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READING HALLTHE DOORS OF WISDOM |
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FLORENTINE HISTORY FROM THE EARLIEST AUTHENTIC RECORDS TO THE ACCESSION OF FERDINAND THE THIRD, GRAND DUKE OF TUSCANY. |
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BOOK THE FIRST.CHAPTER I. ORIGIN OF FLORENCE
The origin of Florence, like that of most Italian
cities, is very uncertain, and its investigation has employed more time and
talent than the subject deserves; her general fame and acknowledged ancientness
may dispense with a blind plunge into the depths of time for an illustrious
origin, a labour belonging rather to the antiquary than the historian; four
centuries of her own eventful history afford examples for her living children
to shun or imitate, and with sufficient brightness to ennoble her, independent
of the doubtful light of remote antiquity. Like other ancient races, she has
suffered much in fame and fortune, and no longer supports as a nation the
energetic character of her republican lineage: great crimes and great virtues
disfigure and adorn her history, but coupled with that taste, talent, and high
adventurous spirit which excites the imagination and commands respect.
Some writers assert that Florence was built by the
Libyan Hercules, after having drained the surrounding plain by removing the Golfolina, a rock which tradition says impeded the Arno’s
course near Signa, and about which there are many conjectures and no certainty.
Borghini, rejecting this tradition, admits the probability of a Hercules having
anciently visited Tuscany, yet doubts the desiccation of the lake, because a
marsh still existed there in the time of
Hannibal, whose route by this plain is however a disputed point. But a partial
swamp might have remained for ages after the deeper waters had subsided; and
the long course of time between the advents of these heroes, with the marks of
human labour said to be still visible about the Golfolina as they are in the rocks near Arezzo, may be sufficient answers to his
objection. The circumstance of the seal of Florence having been from time
immemorial the figure of Hercules, at least shows that, although Mars was the
tutelar deity, the notion of that hero being its original founder is extremely
old.
Without presuming to enter the misty regions of Etrurian aborigines, or pretending to decide on their being
Pelasgians or Phoenicians (if these be not indeed identical), or a mixture of
several races; or whether they sprang perfect from the soil, as Micali and
Borghini seem disposed to believe; we can reasonably suppose that the ancient
trading nations may have pushed their small craft up the Arno to the present
site of Florence, and thus have gained a more immediate communication with the
flourishing city of Fiesole, than they could through other ports of Etruria,
from whatever race its people might have sprung. Admitting the high antiquity
of Fiesole, the imagined work of Atlas, and the tomb of his celestial daughter,
we may easily believe that a market was from very early times established in
the plain, where both by land and water the rural produce could be brought for
sale without ascending the steep on which that city stood. Such arrangements
would naturally result from the common course of events, and a more convenient
spot could scarcely be found than the present site of Florence, to which the Arno
is still navigable by boats from its mouth, and at that time perhaps by two
branches.
This suburb was likely to become a depository of
national produce, as well as foreign commodities from Pisa, Elba, and
especially Populonia, which, after the supposed colonisation of Elba by
Volterra, became the seaport of this last city and the great foundery of native iron; hence a lower town may be imagined
to have quickly extended towards the parent city.
Population would thus augment by mere public
convenience as well as from local fertility, milder air and greater abundance
of water, and an extensive town arise long before the Etruscan confederation
sank under the steadier march of Rome. This seems also to be the opinion of
Villani, Macchiavelli, Varchi, and Borghini; partially supported by Malespini,
Dante, and others; but all depending on the ancient chronicles consulted by the
last historian both at Rome and Florence, the value of which cannot now be appreciated,
for the fables that he so gravely relates must not be received as a criterion
either of them or him, in more credible events of subsequent occurrence. “There
were,” says Villani, “inhabitants round San Giovanni, because the people of
Fiesole held their market there one day in the week, and it was called the
Field of Mars, the ancient name; however it was always, from the first, the
market of the Fiesolines, and thus it was called
before Florence existed.” And again, “The Praetor Florinus, with a Roman
army, encamped beyond the Arno towards Fiesole and had two small villages
there, one called Amina, the other Camarte, or Campo, or Domus Martis, where the people of Fiesole one day in
the week held a general market with the neighbouring towns and villages. And it
was decreed by the Consul, in concert with Florinus, that neither bread, nor
wine, nor warlike stores should be bought or sold in anyplace except his camp.”
On the site of this camp, as we are also assured by Villani, was erected the
city of Florence, after the capture of Fiesole by Pompey, Caesar, and Martius;
but Leonardo Aretino, following Malespini, asserts that it was the work of
Sylla’s legions, who were already in possession of Fiesole. Poliziano imagines
it to have been a colony of the Triumvirate, and is supported by Raffaello
Maffei surnamed Il Volterrano. But the variety of opinions almost equals
the number of authors, wherefore accuracy is here impossible and of little
consequence in the subsequent history.
There are reasons nevertheless for believing that
Florence had obtained the rank and privileges of a Municipium long
before these last conjectured epochs of its foundation, for Lucius Florus, in
his abridgment of Livy, as cited by Varchi and Borghini, while describing Sylla’s
conduct after the civil war, says that four splendid Municipia, namely Spoletum. Spoleto; Interamnium,
Temi; Praneaesta, and Florentia were
sold by public auction. Now if Florence were really one of these “Municipia Italiae splendidissima” or a
city enjoying the rights and privileges of Rome in addition to its own, it must
necessarily have flourished long before the time of Sylla; wherefore the above
statements are of small value, and Lami’s opinion of its Etruscan source and
the consequent age of some of its remaining towers, is slightly strengthened.
This passage of Florus has, however, been shaken by
the famous Coluccio Salutati, who saw a very ancient manuscript of that author,
in which the name was written Fiorentina, supposed by him to be Ferentino, but not so much from their similarity of
sound as from the situation of the latter near the other three cities, all of
which having committed the same crime were involved in the same condemnation.
Malespini, and Villani who copies him, amuse us with
many fables about the origin of Florence, and all in that simple unaffected
tongue,
“ Che pria li Padri e le Madri trastullaj,
but we have no reason to suspect their accuracy in
describing local particularities, or any events that occurred within their own
age and observation. Yet, notwithstanding their minute descriptions of Florence
and the remains which then existed and that even now are not entirely effaced,
the very site of this ancient city has been doubted, merely because Ptolemy, or
more likely some careless scribe, has made an error of seven and twenty miles
in the difference of latitude between that town and Fiesole.
From all, therefore, that has been written, it may be
reasonably concluded that Florence, springing originally from Fiesole, finally
rose to the rank of a Roman colony, and the seat of provincial government; a
miniature of Rome, with its Campus Martius, its Capitol, Forum, temple of Mars,
aqueducts, baths, theatre and amphitheatre, all erected in imitation of the
“Eternal City”, for vestiges of all these are still existing either in name or
substance.
The name of Florence is as dark as its origin, and a
thousand derivations have confused the brains of antiquarians and their readers
without much enlightening them, while the beautiful Giagiolo or Iris, the city’s emblem, still clings to her old grey walls, as if to assert
its right to be considered as the genuine source of her poetic appellation.
From the profusion of those flowers that formerly decorated the meads between
the rivers Mugnone and Arno, has sprung one of the most popular opinions on
this subject; for a white plant of the same species having shown itself amongst
the rising fabrics the incident was poetically seized upon and the Lily then
first assumed its station in the crimson banner of Florence.
Stefano Menochio, as quoted by Francesco Vettori,
explains the word Florentia as “Flores liliorum in candelabris”, and it appears from other
quotations in the same work that the Lily was more especially designated by the
word Florentia: hence the meaning of Malespini and Villani in deriving
Florenza from lilies; because when the former wrote, the connection of these
names must have been universally familiar from the comparatively recent decay
of Latin as a spoken language and its then continued use in all written
documents. The site of Florence at the confluence of two rivers, coupled with
an expression of Pliny in the eighth chapter and third book of his Natural
History, where he speaks of the Fluentini being placed on the Arno, have made some imagine that the original name was Fluentia; others derive it from Florinus, the
Roman general already mentioned, who was killed by the Fiesolines in a skirmish near the camp; and others again, because it was the general Mart
or Forum, have called it Forentia. It has also
been suggested that there was an equivalent Etruscan name, the termination
“entia” being considered as much Etruscan as Roman; and, as a proof of this,
the names of several Etruscan places have been cited, such as the rivers Arentia and Ardentia and the goddess Valentia; which last was also conjectured to be one of
the names of Rome, originally an Etruscan city.
Lastly, there were those who maintained that the modem
name should be divided into three syllables, as Fir-en-ze,
the first, signifying a flower in some remote eastern dialect; the
second graceful, and the third this; or a graceful flower this;
and again from the word Firza which we are told means a town without
walls. But, exclaims Borghini, what is the use of breaking our language to
pieces only to pick out a Fir, a Firza, or some such nonsense, and then
flying off to Mesopotamia to hunt for a meaning, when we have our neighbours,
the Romans, close at hand, who called it in their language Florentia,
which, as is usual in Italy, has since been corrupted into Firenze. The
somewhat poetical derivation of the name from a Lily, or field of flowers, may
therefore remain until a better be produced, and that of the city’s origin be
fairly referred to Fiesoline commerce and Roman
soldiers .
CHAPTER II.
FROM A.D. 17 TO A.D. 650.
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FLORENTINE HISTORY FROM THE EARLIEST AUTHENTIC RECORDS TO THE ACCESSION OF FERDINAND THE THIRD,GRAND DUKE OF TUSCANY. |
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READING HALLTHE DOORS OF WISDOM |
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