to Seneca. But others hated each other and would be distressed to find themselves together in the same series! But readers can decide the validity of these ideas for themselves. We very much hope that you enjoy these remarkable books.
Simon Winder
Publisher
Great Ideas
译者导读
拉宾德拉纳特·泰戈尔(Rabindranath Tagore,1861-1941),印度著名诗人、作家、哲学家、艺术家以及社会活动家。他于1913年获得诺贝尔文学奖,是第一位获此殊荣的非欧洲人。中国读者对于泰戈尔的了解更多的是来自于他的诗歌作品,如《园丁集》《飞鸟集》《吉檀迦利》等等。然而,泰戈尔的成就是多方面的。除了诗歌以外,他还创作并出版了大量的小说、戏剧、哲学以及政治学论著。
本次翻译出版的《民族主义》是泰戈尔于1916年在日本和美国所做的三篇演讲稿的合集,是他有关政治思想的重要论述。本书共分三个部分,它们分别是:日本的民族主义、西方的民族主义和印度的民族主义。而将这三个部分串联在一起的唯一主题则是泰戈尔对于源自西方的“民族主义”的深刻批判。
在“日本的民族主义”当中,泰戈尔对东西方文明进行了比较,对日本的崛起寄予了希望,同时还对她所面临的的危险倾向提出了警告。泰戈尔为古老的东方文明进行辩护,认为它并非玄学,而是某种确实存在的、为人类心灵提供了庇护和滋养的智慧;它并非政治的文明,而是一种社会的和精神的文明,并且终将会有发扬光大的一天。泰戈尔还认为日本为亚洲各国树立了崛起的榜样,因为她不但获得了所有现代社会的禀赋,而且还深深地扎根于脚下这片古老的东方沃土。但是同时,泰戈尔还告诫日本不要盲目地模仿西方,不要以为实现了西方式的现代化就万事大吉了,特别是不要学习西方的民族主义,而放弃自己固有的精神理想。
尽管三篇演讲稿的主题都是对于“民族主义”的批判,“西方的民族主义”仍然是对此讨论最为集中的一篇。泰戈尔认为民族是指,全体人民为了某个机械的目的,即获取政治的和经济的利益,而组织在一起所形成的团体。它是一个社会组织,是一台依靠贪婪的欲望来驱动的机器,它是人类道德理想的死敌。泰戈尔认为民族主义是理智的、科学的、机械的,而非人性的。尽管打着爱国主义的旗号,其实质则是民族的自私自利;对其他国家的人民,特别是对非民族主义的、贫弱国家的人民来说,则是残酷的剥削、束缚和压迫;而且,民族主义国家的人民往往会在浑然不知当中听由其政府的摆布,甚至于自豪而愉快地拜倒在本国的民族主义旗下。泰戈尔认为道德的律法才是人类永恒的真理,它不仅适用于个人,同样也适用于各个国家和组织。因此,与人类道德理想背道而驰的民族主义注定要喝下自己所酿成的毒酒,并且最终走上一条灭亡的不归之路。
在“印度的民族主义”中,泰戈尔认为印度同样不能盲目地学习西方,而要坚持走自己的道路。他认为印度所面临的最为严重的问题不是政治问题,而是社会问题,是种族问题,是过于森严的、种族隔离的壁垒。他抨击了印度的种姓制度,认为它尽管承认了社会差别的存在,但是却否认了生命易变性的法则。关于美国,泰戈尔认为她没有受到历史的和传统的束缚,她乐观向上且感知力丰富,所以理应扛起未来文明的大旗,并且承担起向东方证明西方文明正当性的历史重任。
在演讲中,泰戈尔呼吁世界的和平和全人类的团结。他认为这个世界只有一部历史,那就是人类的历史。他的观点在过去,在现在,在将来都如夜空中的北斗一样指引着正义的人们前进的方向。总之,这是一本跨越时代的著作,无愧于“伟大的思想”的名号。
翻译质量的高低从根本上取决于译者对于目标语的理解和对于母语的驾驭。以己昏昏,使人昭昭是万万行不通的。所以我们千万要警惕有人以某种不伦不类的、磕磕绊绊的、与原文貌合神离的译文来冒充所谓的“忠实于原文”。真正的“忠实于原文”是对于原文精神实质的深刻理解和以母语进行的流畅表达。它不能对原文进行阉割、遗漏、肢解和篡改,也不能打着“忠实”的幌子使得原本优美的原文变得味同嚼蜡,甚至于一团乱麻。这是本次翻译《民族主义》的一点个人体会,谨供读者参考。
日本的民族主义
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对人们最残酷的奴役形式莫过于使其垂头丧气,因为这样就可以让他们在失去自信之中戴上绝望的枷锁。有人一遍又一遍地,有理有据地告诉我们,亚洲仍然活在它的过去当中——它就如同一座奢华的陵墓,以其庄严而华美的外表诉说着逝者的永垂不朽。他们说亚洲永远都不会走上进步的道路,因为它总是将视线投向过去。我们接受了这一指责,并且信以为真。据我所知,在印度有相当一部分受过教育的人们对这种指责所带来的羞辱感到厌倦,他们正试图调动一切可能调动的、自欺欺人的资源,努力将这一指责转变成某种可以自我吹嘘的事情。然而吹嘘只会掩盖羞耻,却并不能真正地说服自己。
就当这一切如此静止不动的时候,就当我们亚洲各国进入到一种恍恍惚惚的状态,认为任何的改变都不可能再发生的时候,日本从她的梦境中苏醒过来。她昂首阔步,将几百年来的无所作为甩在身后,并且以其卓越的成就站在了时代的潮头。这就打破了长久以来将我们陷于困境的魔咒——正是这一魔咒让我们相信,生活在某些地域内的某些种族的麻木不仁是理所当然的。然而我们却忘记了,伟大的王朝曾经在亚洲肇始,哲学、科学、艺术以及文学曾经在这里盛极一时,而世界上所有伟大的宗教都曾经在这里孕育。所以,我们不能说在亚洲的土壤和空气中有什么固有的东西会使我们的头脑变得迟钝,会使我们奋进的能力变得萎靡。几百年来,当西方在黑暗中昏昏欲睡的时候,我们东方人的确擎起了文明的火炬,而这一切都是我们并非思想懒惰或视野狭窄的明证。
然而漆黑的夜幕却降临在了东方的土地。时间的洪流突然间戛然而止。亚洲似乎停止了进食新鲜的食物,转而靠咀嚼自己的过去维持生计——这是名副其实的自给自足。沉寂如死亡一般,那曾经传递过永恒真理的伟大声音也寂静了下来。正是这永恒的真理将人类从累世的污秽中拯救出来,就如同新鲜的、流动的空气不断涤荡着人世的罪恶,给人类送来甜美的祝福。
然而此时,生命似乎开始了休眠,进入到一种无所作为的状态——它静止不动,不思茶饭,完全靠过去的储备苟延残喘。它变得无能为力,肌肉松弛,并且因为不省人事而饱受讥讽。但是,在生命的律动中,此时的暂停一定预示着将来的重生。活动中的生命在不断地消耗着自身的能量。而这种挥霍无度并非长久之计,总有一天,生命将会奄奄一息,所有的付出都会停止,所有的冒险都将放弃,而取而代之的是休息和缓慢的恢复。
头脑的脾性总是倾向于走捷径:它热衷于形成习惯并且沿着已有的车辙前行,从而避免了每走一步都要重新思考的麻烦。思维定式一旦形成就会使头脑变得懒惰。它会惧怕在新的努力和尝试中失去已经占有的东西。它会在习惯的堡垒后面储藏自己的财产,以确保万无一失。然而,这其实是将它自身禁锢起来,从而不可能享有自己的全部财产。这是吝啬。有生命力的头脑一定不能将其自身与发展变化中的生活相隔绝。它们真正的自由并不会被圈在安全的藩篱后面,而是走在探索的大路上,尝试着各种新鲜的刺激和冒险。
早上醒来,整个世界都惊异地发现,日本已经在一夜之间冲破了重重旧习的包围,带着胜利的喜悦站立了起来。这一切都在令人难以置信的瞬间完成,就好像换了件衣服那样轻而易举,而不像是建造了一幢新的建筑。日本展现出了成熟的自信和一个新生命所特有的鲜活以及无限的潜能。人们担心,日本的崛起只不过是历史的偶然错误,是孩子式的游戏——就如同吹起的肥皂泡,带着完美的弧形曲线和绚丽的色彩,内心却是空空如也。但是日本已经毫无疑问地证明了,她力量的突然迸发并不是昙花一现,并不是岁月潮汐的偶然产物——从某个昏暗幽冥的深处翻卷而起,瞬间又被冲进了遗忘之海。
事实是,日本既古老又年轻。她拥有东方的、古老的文化传承——这一文化要求人们在自己的灵魂深处寻求真正的财富和力量;要求人们在面对挫折和危险时泰然自若,勇于牺牲自我而不计成本和回报;要求人们蔑视死亡,接受不可胜数的、我们作为人所应当履行的社会责任。一句话,现代的日本从历史悠久的东方脱颖而出,就如同一束莲花般优雅地绽放,而同时又牢牢地植根于脚下这片沃土。
日本,这个古老东方的孩子,已经无所畏惧地获取了所有现代社会所具有的禀赋。她毅然决然地冲破了积习的束缚,抛弃了懒惰头脑中的废物——这懒惰的头脑在其自身所设定的捷径和作茧自缚中才能找到安全感。由此,她已经顺应了时代的潮流,并且热切地、聪慧地承担起了现代文明的责任。
这就是日本给亚洲各国树立起的精神样板。我们已经看到了自身所具有的生命和力量;我们要做的就是要去除掉身上的死痂。我们已经看到了在逝者的庇护之下只会是死路一条,只有毫无保留地冒生命之险才会获得新生。
就我个人而言,我不相信通过模仿西方日本就可以变成今天的样子。我们不可能模仿生命,也不可能长时间地冒充强大。不仅如此,单纯的模仿只会产生虚弱,因为它束缚了我们的天性,阻断了我们的进步。它就像是在我们的骨架上套上了别人的皮肤,自此以后,只要我们稍有动作,皮肤和骨骼之间便会产生无休止的争斗。
事实上,科学并非人的本性,科学是通过学习知识和接受训练获得的。仅仅知道物质世界的法则并不能改变你的更深层次的人性。你可以从旁人那里学会知识,却不可能从他们那里学会性情。
但是,当我们还处在接受教育的模仿阶段的时候,我们并不能区分哪些是基本的要素,哪些是非基本的;哪些是能学会的,哪些是学不会的。这就有点像原始人所相信的,某些外部表象的偶发事件所具有的魔力——尽管这些偶发事件往往与某些真理相伴而生。于是我们便担心如果不将果壳连同果仁一同吞掉的话,那么就有可能遗漏掉一些有价值和可受用的东西。然而,即便是我们的贪欲对于大量的占有感到洋洋自得,我们的生命本性也会去消化吸收——对于一个生命体来说,只有这种占有才是真正的占有。只要有生命,它就会根据其自身所固有的需要来决定取舍。生命体不会随着其食物的样子而改变模样;相反,它会将食物消化吸收为其身体的一部分。唯有如此,它才能茁壮成长,而不是简单的占有,抑或是放弃自己的个性。
日本已经从西方引进了食物,而非生死攸关的本性。她一定不能在从西方那里获得的科学装备中迷失自我,从而变成一部单纯的、借来的机器。日本有自己的灵魂,而这一灵魂一定要支配她的所有诉求。日本所表现出来的健康活力充分地证明了,她有能力这样做,她的消化吸收过程正在进行中。我真诚地希望日本永远都不要在炫耀学习西方的成果时失去对自己灵魂的信仰。因为这种炫耀本身就如同羞辱,最终会导致贫穷和虚弱。只有招摇过市的纨绔子弟才会把钱都花在自己的新头饰上面,而不是去丰富自己的头脑。
整个世界都在等着瞧,这个伟大的东方民族会怎样地利用她从现代社会的手中所接受的机遇和责任。如果只是单纯地效仿西方,那么她将会令大家的殷切期望化为泡影。因为迄今为止,西方文明在世人面前所暴露出的严重问题仍未得到圆满的解答。比如,个人和国家间的矛盾,劳资矛盾,男人和女人间的矛盾;人们对于物质的贪欲和对于精神生活的追求之间的矛盾,各个民族不约而同的自私自利与对于人性崇高理想的追求之间的矛盾;庞大的商业和国家组织所带来的、林林总总的丑恶现象与人类所具有的朴素、美和休闲的天然本性之间的矛盾,等等——所有这一切的矛盾都有待于以某种迄今仍未想见的方式加以调和。
我们看到,人类文明的洪流正因为它不可胜数的支流所携带冲刷下来的垃圾废物而变得病入膏肓。我们看到,尽管它吹嘘自己是如何地热爱人类,然而事实上它已然变成了人类的最大威胁,相比人类早期历史上所遭受的、游牧野蛮民族的突然入侵所带来的伤害还要大得多。我们看到,尽管它吹嘘自己热爱自由,然而事实上它比过去任何社会的、任何奴隶制的形式都要糟糕——它的奴役的锁链牢不可破,因为它要么无影无形,要么假借自由的名义显身。我们看到,在它恶毒的、肮脏污秽的魔咒之下,人类失去了对于所有那些曾经使他们变得伟大的、英雄史诗般的人生理想的信仰。
因此,你们不能草率地接受现代文明的所有脾性、方法和结构,并且认为它们都理所当然。你们一定要将自己的思想、自己的精神力量、自己对于朴素的热爱、自己所认可的社会责任等等,融入其中,从而为这台巨大的、笨拙的进步之车开辟出一条崭新的道路,去除掉它在前进的过程中发出的刺耳尖叫。这台车每前进一步都会对人类的生命和自由造成巨大的牺牲,而你们一定要把这牺牲降到最低。多少世代以来,你们都以自己独特的方式进行着感知、思考和工作;你们享受着生活、崇拜着神明;而这些都不要弃之如敝屣。它存在于你们的血液中、你们的骨髓里、你们的肌理中、你们的脑袋里;它一定会在你们浑然不知当中改变你们所接触到的一切,甚至非你所愿。一旦你们真正圆满地解决了人类的问题,你们就会获得自己的生命哲学,并且逐步形成你们自己的生活艺术。你们必须将这一切运用到现实的条件当中,由此,新的创造就会产生出来,而不仅仅是重蹈覆辙——这一创造将属于你们人民的灵魂所有,并且你们可以自豪地将其作为对于人类福祉的贡品敬献给全世界。在所有的亚洲国家当中,只有你们日本有条件可以自由地依据你们的天赋和需求来使用从西方那里获得的物质财富。因此,你们的责任就更为重大,因为正是通过你们的声音,亚洲才得以对欧洲摆到人类会议桌上的诸多问题作出解答。在你们的土地上,实验将会进行下去。东方将会通过这一实验改变现代文明的面貌,以人类的心灵替代冷漠的功利——它对于权力和成功斤斤计较,却对和谐的成长、真理以及美丽视而不见、听而不闻。
我非常乐意同你们一起回味过去的时光。那时,整个东亚,从缅甸到日本,都以最亲密的友谊作为纽带与印度紧密地联系在一起。那友谊是存在于民族间的、唯一的自然纽带。它是心有灵犀的,是一套使得人性中反映最深层次需要的信息在我们之间可以自由传递的神经系统。那时,我们彼此并不惧怕对方;我们不需要武装自己以求相互制约;我们之间的关系不是建立在自私自利、剥削和掠夺彼此财富的基础之上;我们交流思想和理念,互换最崇高的爱的礼物;语言和风俗的迥异并没有阻碍我们彼此心心相印;没有什么身体或是精神层面的、种族的优越感或是傲慢无礼伤害我们之间的关系;我们的文学和艺术在这紧密团结在一起的、心灵的阳光普照下生叶开花,同时,生活在不同地域、操着不同语言、有着不同历史的各个种族都认同人类、最崇高的团结和最亲密的爱的纽带。我们难道不记得了吗?在那些充满和平和善意的、人们团结一致为生命的最高目标而奋斗的过去的时光里,你们的天性,依靠自身所具有的不朽的膏油,帮助你们的人民在新的时代获得了重生,帮助你们的人民摆脱了旧体制的束缚并且换上一副新的、年轻的皮囊,帮助你们的人民从这个世界前所未见的、最伟大的、革命的震荡中走出来而毫发无伤。
从欧洲的土地上萌芽,并且像多产的杂草一样在全世界蔓延开来的政治文明是建立在排他性的基础之上的。它总是虎视眈眈地拒“外人”于千里之外,或是干脆消灭他们。它嗜血成性,同类相残;它吞噬掉其他民族的资源并且试图毁灭他们的未来;它唯恐其他的种族获得成功——用它的话来说叫作危险;它试图在自己的边界之外扼杀一切伟大的事物;它压制其他羸弱的种族,希望它们永远羸弱。在这种政治文明大行其道之前,在它张开血盆大口吞噬掉地球上的各个大洲之前,我们有过战争、掠夺、王权的更迭以及由此引起的悲惨境遇。但是,我们从未见过如此可怕和绝望的贪婪,如此大规模的国家间的奴役,如此将大部分的世界绞成肉馅的庞大机器,如此恐怖的嫉妒——它张开丑恶的爪牙,随时准备将对方开膛破肚、剖腹挖心。这一政治文明是科学的而非人性的。它强大有力,因为它为达目的而孤注一掷,就像一位百万富翁为了攫取钱财宁可出卖灵魂。它背信弃义,并且厚颜无耻地编织谎言的罗网;它在自己的庙宇中供奉着巨大的贪婪偶像,并且以其奢华的膜拜仪式为傲——它称之为爱国主义。我敢保证,这一所谓的政治文明不可能长久地维系下去,因为在这个世界上还有道德的律法。它适用于个人,也同样适用于人类有组织的群体。没有人可以一方面以个人的名义享受这些道德律法所带来的好处,而另一方面却以国家的名义违背这些律法。这种公然的对于道德理想的腐蚀会慢慢地影响到每个社会成员,逐渐地在人们看不到的地方滋生虚弱,从而引起人们对于人性当中所有神圣东西的怀疑,这种怀疑正是人类衰老的病症。你们一定要记住,这一政治文明,这一爱国主义的信条还没有接受长期的考验。古希腊的明灯在其最初点燃之地已经熄灭;古罗马的权杖已经死去,并被掩埋在了它那广阔帝国的废墟之下。但是文明,其植根于社会和人类的精神理想,在中国和印度仍然拥有着生命。尽管以现代的、机械功率的标准来衡量,它可能略显虚弱和渺小,然而,它就如同细小的种子一样,仍然蕴藏着生命。一旦时机成熟,上天播撒下仁慈的雨露,它就会发芽、成长;它就会抽出仁爱的枝条,并且开花结果。但是,权力的摩天大厦一旦坍塌,贪婪的机器一旦破碎,即便是上帝的甘露也不会使其获得新生;因为它们本身不是生命,而是作为一个整体与生命对抗——它们是在对抗永恒真理之后所留下的支离破碎的残骸。
然而,我们却受到这样的指责:你们东方所珍爱的理想是静止的;它们没有前进的动力,也没有开拓新知识和才能的前景;作为东方诸多老朽文明支柱的哲学体系轻视所有外在的证据,对其主观的臆断麻木不仁且自鸣得意。这一指责证明了,当我们对知识的掌握含混不清的时候,我们就会倾向于指责作为客体的知识本身是含混不清的。对于西方的观察家来说,我们的文明看上去都是玄学,这就如同对一个聋子来说,弹钢琴不过是手指的运动而不是什么音乐。他不会相信我们的制度建立在某种已经发现的、深刻的现实基础之上。
不幸的是,所有现实的证据都还在实现的过程当中。而你只会根据亲眼所见的事实来判断场面的真实性,所以对我们来说,想要向某个怀疑我们文明的人作出解释绝非易事。但我还是要说,我们的文明并非一个由抽象的推论构成的混沌体系,它已经得出了某种不容置疑的真理——这种真理能够为人类的心灵提供庇护和滋养。我们的文明已经催生了一种内在的直觉——一种直觉的洞察力,一种在一切有限的事物中看到无限实情的洞察力。
但是那个人会说:“你们没有取得什么进步;你们根本就没动弹。”这时候我会问他:“你怎么知道我们没有进步呢?判断事物进步与否要看它的目标是什么。一列火车开到了终点算是进步了——它确实移动了位置。但是对于一棵已经长成的大树来说,它是不会像那列火车一样有确切的移动的;它的成长进步是生命内在的成长。它活着,带着对阳光的渴望——这渴望刺痛着它的叶片,在它寂静的树液中缓缓地流淌。”
我们也已经存活了几个世纪了;我们仍然活着,并且渴望着获得一个不断得以实现的现实——这一现实超越了死亡,并且赋予它意义;这一现实脱离了所有生活中的罪恶,并且给它带来和平与纯洁,以及欢愉的、对于自我的摒弃。这种现实是内心生活的产物,它是有生命的。当一个年轻人拖着满是灰尘的、疲倦的身躯回到家中的时候,当一个士兵战斗负伤的时候,当你的财富付之流水而自尊心遭受打击的时候,当一个人的心灵在浩繁的事实面前渴求真理,在彼此矛盾的诉求中期盼和谐的时候,你就需要它了。它的价值并不体现于物质财富的增长,而是体现在精神上的满足。
有些事物是不能等待的。如果你要战斗,或是想要在市场中占据有利的位置,你就必须冲过去,跑过去,或是急行军走过去。你绷紧了神经,时刻准备着捕捉到那些稍纵即逝的机遇。但是有些理想并不会跟我们的生活玩捉迷藏的游戏;他们从种子到花朵,从花朵到果实,缓慢地生长;他们要求得到无限的空间和天堂的光辉从而变得成熟,而且他们所结出的果实能够禁得住经年的摧残和漠视。东方,带着她的理想,怀抱着数个世纪的阳光和寂寞的星辰,能够耐心地等待——直到有一天,为了权宜之计而手忙脚乱的西方气喘吁吁,停下脚步。欧洲,在匆匆忙忙赶赴约会的疾驰中,会轻蔑地向车窗外面的、田野中的收割者瞟上几眼。此时她陶醉于自己的一路狂飙,难免会认为那个收割者的动作是多么的迟缓,并且总是在不断地倒退。然而狂飙走到了尽头,约会也失去了意义,而且饥饿的心灵吵闹着索要食物。直到最后,她终于来到行动迟缓的、在骄阳下忙碌着的收割者的身旁。因为,如果说公务不能等待,或是说做买卖不能等待,抑或是说对于新鲜刺激亟不可待,那么爱是可以等待的,美是可以等待的,遭受苦难所获得的智慧、耐心奉献所收获的果实、纯粹的信仰所带来的谦卑和温和是可以等待的。因此,东方一定会等到属于她的时代的来临。
我会毫不犹豫地承认欧洲的伟大之处,因为她的伟大是毋庸置疑的。我们会情不自禁地、全心全意地热爱她,并且满怀羡慕之情地向她致以最崇高的敬意——因为亘古以来,在文学和艺术方面,欧洲就以其美和真理的永不枯竭的瀑布流水灌溉滋养着所有的国家;因为欧洲正在以其强大无比且不知疲倦的心智席卷着全宇宙的峰峦和深渊,人们对她无所不包且渊博无比的知识推崇备至,而且正在将其伟大的学识和心智应用于救死扶伤,减轻人们的痛苦——而到目前为止,我们都还在心甘情愿地、无计可施地承受着这些苦难;因为欧洲正使得我们脚下的这片土地孕育出多得超乎人们想象的果实,她正将自然的伟大力量玩弄于股掌之间使其为人类服务。如此伟大的成就必然有其精神的推动力。因为只有人类的精神才能对抗所有的桎梏,才能对自身的最终成功抱有信仰;它将搜索的目光抛向远方、洞穿迷雾,它满心欢喜地以身赴死,为的是达到它在今生所不能达到的目标,它接受失败却从不放弃。在欧洲的心灵深处流淌着最为纯净的爱的血液,那是对于正义的爱,充满了为了更高理想而自我牺牲的精神。数百年来的基督教文化已经在她的生命深处沉积下来。在欧洲,我们见到过那些置肤色和信仰于不顾,为了维护人权挺身而出的义士;他们勇敢地面对来自自己一方的各种流言蜚语甚至谩骂攻击,为了仁爱的理想而战斗,为了反对疯狂的穷兵黩武,为了反对有时控制了整个民族的、要求进行野蛮的报复和掠夺的狂暴情绪而振臂一呼;他们随时准备为自己的民族在过去所犯下的错误进行补救,并且徒劳地想要截住怯懦的、非正义的洪水,而这洪水正因为来自受害者一方软弱无力、不疼不痒的抵抗而四处奔流。在现代的欧洲,确有这样一些游侠,他们还没有丢掉自己的信仰;他们信仰无私的、对于自由的热爱,信仰超越地理边界或是国家私利的理想。这些人证明了,在欧洲,永世长流的水的源头还没有枯干,而正是在那里她将一遍又一遍地获得新生。而在另外一些地方,欧洲正在有意识地忙于积累自己的力量,违背并且嘲笑着自己内心的天性;她正在将自己的邪恶堆积得高耸入云,吵闹着要得到上天的惩罚,并且将自己灵魂和肉体的丑恶嘴脸传染给整个地球——用她无情的商业肆意地凌辱着人们对于美和善的良知。当欧洲的脸庞转向其人性的一面时她是多么的仁慈啊,而当她的脸庞转向自己利益一方的时候她又是多么的恶毒啊——她会竭尽所能达到目的,而这些目的却与人类的无限和永恒的目标背道而驰。
东亚一直在沿着自己的道路前行。她形成了自己的文明——这是一种社会的而非政治的文明;它不是一种掠夺性的、拥有机械效能的文明,而是一种精神的文明;它建立在人性所具有的、全部的、各种各样的、深层次关系的基础之上。各族人民生活当中的问题的解决方案都来自于远离尘嚣的苦思冥想,并且在丝毫没有受到王朝更迭和外敌入侵干扰的情况下,超然地付诸实施。但是现在,外面的世界突然降临,要想远离尘嚣再也不可能了。然而,我们一定不要为此而感到遗憾,这就像一株植物,永远都不要因为其播种期的隐伏状态被打破而感到遗憾一样。现在是我们应当把世界的问题当作自己问题的时候了;我们必须把文明的精神与世界上所有民族的历史相调和;我们一定不要以一种愚蠢的、高傲的姿态,将自己封闭在曾经保护并且孕育我们理想的谷壳和地壳里;因为这些谷壳和地壳一定会被打破,唯其如此,生机勃勃的美丽生命才会喷涌而出,将礼物奉献给这个阳光灿烂的世界。
在此项冲破藩篱面对世界的任务中,日本已经代表东方第一个站了起来。她已经将希望注满了全亚洲的心灵。这种希望提供了隐藏的火种,而这火种正是一切创造性工作所必需的。现在亚洲感到,她必须以有生命力的成就证明自己的生命;她不应当再被动地休眠,或是以恐惧和献媚的蠢态虚弱地模仿西方。由此,我们要感谢这个太阳升起的国度,并且郑重地要求她记住自己所要完成的东方使命。她应当将更为完整的人性的活力注入到现代文明的心脏中去。她一定不要允许有害的灌木将它窒息;而要引领它向上,直达阳光和自由,直达纯净的空气和广阔的天际。在那里,每当黎明和黑暗来临的时候,它都能接收到上天的启迪。让日本的伟大理想昭示于世人吧,就如同她高高耸立的富士山山顶上的白雪一样,让所有地方的人们都看到——它卓尔不群,有美艳处女一般曼妙的身姿,而同时又坚定强壮,恬静庄严。
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我曾经游历过很多国家,见到过各色人等;然而在我的游历当中,却从来没有见到过像在这片土地上存在着的、如此特殊的人性。在其他伟大的国家,人们的权力会凸显出来,而我也见到过庞大的组织机构,他们在各个方面都富有效率。在那些国家,服装、家具、奢华的招待等等方面的铺张炫耀程度让人咂舌。他们似乎要让你自惭形秽,就像是一个闯入盛宴的、不名一文的不速之客一样;他们善于让你感到羡慕或是大吃一惊。在那里,你不会感到作为一个人的至高无上;相反你会感到被抛到了一堆光怪陆离的物品堆中。但是在日本,给人最深印象的东西不是权力或是财富的炫耀。你所到之处能看到的,大都是爱和赞赏,而不是野心和贪婪。你所看到的是这样一个民族:她的心灵已经释放了出来,并且大量地体现在了其最常见的日常用品中、社会制度里、温文尔雅的举止上,以及它优雅而练达的处事方式等方面。
日本留给我最深的印象是你们已经认识到了自然的秘密,不是通过科学分析的方法,而是通过你们的同情心。你们已经获知了她的种种姿态所代表的语言,她的缤纷色彩所奏响的音乐,她的不规则中的对称,她的自由运动中的韵律;你们已经看到了她是如何统领庞大的物质群体而避免摩擦的,她的造物间的矛盾是如何转化为舞蹈和音乐的形式爆发的,她的生机勃勃是如何地充满了自我抛弃,而不仅仅是肆意的展示。你们已经发现,自然以美的形式储存了自己的力量;这种美,就如同母亲一样,用胸怀哺育着所有巨大的力量,并让它们充满生机,而自己却恬静安详。你们已经知道,自然的能量通过其完美的节奏使其自身免于枯竭,而同时,以其温柔的曲线带走了世间的疲劳。我感到你们已经能够将这些秘密融入到你们的生命当中去,而且那世间万物当中所蕴含的真理已经走入了你们的灵魂。对于事物表面知识的获取用不着花很长的时间,然而对于它们精神实质的掌握则需要数个世纪的训练和自我约束。同自然和谐地融为一体要比从表面上控制她困难得多,然而唯其如此才能叫作真正的智慧。你们的种族已经表现出了如此的智慧,不是通过获取,而是通过创造;不是通过物品的展示,而是通过它的内在本质向外透露。所有的民族都有这种创造性的力量;而这种力量,在抓住人类的本性并且根据它的理想赋予它某种形式方面也总是跃跃欲试。但在这里,在日本,这一力量似乎已经取得了成功,并且深深地进入到了所有人的头脑中,渗透到了他们的肌肉和神经里。你们的本能已经变得真实,感官变得敏锐,而且你们的手已经获得了自然的技巧。欧洲的智慧给予了她的人民以组织的力量,这一点主要表现在政治、商业以及科学知识的统筹等方面。日本的智慧不仅让你们看到了自然的美,而且给了你们可以使得它在生活中得以实现的力量。
所有特定的文明都是对某些特定人类经验的解读。欧洲似乎已经强烈地感受到宇宙中各种事物间的矛盾冲突,而这些矛盾冲突只有通过征服的手段才能将其置于控制之下。因此,欧洲总是准备战斗,而且她大部分的精力都集中到了对于力量的组织上面。但是日本感到,在她的世界里,有某种神灵的存在,而它则唤起了她灵魂深处某种虔诚的崇拜。日本并不吹嘘对于自然的掌控,而是带着无与伦比的关心和快乐,带给自然以爱的奉献。日本与外部世界的关系是深层次的心灵的交汇。她已经与本国的群山、海洋、溪流,以及繁花似锦、枝繁叶茂的森林结成了爱的精神纽带;她已经对林地的沙沙低语和叹息、波浪的呜咽和抽泣敞开了心扉;她已经研究了太阳和月亮全部阴晴圆缺的变化,并且会高兴地关门歇业,以便迎接其果园、花园和麦田里的收获季节。这种对于外部世界的灵魂敞开心扉的状态并不仅仅局限在你们上层社会的小圈子里;它并不是外来文化强加给你们的东西,相反,它属于你们的全体人民——男人和女人。你们灵魂的这种与外部世界的某个神灵相交汇的经历体现在了你们的文明之中。这是一种人际关系的文明。你们对于国家所担负的责任自然而然地呈现出了如同子女孝敬父母那样的特点;由此,你们的国家就像一个家庭那样,而天皇则是你们的家长。你们国家的团结并非来自出于防御或是进攻目的而诉诸武力时所结成的同盟,也不是来自为了使得每个人都分得赃物而不得不将他们置身险境,进行冒险的劫掠时所形成的团伙。它不是为了某个密不可宣的目的而被迫组织起来的结果,而是一种家庭关系的延续和一种在广阔的时空范围内所形成的心灵的契约。你们文化的核心是“慈爱”(maitri: loving kindness)——以一颗慈爱的心对待他人,以一颗慈爱的心对待自然。这种爱是通过一种美的语言的形式加以传达的,而这种美的语言在这个国家随处可见。这就是为什么,像我这样的陌生人不会在这些美的化身和爱的造化面前感到嫉妒和屈辱,相反会愿意分享这种展示人类心灵时所带来的快乐和光荣。
这使得我更为担心给日本文明带来威胁的变化,因为这一变化就如同套在某个人身上的枷锁一样。由于现代社会所具有的巨大的同一性——它唯一的、共同的纽带就是利益,世界上没有哪个国家像日本这样,可怜巴巴地将尊严和有节制的美所隐藏的力量暴露在了这种同一性之下。
但是危险就在这里——有组织的丑恶侵袭着人们的头脑,靠着它庞大的体量和咄咄逼人的气势占据了上风。然而,它嘲讽的对象却是人们心灵深处的情感。它强硬且独断专行;不管你愿不愿意,它都出现在你的面前。它让我们的理智俯首称臣——我们就像野蛮人供奉那些因为看上去丑恶才显得强大的偶像一样,为它的祭坛献上祭品。因此,它与那些谦虚的、深刻的、生命当中微妙而精致的东西之间的竞争是多么令人恐惧啊。
我敢肯定,在日本一定有人对你们所传承下来的理想并不赞同,他们的目标是获取利益而不是自身的成长。他们大肆地吹嘘自己已经使得日本现代化了。如果说一个民族的精神要与时代的精神相和谐的话,那么在这一点上我是同意他们的意见的;不过我还是要告诫他们,现代化不过是现代主义的表象而已,这就像作诗不过是诗歌艺术的表象而已一样。这不过是模仿,不同的是,表象看上去比原本的东西更夸张,同时也更死板。我们必须记住,那些有真正现代精神的人并不需要现代化,这就如同真正勇敢的人靠的并不是嘴上吹牛。现代主义并不是欧洲人的服装;也不是欧洲的孩子们上课并接受训练时所在的某些丑陋的建筑物;也不是一些方形的房子——墙面平直,平行的窗户排列整齐,而欧洲人则住在里面终其一生;当然现代主义也不是欧洲女士们的帽子,上面缀满了毫不搭调的饰物。这些并不“现代”,仅仅是“欧洲”而已。真正的现代主义是自由的思想,而不是被奴役的品味。它是思想和行动的独立,而不是欧洲学校校长们的监护;它是科学,而不是科学在生活当中的错误应用。例如,我们对某位教授科学的老师简单地加以模仿,而他却将科学降格为迷信,荒谬地祈求它帮助实现所有不可能完成的目标。
单纯依靠科学来生活对于一些人是有吸引力的,因为这种生活具备所有游乐活动的特点;它假装严肃,然而并不深刻。如果你出去狩猎,那么你的同情心则越少越好;因为你唯一目的就是追逐并杀死猎物,并因此感到自己是更为伟大的动物,感到自己的猎杀方法是严密和科学的。科学的生活是一种肤浅的生活。它以技巧和完善的方法追求成功,然而对于更高层次的、人的天性则不予理会。有些头脑简单的人把生活规划得就好像是狩猎一样,他们的理想就是成为成功的猎手;然而这些睡在骷髅所制成的奖杯堆中的人是迟早会被噩梦惊醒的。
我从来都主张日本应当获得进行自我保护的现代武器。但是这种行动不要超过她进行自我防御的需求。她一定要明白,真正的力量并不在于武器本身,而是在于使用武器的人;如果有谁急切地渴望权力,并且以他的灵魂为代价扩充军力,那么他的处境就会比他的敌人更加危险。
所有有生命的东西都容易受到伤害;因此,他们要求得到保护。在自然界,生命体通过它自身的材料所制成的外壳保护自己。所以这些外壳与生命的成长是相互协调的,否则的话,时间一到,他们就会轻易地垮掉并被遗忘。人类的真正保护来自于他的精神理想——它与人类的生命休戚相关并且一同成长。然而不幸的是,所有人类的铠甲都是没有生命的——有的是钢铁制成的,行动不便且机械呆板。因此,在利用这些铠甲的同时,人类还需小心保护他自身不被铠甲所控制。如果他灵魂虚弱,不得不削足适履而穿上这件铠甲的话,那么他灵魂的萎缩则无异于慢性自杀。日本自己,一定要坚定地信仰道德的生存法则,相信西方各国正走在通往自杀的道路上;因为在那里,他们正在以各种组织的巨大重量压抑并且窒息着自己的人性,为的是让自己大权在握,同时让他人俯首称臣。
日本的危险并不在于模仿西方的外部特征,而是在于她接受西方民族主义的动机并且为己所用。日本的社会理想在其政治的操控下已经显现出了失败的迹象。我可以看到她从科学那里借鉴来的座右铭:“适者生存”,就赫然地挂在她当代历史的大门上。这个座右铭的意思就是,“照顾好你自己,永远不要管会给别人带来什么损失”——这是瞎子的座右铭,因为他们看不到东西,所以只相信自己的触觉。但是明眼人一看便知,人与人之间紧密相连,你攻击了别人也必会遭到别人的反戈一击。道德的律法是人类最伟大的发现,它发现了这样一条奇妙的真理——以人为鉴可以明得失。这一真理不但具有主观的价值,而且在我们生活的方方面面都有体现。那些不懈地将对道德的无视奉为爱国主义的圭臬的国家一定会暴毙而终。在历史上,我们曾见过多次的外敌入侵,但是他们从来都没有深深地触动过人民的灵魂。这些侵略不过是个人野心膨胀的结果而已。人民并不会为那些冒险行动卑鄙可耻的一面负责任;相反,他们自身会从这些冒险行动所具有的英雄和人性的方面受益匪浅。由此,他们培养了坚定不移的忠诚,对于所肩负的责任的全身心投入,完全的自我牺牲的勇气,以及面对死亡和危险时所表现出的大无畏精神。因此,位于人民心中的理想并不会由于某个国王或是将军所采取的政策而发生剧烈的变化。但是现在,西方民族主义的精神却大行其道:全体人民从小就接受想尽一切办法鼓动仇恨和野心的教育。人们编造历史上的、片面的真理和谎言;人们不断地丑化其他的种族和文化;人们经常错误地建造大事件的纪念碑,从而不断地鼓吹邻国和其他国家对于自己所造成的罪恶的威胁,然而事实上,出于人性的原因,这些所谓的大事本应当被快速地遗忘。这样做无异于毒害我们人性的本源,是在败坏我们与生俱来的、最伟大和最美好的理想。它是在将无与伦比的自私自利作为一种普世的宗教,提供给世界各国来朝拜。我们可以从科学的手中获取各种各样的东西,而唯独不能索取这颗将置道义于死地的仙丹妙药。永远都不要认为,我们给其他种族造成的痛苦不会落到自己的头上,或是我们在自家房前屋后种下的仇恨会像一堵围墙一样保护我们的永世平安。以某种变态的、唯我独尊的虚荣心为整个民众洗脑;教育他们以自己道德上的冷漠和攫取的不义之财为荣;通过展出在战争中所缴获的战利品以达到对战败国家永远的羞辱,并且在学校里面展出这些东西以培养孩子们对于其他国家的蔑视等等,上面所说的这些所作所为,都是在模仿带着溃烂脓疮的西方——是疾病对于生命力的吞噬造成了它的肿胀。
我们赖以生存的粮食作物是历经数百年的选择和培育才形成的。然而我们并不食用的植物则并不需要数代人的耐心照料。除去杂草并不是件容易的事情;但是,如果疏忽大意,那么毁掉我们的粮食作物,让它们回复到最初的野生状态,则是件轻而易举的事。文化也与此类似,它竭力地适应了你们这里的土壤——它与生活息息相关且通达人情。所以它在过去的时代需要我们进行耕耘和除草,现在同样需要我们的悉心照料。单纯的现代事物,例如科学和组织的方法,是可以移植的;但是攸关生死的人性的东西一旦被从其生长的土壤中移除则会死掉,因为它的纤维极为脆弱,根须不可胜数且交错纵横。因此,我为西方的政治理想所强加到你们原有的政治理想上所造成的压力而感到担忧。在政治文明中,国家是一个抽象的概念,而人与人之间的关系则是功利的。因为这样的政治文明并不是植根于情感,所以它易于操控却险象环生。半个世纪的时间对于你们来说已经足够来驾驭这台机器了;你们当中有些人对于它的喜爱超过了对于与你们的国家同时降生并且历经数百年培育而成的生命理想的热爱。这就像一个孩子,在他玩得兴起的时候,竟然会觉得自己对于玩物的喜爱超过了对于母亲的爱。
人们通常并不能意识到自己的伟大之处。你们的文明,它的主要推动力来自于人际关系的纽带,是在没有受到鬼鬼祟祟的自我分析的影响下,在健康生活的沃土中孕育成长起来的。但是单纯的政治关系是完全自觉的;它是一种富于侵略性的突然喷发的火焰。它靠突然的喷发引起你们的注意。现在是时候了,你们大家应当认识到自己赖以生存的真理是什么,而不再任人摆布却浑然不知。过去,是上帝赐予你们的礼物;而现在,你们必须作出自己的选择。
所以你们要向自己提出以下这些疑问:“我们是否错误地认识了世界,并且把与世界的关系建立在了对于人类本性一无所知的基础之上了呢?西方将她的国家福祉置于对于人性普遍不信任的藩篱的保护之下,这种做法可取吗?”
你们一定已经察觉了,无论何时,西方在讨论某个东方民族可能的崛起时,她的口吻中便充满了强烈的恐惧。之所以会这样,是因为西方所赖以发迹的力量是一种邪恶的力量;只有将这种力量据为己有她才会感到安全,而令其他的国家颤抖。现在欧洲文明的主要野心就是排他性地占有这一魔鬼。她所有的军事力量和外交手段都服务于这一目的。但是这种花费不菲的、为罪恶的神灵招魂而举行的奢华仪式正将她由繁荣引向了灾难的边缘。西方所释放到这个世界上的恐怖的仇恨,反过头来威胁到了她自身,并且驱使她实行越来越多的残暴政策;这使得她惶惶不可终日,并且除了自己给别国带来的,而最终又回报到自身的灾难以外,忘记了一切。欧洲牺牲其他的国家作为祭品,以敬献给这尊政治的魔鬼。只要其他国家的尸身还算新鲜,她便以其为食并且吃得腰滚肚圆——但是尸体最终一定会烂掉的,而死者的复仇方式就是将污染传到四面八方,从而毒害进食者的生命。日本拥有所有人性的财富,她的英雄主义和美的和谐统一,她的深深的自我克制和丰富的自我表现;然而,若不是她证明了,撒旦的猎犬不仅可以在欧洲的狗窝里繁育,同样也可以在日本得以生养并且以人类的苦难为食的话,那么西方各国是不会对她表示尊重的。只有当日本也获取了,只要她愿意就可以随时打开的,将地狱的烈火烧遍美好人间的灾难之门的钥匙的时候,只有当世界走向毁灭,而日本也能够随着他们的节拍与之一起大跳抢劫、谋杀、奸淫无辜妇女的魔鬼的舞蹈的时候,他们才会承认日本与自己拥有同等的地位。我们知道,在人类早期道德观念还不成熟的时候,他只会因为害怕上帝的恶毒手段而对其感到敬畏。但是,我们可以自豪地仰望这一人类的理想吗?在我们的文明发展了数百年之后,各个国家就像夜间潜行的野兽一样彼此惧怕对方;他们关闭了彼此间好客的大门;只有出于侵略或是防御的目的他们才会联合起来;他们将自己的商业秘密、国家秘密、军事秘密藏在洞穴里;为了获得和平,他们将本不属于自己的肉块投食给了彼此的鹰犬;他们压制想要挣扎着站起来的衰弱的民族;他们用右手给衰弱的民族派发宗教,而同时用左手对他们巧取豪夺——所有这些,有一丝值得我们羡慕的地方吗?我们要向这种民族主义的神灵顶礼膜拜吗?它正在向全世界播撒着恐惧、贪婪和猜疑的种子。它正在散布着无耻的外交谎言。它正在进行着造作的表演,鼓吹自己以促进和平、善意以及全体人类的手足之情为己任。当我们涌进西方的市场,以我们自己的传统来换取这种外国产品的时候,我们的心中就没有产生过怀疑吗?我知道,要了解自己并非易事;一个醉汉会狂怒地否认自己喝醉了;然而,西方正在焦虑地思考着她自身的问题,并且试图加以改变。但是她就如同一只贪婪的饕餮,并不真心想放弃暴饮暴食的习惯,而是天真地希望能够通过吃药来治愈自己消化不良的噩梦。欧洲还不打算放弃她在政治上的不人道,尽管这种不人道体现出了所有人类的低级情欲;她只相信对于制度的修改,而不相信对于心灵的改变。
我们乐意以头脑而不是心灵购买他们用机器制造出来的制度。我们会试用这些制度并且加以完善,但是我们不能将它们供奉在我们的家中或是庙宇里。有的种族会崇拜他们所猎杀的动物;在饥饿的时候,我们可以从他们那里买下肉食,但我们却不能学习他们猎杀动物后的崇拜行为。我们不能以诸如“生意归生意”、“战争归战争”、“政治归政治”等等迷信的说法毒害我们孩子们的思想。我们一定要明白,人类的生意不仅仅是生意,战争不仅仅是战争,而政治也不仅仅是政治。你们日本拥有自己的工业;要想知道你们的工业是多么的诚实和真切,看一看你们的产品就明白了——它们造型优雅而又结实耐用,它们在几乎观察不到的细节的方面也处理得一丝不苟。然而,来自于世界那端的谎言的潮汐已经席卷了你们的大地,在他们那里,生意归生意,而诚实也不过是最好的对策而已。当你们看到商业广告的时候就从来没有感到过羞耻吗?那些商业广告不仅给整个城镇都涂抹上了谎言和夸张,而且还侵入到农民们诚实劳动着的绿色的田野中,侵入到了早晨第一缕清澈的阳光所照射到的山岗上。当谎言和欺骗骄傲地打着贸易、政治和爱国主义的旗号在海外大行其道时,那种不间断的腐蚀会轻易地让我们的荣誉感和敏锐的思想变得迟钝起来,进而使得任何对于他们永久性地侵入我们生活的指责,都会被认为是多愁善感和缺乏男子汉气概的表现。
现在的情况是,子孙后代们积极地编织着谎言,也不会因为从谎言中获得利益而感到羞耻;相反,他们的父辈却是宁死也要信守诺言,他们鄙视靠欺骗以赢取庸俗的利益,在战斗中他们宁可失败也不愿意丧失荣誉。这一切的改变都是因为受到了“现代”这个词的魔力的影响。但是,如果“现代”就是指纯粹的功利的话,那么美可是属于所有时代的;如果“现代”就是指卑鄙的自私自利的话,那么人类的理想可不是什么新鲜的发明。所以我们必须明白,无论“现代”因着方法和机器的缘故,如何擅长削弱人类的劳动能力,它都将不得善终。
然而,当我们试图将自己的思想从欧洲傲慢的声言中解放出来的时候,当我们试图帮助自己从沉迷的泥潭中脱身的时候,我们可能会走向另外一个极端——对于所有西方的东西不作区别地加以怀疑。幻想破灭时的反应与最初幻想产生时的冲动是一样的虚幻。我们需要努力达到一种正常的思想状态。在这种状态下,我们可以清楚地看到自身所存在的危险,并且在公正地对待产生危险的源头的前提下,对其加以规避。我们总会自然而然地希望能够以欧洲之道还治欧洲之身,并且以眼还眼、以牙还牙。但是,这种做法本身就是在模仿欧洲的最恶劣的行径之一:她在对待自己所描述的黄、红、棕、黑等等各个种族的人民时的所作所为就是如此。我们曾经以完全轻蔑的态度和残忍来威胁那些属于某一特定宗教、肤色或是社会阶级的人们。在对人性进行攻击这一点上,我们东方人不得不承认自己所犯下的罪行并且承认我们的罪过,即便不是更大,起码也与欧洲人不相上下。我们的弱点是遇到强权就俯首称臣。正是由于我们害怕自己的这个弱点,所以我们才会试图以另外一个弱点来代替它——对西方所取得的成就视而不见。只有当我们真正地了解了欧洲的伟大和善良,才能让我们有效地远离欧洲的卑鄙和贪婪。当面对人类苦难的时候,我们很容易做出不公正的判断——悲观失望是由于一方面崇信理想,而另一方面心智却饱受摧残而造成的。只有当对给信念带来力量的真理失去信心时,当信念遭受了巨大的挫败并且祈盼着自己能够涅槃重生的时候,我们才会对人性感到绝望。我们必须承认在西方的身上有这样一个活的灵魂——它悄无声息地与强大的组织机构进行着斗争——正是这些组织机构将男人、女人和儿童压得粉碎;正是这些组织机构的机械的零部件置精神的和人道的律法于不顾。这一灵魂,在与它缺乏自然同情心的种族进行交往的时候,拒绝让自己的触角因为疏忽大意的危险习惯而完全地失去敏锐。如果西方的力量仅仅是如动物或机器一般的力量的话,那么她永远都不可能达到她如今的成就。她心中的神性正在由于她双手所带给这个世界的伤害而受到煎熬——也正是从她的这种高尚天性的疼痛中流淌出了神秘的、能够将这些伤害治愈的膏油。她曾经一次又一次地否定自己,并且亲手解开她套在无助的人们身上的锁链;尽管她为了攫取钱财,以武力相逼迫,将毒药强行灌入某个伟大民族的喉咙,可她还是在清醒之后,退出行动,并且再次把双手洗得干干净净。这不时地证明了,她还保有隐藏的人性源泉,尽管它看上去似乎已经死掉或是枯竭。这还说明,能够帮助她摆脱如此胆怯而又凶残的行径的本来天性并不是贪婪,而是对于无私理想的尊崇。无论对于我们还是对于欧洲来说,认为欧洲仅仅是通过炫耀自己的力量才使得现代东方诸民族神魂颠倒的说法,都是完全不公正的。欧洲道德本性的光辉穿透加农炮的硝烟和市场上扬起的尘土而大放异彩。她给我们带来了道德自由的理想,这一理想的根基要比社会习俗扎得更深,而且它的活动范围则是世界性的。
东方已经本能地感到,即便是带着厌恶的情绪,自己仍有很多东西要向西方学习。这些要学习的东西不仅仅包括能够产生力量的材料,而且还包括欧洲的内涵,比如人类的心智以及他的道德天性。欧洲一直在教育我们,公序良俗的约束力要高于家庭和宗族的约束力;使得社会免受个人不确定性影响的神圣的法治精神,确保了社会的进步以及对于社会全体成员的公平正义。最重要的是,历经数百年的牺牲和不懈的努力,欧洲在我们面前高举起了自由的旗帜——良知的自由、思想和行动的自由、艺术和文学理念的自由,等等。由于欧洲已经获得了我们深深的敬意,所以,她的极为虚弱和错误的方面对于我们来说就会变得极为危险——这种危险就像是与我们最喜爱的食物混在一起同时端上来的毒药一样。有一种可以信赖的、保障我们安全的方法。这就是,在对抗她的诱惑和剧烈的侵蚀时,我们可以与欧洲结为盟友;因为一直以来,欧洲都有着她自己的善恶标准。通过这一标准,我们可以探知她的堕落,衡量她的失败;通过这一标准,我们可以在她自己的法庭上传唤她,并且揭露她的丑行——唯其如此,才能彰显真正的高贵。
然而,我们所担心的是她的毒药要比食物更厉害,她今天所拥有的力量并非是健康的标志,而是恰恰相反;因为,她的力量可能是由于其生命体暂时地失去平衡所致。我们担心的是,当罪恶获取了巨大的身形,它就会拥有致命的魔力——尽管最终它一定会因为自己反常的比例失衡而失去重心,但在它轰然倒下之前所造成的伤害可能是难以弥补的。
因此,我请求你们要坚定信心,同时保持清醒的头脑。一定要知道,靠钢铁的、高效的螺栓结合在一起的,在野心勃勃的车轮上奔跑着的,现代进步的庞然大物一定不会长久地维系。撞车是迟早的事,因为它不得不在指定好的线路上行走;它太过笨重,所以不能自由地选择自己的路径,而当它一旦脱离了轨道,长长的车厢就会翻倒。总有一天它会变成一堆废铁,严重地阻塞世界的交通。难道现在我们还没有看到这一迹象吗?我们还没有听到战争的喧嚣、仇恨的尖叫、和绝望的哀嚎吗?我们还没有看到长久以来在民族主义的深处所沉积并被翻搅起来的、难以名状的污秽吗?所有这些都在向我们的灵魂哭诉,告诉我们,民族的自私的高塔,尽管它以爱国主义的名义打起了反叛天庭的旗号,也一定会摇摇欲坠并且最终倒塌,一定会被它自己的大块头所压倒,它的旗帜一定会淹没于尘土,它的光亮终将会熄灭。兄弟们,当火灾的烈焰对着星辰发出噼啪作响的欢笑时,你们一定要对星辰,而不是对破坏性的烈火充满信心。因为,当大火燃尽熄灭的时候,留下的只是一堆灰烬,而永恒的光芒则会再一次在东方闪耀——在那孕育了人类历史的,太阳初升的东方闪耀。谁又敢说这一天还没有来临,而太阳还没有升起在亚洲最东方的天际呢?就像我的先哲所做过的那样,我要向东方的日出敬礼,它定会再一次地照亮整个世界。