CRISTO RAUL.ORG

READING HALL

"THIRD MILLENNIUM LIBRARY"

BLESSED BE THE PEACEFUL BECAUSE THEY WILL BE CALLED SONS OF GOD

EARLY CHRONICLERS OF ITALY.

CHAPTER VI.

NEW PHASES OF ITALIAN THOUGHT FROM THE TWELFTH TO THE FOURTEENTH CENTURIES — SOUTHERN WRITERS OF THE NORMAN AND SUABIAN TIMES — SABA MALASPINA — HISTORIANS OF THE SICILIAN VESPERS — LIVES OF THE POPES — LIFE OF COLA DI RIENZO — LOMBARD MUNICIPAL WRITERS OF THE FIRST PERIOD — OTHO OF FREISING — GENERAL HISTORIES — FRA SALIMBENE OF PARMA — CHRONICLERS OF VARIOUS CITIES OF CENTRAL AND NORTHERN ITALY — CHRONICLERS OF LOMBARDY AND OF THE MARCA TRIVIGIANA — ALBERTINUS MUSSATUS.

DURING the struggle of the Investitures between Church and Empire, a great change was gradually growing up in the political and intellectual condition of Italy, so that, on the cessation of that struggle, the literary history of the country is found to have passed unexpectedly into a new phase. The kingdom founded in the South by the Normans took deep root, became for a moment the seat of the Empire, and, in spite of many vicissitudes and changes of dynasty, remained up to our own days the only stable monarchy in Italy. The Roman Church, after rising so high under the powerful influence of Gregory VII, and widening immensely the circle of its spiritual and political influence, also occupied itself in increasing and strengthening its temporal patrimony, till, in the days of Innocent III (d. 1216), the summit was reached of a dominion which began to decline with Boniface VIII (d. 1303). In Central and Northern Italy the communes, after a laborious season of latent preparation, suddenly blossomed out on all sides, and rapidly grew strong, rich, and free. Milan, Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Florence,—at every step we meet with a city, and each city is a power. After the dawn which in the former century scattered much of the intellectual dimness, there now breaks forth the full radiance of Thomas Aquinas, Giotto, and Dante. In the midst of such abundance of life and energy, the laity begin to emancipate themselves from their sacerdotal leading-strings; nay, democracy, after invading the State, attempts also to invade the Church. Everywhere there is a quick ardour of thought and of action, while the new-born philosophical spirit begins to initiate new reforms, and under a thrilling impulse first given by Arnold of Brescia, boldly criticises the Church doctrines, which are defended by St. Bernard and later by the Dominicans. At this time also various heresies insinuate themselves among the masses, and with the introduction of new observances, give rise to religious enthusiasms and to strange excesses, promoted partly by tendencies not varying from those which gave their first impulse to the democratic order of St. Francis of Assisi. These altered conditions alter the aspect also of the German Empire, which in the days of Frederick Barbarossa enters upon a national struggle, is Italianized for a moment under Frederick II, and then, being again transplanted to Germany, loses all its influence in Italy, and is completely enervated when Henry VII crosses the Alps at the invitation of the Ghibellines. The names of Guelph and Ghibelline become a pretext and a password of Italian discord, which increases with the increase of vitality, and prepares for the nation every conceivable misfortune in the shape of strife, anarchy, and tyrannical rule. Nevertheless, amid these contests, the true expression of Italian thought and character is developed in the growth of art and still more of language, which makes its first poetic efforts in Sicily at the court of Frederick II, sings among the people the spiritual songs of the Franciscans, and after seek­ing perfection throughout all Italy, at last estab­lishes its home in Tuscany, and there awaits the approaching muse of Alighieri.

Such is the period whose historians we now have to examine. Just as the sources of history dried up on the decline of the Roman Empire, so now the chronicles multiply in number, and become veritable histories, with the increase and fruitfulness of popular life. The materials begin to crowd upon us in so much greater number and importance, that it is no longer possible, nor would it answer any purpose, to follow individually all the hundreds of chroniclers who spring up on all sides between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. It is necessary to be brief. And to begin with Southern Italy, in addition to the chroniclers of the first Norman period, already mentioned in the fourth chapter, we must notice others who flourished under the last kings of that dynasty, and who are more or less connected with the chroniclers of the Suabian period (A.D. 1194-1268) which followed. The monastic chronicles also revived. To this age belong the Annales Casinenses (A.D. 1000-1212), a compilation of the history of Montecassino, derived by various monks from the historians already mentioned, and for the later years completed by facts which these monks had themselves collected. The monasteries of St. Clement of Casauria and of St. Bartholomew of Carpineto, both situated in the Abruzzi and of very ancient origin, also had their chronicles which, like that of Farfa, were enriched with valuable documents, and were compiled about the end of the twelfth century, the first by John, the second by Alexander, each a monk of the monastery whose records he collected. Of a wider character were the Annates Ceccanenses, first published under the name of Chronicon Fossae Novae, from the monastery in which they were found. They are composed in the form of a universal history, beginning with the Christian era and continuing down to the commencement of the thirteenth century, when they were written by a native of Ceccano. The first part is a useless piecing together of old writings, but later it becomes more diffuse and circumstantial. There is added to it by a different author (a.d. 1192) a rude poem against the Emperor Henry VI, who by his marriage with the Norman Princess Con­stantia had set up the Suabian dynasty of the Hohenstaufen in the South, and had made himself hated both for the German influences he introduced, and for his cruelties towards the party of the Normans identified now with the Sicilians. Still more universal is the chronicle of Romuald Guarna, archbishop of Salerno and a celebrity of the medical school there, which begins with the creation, and comes down to the middle of the twelfth century where it breaks off. Romuald bore high offices in the Norman court under the two Williams of Sicily, with whom he was allied by birth, and took a large part in the many turmoils which disturbed the last reigns of the Hauteville dynasty. He went to Venice as the representative of William II, surnamed the Good, and assisted in the name of his master at the meeting and treaties of peace, which took place there between the Pope Alexander III and the Italian communes on the one hand, and the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa on the other. Being received by the emperor with great consideration, and having been successful in his negotiations, he speaks with lengthy com­placency of this meeting at Venice in his chronicle, which naturally is of great importance in its account of contemporary events. Nevertheless a certain partiality, easily explained in a man constantly engaged in violent party struggles, leads him often to colour his facts, or to pass them over in silence, according to the interests of his own party, which was that of the government and monarchy, opposed by the feudal party of the barons impatient of the new men, who had seized the reins of power to their disadvantage. On the other hand it was to this feudal party that belonged Hugo Falcandus, a powerful and elevated writer, who with his history of Sicilian matters gained for himself the honourable title of the Tacitus of the Middle Ages. His birthplace is disputed, but the truth seems to be that he was born in France, went while very young to Sicily, and remained there a long time, meeting, as he himself tells us, with assistance, favour, and an honourable position. Having returned to France, (or perhaps to England), he then wrote his history, and completed it about 1169; later, in 1189, he took up the subject again in a letter to Peter of Blois, and touched once more on Sicilian affairs, at the time when William II. had died, and Tancred de Hauteville, placing himself at the head of the Norman party in Sicily, and being proclaimed king, tried to oppose the claims of the German Henry VI, and indeed continued to oppose them for four . years until his death. Falcandus was the partisan and friend of the feudal Norman nobility established in Sicily, and he identified their interests with those of the kingdom to which he was much attached, notwithstanding the sharp words which he every now and then addresses to the Sicilians and Apu­lians,—words arising, however, rather from party antipathies than from dislike to their nation. He differs from Romuald of Salerno in hardly ever speaking of himself, and it is owing to this reticence that we know so little of his life. Another difference between him and the archbishop is that, whereas the latter has a tendency not to mention at all circumstances which are unfavourable to his party, Falcandus on the contrary is more courageous and faces the difficulty; explaining in accord­ance with his own point of view all the facts with which he is acquainted, either from having himself seen them, or from the accounts furnished him by his friends among the Norman nobility. And although his information is derived from interested sources, and he himself is a partisan in his heart, yet he shows more impartiality than one could expect; while his great sagacity also told him that a bare narrative of the facts does not exhaust the duties of the historian’s office, and he therefore has pre­served for us a number of details which we should not otherwise know, respecting the political con­stitution of the monarchy, the condition of the feudal lords, of the municipality, and of the people. Gibbon, notwithstanding some slight inaccuracies, speaks of Falcandus with his usual insight, and says that “Falcandus has been styled the Tacitus of Sicily; and after a just, but immense, abatement from the first to the twelfth century, from a senator to a monk, I would not strip him of his title; his narrative is rapid and perspicuous, his style bold and elegant, his observation keen. He had studied mankind, and feels like a man.” And in relating the last vicissitudes of the Norman kingdom, and how Henry VI made himself master of it by force, “against the unanimous wish of a free people,” Gibbon quotes the prophetic words which Falcandus, on completing his history and when the struggle was beginning, wrote in his letter to Peter of Blois,—words which we give here in the English historian’s rather free translation, that however reproduces faithfully the colouring and profound melancholy of the original.

“Constantia, the daughter of Sicily, nursed from her cradle in the pleasures and plenty, and educated in the arts and manners, of this fortunate isle, departed long since to enrich the Barbarians with our treasures, and now returns with her savage allies, to contaminate the beauties of her venerable parent. Already I behold the swarms of angry Barbarians : our opulent cities, the places flourishing in a long peace, are shaken with fear, desolated by slaughter, consumed by rapine, and polluted by intemperance and lust. I see the massacre or captivity of our citizens, the rapes of our virgins and matrons. In this extremity how must the Sicilians act? By the unanimous election of a king of valour and experience, Sicily and Calabria might yet be preserved; for in the levity of the Apulians, ever eager for new revolutions, I can repose neither confidence nor hope. Should Calabria be lost, the lofty towers, the numerous youth, and the naval strength of Messina might guard the passage against a foreign invader. If the savage Germans coalesce with the pirates of Messina; if they destroy with fire the fruitful region so often wasted by the fires of Mount Etna, what resource will be left for the interior parts of the island, these noble cities which should never be violated by the hostile footsteps of a Barbarian? Catania has again been overwhelmed by an earthquake : the ancient virtue of Syracuse expires in poverty and solitude; but Palermo is still crowned with a diadem, and her triple walls enclose the active multitudes of Christians and Saracens. If the two nations, under one king, can unite for their common safety, they may rush on the Barbarians with invincible arms. But if the Saracens, fatigued by a repetition of injuries, should now retire and rebel; if they should occupy the castles of the mountains and sea-coast, the unfortunate Christians, exposed to a double attack, and placed as it were between the hammer and the anvil, must resign themselves to hopeless and inevitable servitude.”

We may say that with Hugo Falcandus closes the series of historians belonging to the Norman period, from which we pass to those of the Suabian rule, beginning with a poem by Peter of Eboli, who related in well-turned verse the struggle between Tancred and Henry VI, writing of the latter what is more a panegyric than a history. This period is not very abundant in local chro­niclers for Southern Italy, although it is in it that appears the striking personality of Frederick II, who exercised such fascination over his contemporaries in Italy, and whose court became a centre for all men of learning and letters, and almost the cradle of Italian poesy. The anonymous chronicle De Rebus Siculis, the Annates Siculi, and the Breve Chronicon Lauretanum are writings which the his­torian is glad to consult, but which in themselves are of little value ; and the only really important Southern chroniclers of that age are Richard of St. Germano, Nicholas of Iamsilla, and Saba Malaspina on the continent; and in the island of Sicily, Nicholas Speciale and Bartholomew of Neocastro. The first of these writers, born in the town of St. Germano at the foot of Montecassino, was imperial notary, and served Frederick II. in many matters. All that he had seen, his long acquaintance with public life, and perhaps the traditions of historical studies preserved in the great Abbey near which he was born, inspired him with the wish to write the history of the years from the death of William the Good until 1254. This accurate and simple work, written with impartiality, full of facts related frankly and without rhetorical effort or much vivacity of colouring, is really a chronicle, not a history, and is the surest guide we have for Frederick II’s reign, and for the Neapolitan provinces in his time.

The two others, whose names we have coupled with his, are also well-meaning and honest, but both of them passionate partisans in the struggle, now renewed for the third time, between Church and Empire, the last vicissitudes of which struggle they describe. Of the Ghibelline Nicholas of Iamsilla we know nothing except his name, and even this with some uncertainty; but from his work we may infer that he also was a notary, the secretary of King Manfred, and his familiar follower from 1253 to 1256. This we gather from the very minute and exact information which he gives us of that chivalrous sovereign, especially during those years. His style is elegant and dignified, and his Ghibelline tendencies do not detract from his fidelity as an historian, since his party sympathies bring into play a natural disposition to compare events, and to judge of them synthetically, a disposition which he has in common with Saba Malaspina. We have also but scanty notices of this Saba, who was born in Rome of an ancient Roman family, became dean of the Church of Miletus in Calabria, and a member of the Curia in the time of Pope Martin IV, during whose pontificate (A.D. 1281-1285) he wrote his history, which he dedicated to a college of officials belonging to the papal court. In this history he declares his intention to relate those facts of whose truths he could bear witness, or which, being generally received, seemed to him trustworthy. This work, divided into two parts, treats of the events of the kingdom from the death of Frederick II to that of Charles of Anjou (a.D. 1250-1285). It is the history of a period of great disturbance and full of sudden changes, and embraces the adventurous reign of Manfred, who inherited from Frederick, together with the royal crown, the deadly hatred of the Guelphs against his family, as also the hostility of the papacy, which by its support advanced the designs of Charles of Anjou, until at the battle of Benevento Manfred lost both life and kingdom And after Manfred’s death Saba continues to tell how Charles strengthened his position, and of his complex relations with the Guelph party in the whole of Italy, and especially with the pope and Roman municipality, of which he was senator. He also relates the tragic fate of the handsome and unfortunate Conradin of Hohenstauffen, who as a boy of sixteen came from Germany in the vain hope of regaining the kingdom of his ancestors, but was vanquished at Tagliacozzo, and, by command of the fierce Anjou lord, the graceful young head rolled like a stricken flower on the scaffold, to be, however, later avenged in Sicily at the sound of that terrible vesper bell (A.D. 1282). Although Guelph in feelings and belonging to the Curia, Saba renders full justice to the characters and misfortunes of both Manfred and Conradin, and makes no effort to disguise the faults of King Charles, while extolling exceedingly in him those qualities which had enabled him to conquer the kingdom, and to establish in it his own dynasty. Notwithstanding his pompous, affected style, and his bad Latin, he is not without a certain expressive vigour arising from the importance of his subject, and from the impression made upon him by all these changing fortunes.

Saba treats the unexpected outbreak, which led to the revolution of the Vespers, and the establishment of the house of Aragon in Sicily, with much historical acumen and honesty, recognizing, in spite of his personal feelings, the causes which led to it, and the consequences resulting from it; and like him in this are the other two principal historians of that event, Bartholomew of Neocastro and Nicholas Speciale, both Sicilians. Bartholomew, a lawyer and native of Messina, republican magistrate of that town during the revolution of 1282, then fiscal advocate, and in 1286 ambassador of John I of Sicily to Pope Honorius IV, is perhaps the best witness we have of that movement. His narrative begins in 1250, and terminates in 1293, becoming more diffuse in the latter years, and describing minutely the events still fresh in the author’s memory; showing also an honest desire to be impartial, although occasionally his excessive affection for his native town of Messina prevents him from doing full justice to Palermo, and the part she took in freeing the island from French tyranny. The Historia Sicula of Nicholas Speciale embraces a later period, and beginning with the Vespers, reaches the year 1337, thus giving the reigns of the first princes of Aragon in Sicily. A distinguished statesman and a refined man of letters, Nicholas was on terms of friendship with Frederick II. of Aragon, who sent him in 1334 as ambassador to Pope Benedict XII, and from this friendship we have, to quote the words of Amari, both an ad­vantage and a disadvantage; the former because he was in a position as to time and place, to know exactly, and not as an outsider, what he was writing about, since he had seen it with his eyes and studied it closely; on the other hand there is the disadvantage which may always accrue to the truth from a courtier’s caution.

Leaving now this celebrated island and returning to the mainland, we shall pass by the writers of the first Anjou period, who are few and of little interest for our subject, and turn immediately to the Roman writers. They also arc scanty, and Gregorovius remarks with truth that the best materials for the municipal history of Rome arc furnished by the English chroniclers, William of Malmesbury, Roger Hoveden, and, above all, Matthew Paris, whose works are treasures of Italian history in the thirteenth century. We have already mentioned that Saba Malaspina, being a Roman, treated at the same time of Neapolitan and Roman affairs, which were then closely connected. The lives of the popes after those written by Cardinal Boso were resumed again by an anonymous priest, who related the doings of Innocent III (a.d. 1198-1216), and describes that famous pontiffs position respecting the East and Sicily, with the accurate though diffuse knowledge of a contemporary writer, but without either clearness or elegance of style; while by another contemporary is the life of Gregory IX (d. 1241), written with great partiality, and in a spirit hostile to the Emperor Frederick II. Of much greater merit is the history of the succeeding pope, Innocent IV (a.d. 1243-1254), composed by his chaplain, Nicholas of Curbio, a laudatory writer, who is, however, well informed and careful, and reminds us of the best writers of the Pontifical Book, while he is superior to them in the facile grace of his style, and in a purity of language which makes us feel that we have entered upon a new and improved period of Latin letters—a period of rapid and extraordinary progress. After Nicholas of Curbio we have no more actual biographies of popes, only dry notes which later were collected when, in the fourteenth century, historical studies took a wider character, from which resulted compilations such as the absurd chronicle of Martin of Troppau, famous under the name of Martinus Polonus, and others, less well known, but much better, by the Dominicans Bernardus Guidonis, and Ptolemaeus Lucensis, who, both starting from the Christian era, stop in the early part of the fourteenth century.

The transfer of the papal court to Avignon led naturally to a falling off in Roman historical writings. The municipalities of Central and Northern Italy represented so many States, and had a political importance which was quite wanting to Rome, absorbed as it was in that of the Popes. When they are not taken into account, the historical importance of the actual city of Rome was not greater than that of any other of the secondary communes, from which it was only distinguished by its ancient renown and its unique associations. And so true is this, that no sooner does the fantastic apparition of a singular man, emerging from the ruins of the Forum, and dreaming the return of past glories, ascend to the Capitol, and, after a short splendour, vanish again into the darkness, than a chronicle immediately appears, recording the passage of the meteor; but the life of Cola di Rienzo comes alone, and remains a solitary instance of its kind, as solitary as the hero whose deeds it commemorates.

Among a few fragments of little value, this life of Cola di Rienzo is really the only noticeable historical work produced by Rome in the four­teenth century. Some doubts have been raised as to its authenticity, which has even been posi­tively denied, nor can we say that we feel complete certainty on the point. Yet so strong do the reasons seem for considering it authentic, that when a careful examination of the remaining manuscripts, and an historical and philological study of the text make it possible to come to a definite conclusion, we think that the verdict will be a favourable one for the chronicle, and the result will be a genuine edition free from the errors and interpolations which deform the present one. But even now, with all its imperfections, this life is very attractive, written as it is in the Roman dialect, interspersed with dialogues and ingenuous exclamations, simple, clear, full of movement and life. The great admiration of the chronicler for Cola is tempered by his sincere patriotism and his love for Rome, which is stronger than any other feeling, nor does he fail to represent the Tribune in all his strange contradictions. That mixture in him of wisdom and caprice, of a classical grandeur of aims in a man who seemed almost inspired, and the childish vanity of one who had suddenly risen from a humble estate to unlimited power; every impulse, every characteristic is so vividly described that he seems to rise before us, and live over again his life of turmoil. And with him we see those papal legates and proud barons now caressed, now threatened by Cola, trembling before him with fear and anger, and meditating vengeance the while; here also are seditions boil­ing up suddenly, and as suddenly settling down, and those turbulent Romans armed and fighting in the public squares, then momentarily tranquilized to flame up afresh, and pass again through all the stages of indignation, shouts and tumults. This book is a romance far richer in imagination and vivacity than that of Bulwer, and is at the same time a history, just as the Tribune himself is one of those types, which arrest both the attention of the historian and the fancy of the poet.

If in Rome there was a great scarcity of chro­niclers, it was very different in other parts of Italy, especially in Lombardy, where the municipal life was a very vigorous one, the liberty of the citizens was spreading, and with it their commerce, their ambitions, and the contests of arms, sometimes raised against the German invaders, more often in fratricidal wars between neighbouring cities, and even within the walls of the same city. In the eleventh century, when Rome was striving for supremacy, Milan was already beginning to trace the outline of her history according to the new tendencies, and a popular lay element penetrated into it, and introduced a special character of its own. Thus even the historian Arnulph, although a partisan of the ecclesiastical aristocracy of Milan, is also unconsciously influenced by this element in his Gesta Archiepiscoporum Mediolanensium (A.D. 925-1076). In them he relates a disturbed period of perplexity and contest. On the one hand were the higher Milanese clergy, traditionally hostile to the pretensions of Rome, jealous of its riches and its prerogatives, and opposed to the rule of celibacy; on the other hand the majority of the lower clergy and of the people, who, drawn into the current of the new ideas of reform, joined that party of the Pataria of which Bonizo of Sutri was, as we have seen, the champion, and afterwards the martyr, at Piacenza. Arnulph introduced the municipal chronicle at Milan, as at Venice we have seen it inaugurated by John the deacon, and “in the pages of Arnulph,” as a recent writer well says, “we are no longer in the cloister, we are in the city, in the midst of its tumults and contentions”. And while the Pataria of Milan also had its martyrs in Ariald and Erlembald, of whose lives we have a narrative, several writers arose to preserve for us the history of both the religions and the civil struggles ; among others the two Landulphs, the elder and the younger, the former belonging to the archiepiscopal party, and violently partial, the latter far better, more moderate and truthful, and of greater learning and accuracy. Born about the end of the eleventh century, this younger Landulph was carefully educated, and for the sake of further instruction went to Paris, where at that time young men from all parts of Europe congregated for study. On his return to his native town he was attached to the church of St. Paul, which had been rebuilt by his uncle Liprand, an eloquent, zealous and persecuted head of the Pataria; and notwithstanding his high reputation, Landulph did not either escape persecution in the course of his life. The history of Milan from 1095 to 1137, which he wrote, contains according to Muratori all the more important events occurring during those years in Milan, and describes graphically to what excesses the greed for power could lead in those, as indeed in all, days; nor does Landulph confine his narrative within the walls of Milan, but extends it to a considerable tract of Italian history.

Two contemporaries of Landulph are a Magister Moyses, who celebrated in verse the praises of his native Bergamo, and another, but anonymous poet, who deplored the laying waste of Como by the Milanese, and the long and cruel war which preceded this misfortune from 1118 to 1127. But the rapid succession of events prepared plenty of materials for new chroniclers, among whom we first find a Milanese known as Sire Raoul, or Radulph, to whom we are indebted for a good history of the wars sustained by the Milanese against Barbarossa.

That solemn moment for Milanese history, when, after being levelled to the ground and furrowed by the plough of the conqueror, she suddenly rose up again unconquered and more implacable than ever against Frederick; the terrible cruel­ties of that desperate struggle; the deadly enmities between some cities, and between others that honourable harmony, by which in the victory of Legnano Italy was saved (A.D. 1176, May 29th); all this finds in Raoul the testimony of an eye­witness, who relates the facts with calm severity and with a desire of benefiting future generations by these examples: “ Those things which I have seen and have heard from truthful sources, I shall try to describe; for posterity may derive the greatest benefit from them, if they learn through what has gone before to guard against the future.” And the same sympathies animate the pen of another chronicler, Boncompagnus Magister Florentinus, who, from the Adriatic coast, describes, though with much more warmth, an episode in this contest, namely the siege of Ancona, which, when hemmed in by Frederick’s soldiers under the leadership of a warlike priest, Christian Archbishop of Cologne, made a vigorous resistance, and obliged the Germans to raise the siege.

Taking a very different view of matters, and passionate partisans of the emperor, were Otho Morena and his son Acerbus, who have left us a record of Frederick’s doings in Italy, and of the vicissitudes of their native place of Lodi. Otho, who was Judge and Missus Imperialis under Lothair and Conrad III, carried his work down to 1162, and it was continued afterwards to 1167 by his son Acerbus, a favourite with the Emperor Frederick, who made him Podesta of Lodi. On his death at Siena in 1167, an anonymous writer continued his history for a few years longer, and wrote in a somewhat more national spirit than the two Morenas, who, influenced by their great affection for the Empire, and by the hatred of long standing between Lodi and Milan, betray a violent animosity against this latter town ; yet in spite of their partiality, their power of reasoning and expression is such, and so varied is their information, that they must be considered among the best sources of our knowledge concerning that memorable period.

The grand figure of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa evoked in Germany an historian, who must not be omitted from these pages. This was Otho, bishop of Freising, who was born from a second marriage of Agnes, daughter of the Emperor Henry IV, with Liupold, marquis of Austria, and hence was half-brother of King Conrad III, and uncle of Barbarossa, whose faithful counsellor he became, and sharer in State affairs. In mind quick and versatile, melancholy and mystic in disposition, Otho inclined to monastic life, and indeed after some time passed in study at Paris, he turned Cistercian monk in the Abbey of Morimund, and became its abbot, but later was raised to the episcopal see of Freising, without however abandoning either the dress or the feelings of a monk. He accompanied his brother Conrad during the second Crusade, and led against the Saracens in Palestine an army which was destroyed, he himself escaping with difficulty, and after visiting Jerusalem he returned to Europe. There seems to have been little harmony between him and King Conrad, but when Frederick ascended the throne he took more part in public affairs, and remained with the emperor till 1158, when on Frederick’s preparing to return to Italy, he obtained permission to remain behind in his native country, on account of his failing health. There he died soon after in that same Abbey of Morimund where he had been monk and abbot, and to which he was bound by many ties of affection, as he also was to his diocese of Freising, whose cathedral, after long neglect in those troubled times, was restored by his munificence to riches and splendour.

Otho, naturally inclined to meditation, and drawn to it still further by his serious philosophical and theological studies, was prompted by the scenes in which he was both spectator and actor to write a book of history, wherein to philosophize sadly on the vanity of human things and to seek comfort in the thought of immortality. The Chronicon, or, as Otho preferred to call it, the Liber de duabus civitatibus, is a synthetical study of the various ages of the world, beginning, as usual, with the Creation, and coming down to his own times, divided into seven books, and containing, in an eighth, a treatise on the last judgment and the world to come. He drew his historical information from Paulus Orosius and his philosophical opinions from the works of St. Augustine, and perhaps is the first who, in that early dawn of the renaissance, tried to connect the whole story of humanity into a foreordained system of causes and effects. Hence the value of this work for anyone who is inquiring into the progressive development of historical research, and also, for a minute study of German history, the value of those books of the Chronicon, in which Otho treats of the times nearest his own. But the book of his which has greatest interest for Italian history is another concerning Barbarossa’s earlier enterprises, and entitled Gesta Friderici Imperatoris. An impartial examiner of the differences between the Church and Empire, this bishop-monk, uncle of the emperor, eyewitness of many events, and minutely informed on many others, would be beyond all comparison the best historian of the day, did not certain grave defects obscure his merits. The same philosophical tendency of his mind which enables him to take in facts with a glance, and judge of them with sufficient fairness from a distance, makes him often careless in the details and not very reliable. Moreover, a love of showy phrases, a wish to increase the rhetorical effect by strong contrasts of light and shade, frequently induce him to alter in such a way the circumstances of his narrative that, even when it is on the whole truthful, many of its incidents become quite incredible. An instance of this is where, in his account of the sudden rising of the Romans against Frederick’s army (A.D. 1155, June 18th), of the long and obstinate resistance, and the slaughter which ensued, he affirms that, while of the Romans there were a thousand killed, two hundred prisoners, and innumerable wounded, only one of the Germans perished, and another was taken prisoner, an assertion whose incredible nature he softens with a classical mirum dictu. But if this defect, and a certain mixture of national boastfulness with a courtier’s adulation, often make him untrustworthy in details, he is nevertheless, taken all in all, of great importance as an historian, and often, when accounting for facts, he shows remarkable insight in discovering their historical and political causes, and with great sagacity explains the present by the past. Thus, in the passage we are about to quote, we find a striking instance of this, especially if we take into consideration the fact that it was written by a German imperialist at a time when the will of Barbarossa, and the renewed study of Roman law were calculated to exaggerate the rights of im­perialism beyond all limits.

“Nevertheless the Lombards had laid aside all the bitterness of their barbarous ferocity, in consequence, perhaps, of their marriages with the Italians, so that they had children who inherited something of Roman mildness and intellect from their maternal parentage, or from the influence of the soil and climate, and retain the elegance of the Latin language and a certain courtesy of manners. They also imitate the activity of the ancient Romans in the management of the cities and in the preservation of the State. Finally, they are so attached to their liberty that, to avoid the insolence of rulers, they prefer to be reigned over by consuls than by princes. And since, as it is known, there are three orders among them, of captains, vassals, and the commons, in order to keep down arrogance, these aforesaid consuls are chosen, not from one order, but from each, and, lest they should be seized with a greed for power, they are changed nearly every year. From which it happens that that territory is all divided into cities, which have each reduced those of their own province to live with them, so that there is hardly to be found any noble or great man with so great an influence, as not to owe obedience to the rule of his own city. And they are all accustomed to call these various territories their own Comitatus, from this privilege of living together. And in order that the means of restraining their neighbours may not fail, they do not disdain to raise to the badge of knighthood, and to all grades of authority, young men of low condition, and even workmen of contemptible mechanical arts, such as other people drive away like the plague from the more honourable and liberal pursuits. From which it happens that they are pre-eminent among the other countries of the world for riches and power. And to this they are helped also, as has been said, by their own industrious habits, and by the absence of their princes, accustomed to reside north of the Alps. In this, however, they retain a trace of their barbarous dregs, forgetful of ancient nobility, that while they boast of living by law they do not obey the laws. For they seldom or never receive the prince reverently, to whom it would be their duty to show a willing reverence of submission, nor do they obediently accept those things which he, according to the justice of the laws, ordains, unless they are made to feel his authority, constrained by the gathering of many soldiers. On this account it frequently happens that, whereas a citizen has only to be restrained by the law, and an adversary must be coerced with arms according to the law, they find him, from whom as their proper prince they should receive clemency, more often having recourse to hostilities for his own rights. From which results a double evil for the State, both that the prince has his thoughts distracted by the collecting of an army for the subjection of the citizen, while the citizen has to be compelled to obedience to his prince, not without a great expenditure of his own substance. Whence, for the same reason that the people are in such an instance guilty of rashness, the prince is to be excused, by the necessity of the case, before God and man.

 “Among the other cities of that nation, Milan, situated between the Po and the Alps, now possesses the supremacy.... And it is considered more famous than other cities, not only on account of its greater size and its large number of armed men, but also because it has added to its jurisdiction two other cities placed in the same region, namely Como and Lodi. Then, as happens in human affairs, through the blandishments of a smiling fortune, it swelled out into, such daring of pride, being elated with success, that it not only did not refrain from attacking all its neighbours, but ventured even without alarm to incur the recently offended majesty of the prince.”

It is to be regretted that a premature death prevented Otho from continuing his history beyond 1158, when the conflict between Frederick and the Communes may be said to have only just begun. Doubtlessly his experience of the facts, his intimacy with the emperor, and his easy access to official documents would have increased the value of his book with the progress of events. Nor are we compensated for this loss by the continuation of his work down to 1160 by his faithful chaplain Ragevinus, also an eyewitness and perhaps a more accurate narrator than his master, but as incom­parably inferior to him in talent and learning as in position. Besides this continuation, the Gesta gave rise to the poem of Guntherus Ligurinus, entitled Carmina de Rebus gestis Friderici I. Aenobarbi, which has latterly led to many controversies regarding its authenticity, called in question by some of the learned to the extent of declaring it to be a fabrication of the sixteenth century. This conclusion, however, appears exaggerated, and it is far more reasonable to hold, with Gaston Paris, that this poem is a sort of literary exercise, written about the end of the twelfth century, almost entirely on the lines of Otho of Freising’s Gesta, so that historically speaking it is little more than a para­phrase in verse. Nor of much greater value are the Gesta Friderici by Godfrey of Viterbo, who treated of the same subject, but rudely and confusedly, without saying almost anything new. He wrote several other works, among them one well known, called the Pantheon, and also to him is attributed a poem on the exploits of Henry VI against Tancred in Sicily, but it does not seem to be really his. It is disputed whether he was born at Viterbo or in Germany, and most critics regard him as German, but we cannot say that the reasons for one opinion seem to us better than those for the other. Certainly when a boy he was educated at Bamberg, and belonged later as chaplain to the court of Frederick, whom he served zealously, following him in his campaigns and travelling for him, as he tells us, “twice in Sicily, three times in Provence, once in Spain, often in France, and forty times to Rome from Germany.” He died at Viterbo, which, if not his birthplace, was certainly his adopted home during the last years of his life. It was rather the gift than the opportunities which were wanting on his part, to enable him to become one of the more distinguished historians of his time.

Of a very different value, on the other hand, is another poem lately discovered by Professor Monaci in the Vatican library, and which is about to be published by the Roman Historical Society. The anonymous author, apparently a native of Bergamo, and probably disciple of that Magister Moyes whom we have already mentioned, was an imperialist and admirer of Barbarossa, whose exploits in Lombardy till the year 1160 he celebrated, stopping then abruptly, perhaps because while he was writing, about 1166, Bergamo, having changed sides, deserted Frederick and joined the Lombard league. A tolerably good versifier and a vivid colourist, if he does not add much to our know­ledge of those times, at least he modifies for us some of the details, while others he either confirms or denies. Hitherto only a short sample of this poem has been published, which contains a narrative of the coronation of Barbarossa, and the encounter between the Romans and the imperial troops—a far more probable version than that given by Otho of Freising,—and closes with a touching digression regarding the doctrines and punishment of the reformer Arnold of Brescia, whom he exhibits to us calmly intrepid in the presence of the rack and the halter, an unshaken martyr to his faith:—

“But when he saw that the punishment was prepared, and that his neck was to be bound by hurrying Fate in the halter, being asked if he would renounce his false doctrines, and confess his sins after the manner of the wise, he, wonderful to relate, fearless and confident in himself, answers that his own doctrine appears to him the sound one, nor would he hesitate to undergo death for what he had said, in which there was nothing either absurd or dangerous. And he asks a short delay for time to pray in, for he says he would wish to confess his sins to Christ. Then on his bended knees, with eyes and hands raised to heaven, he groaned, sighing from the depths of his breast, and silently communed in spirit with Almighty God, commending to Him his soul; and after a short delay he gives over his body to death, prepared to suffer with constancy. Those who were looking on at the punishment shed tears, even the executioners yielded to a movement of pity, while he hung suspended from the noose which held him.”

The fact of this book being not exactly a history but an historical poem, the difficulties of the versification, and the classical reminiscences espe­cially in the descriptions of battles, sometimes rather takes from the historical exactitude of what it tells ; yet the love of, and insight into the truth which it shows are precious qualities, as is also its secret of rendering in a single line the important details of a given fact, or the hidden causes of many. Thus when he speaks of the fascination exercised by Arnold’s eloquence in many towns of Italy, and adds that it was potent also over the—

               “ Romanam facilem nova credere plebem,”

he depicts vividly in these words that people so restless through the whole Middle Age, always too keenly conscious of its past overwhelming great­ness, always discontented with its present municipal life, which never rose above mediocrity.

With the peace between the Communes and Frederick, signed at Constance in 1183, ceases the first period of municipal history, and another opens out still more fruitful in activity and in internal changes, an age of fierce and continual civil wars, an age of commerce, of arts, of literature. Historical research is a gainer; and while the increase of learning and the widespread desire for information add to the number of those compilations, which embrace the whole of history from the beginning of the world to the times of the compiler, each city also, great or small, has its chroniclers, and among them some who, extending their labours beyond the walls of their own town, become in reality historians of the whole or of a great part of Italy. Also the life-giving breath of true art penetrates into these pages of history, and writers begin to appear full of thought and graceful in style, whether they make use of the ancient tongue, or of the new living language which is forming slowly and becoming classic. We shall treat very briefly the authors of general compilations, and only just allude to some of the minor chroniclers, in order to be able to dwell a little longer on the more important ones. Among the former our attention is drawn to Sicardus, chosen bishop of Cremona in 1185, a zealous and warmhearted man, who exerted himself much at Frederick I’s court in favour of his country, exhorted the inhabitants of Cremona to send assistance to the Crusaders in the East, and betook himself thither in person in 1203, pushing on as far as Armenia in company with an apostolic legate. He was the author of various books, among the rest a chronicle, abound­ing in fables in the early period, but extremely careful and exact in the part relating to the occur­rences of his own day. Other writers of the same kind are John Colonna, archbishop of Messina, who in 1257 was in England as the legate of Alexander IV, and wrote a Mare Historiarum which is still unedited; Ricobaldus Ferrariensis, who at the end of the thirteenth century wrote a universal history, called Pomarium; James of Acqui, John deacon of Verona, and Landulph Colonna a Roman; all writers whose works, like that of Sicardus, are worthless in the early part, but from which we can extract useful facts relating to the age in which they were written. Plenty of information also is to be derived from the friar Franciscus Pipinus, a Bolognese Dominican, who translated from the French into Latin a history of the wars in the Holy Land, and the travels of Marco Polo. After having been himself in the East, he described also his own journeys, closing so many labours with a general chronicle from the origin of the Frankish kings till 1314, the last part full of facts which took place in different parts of Italy, and which are related by him with care and accuracy.

Franciscus Pipinus in his chronicle represents a literary tendency of the Dominican order, which, all intent on preaching and controversy, required to have extensive compilations that should afford facilities for a certain amount of learning. These compilations, embracing a wide series of events taken from the Scriptures, from histories, from traditions, form real encyclopedias, presenting a mixture of truth and mere legend. Different, on the other hand, was the tendency of the Franciscans, who went about among the people, and shared their feelings, their fancy, and their instincts. The Fioretti of St. Francis are admirable in their simple and popular freshness, while in the poems of Jacopone of Todi there are to be found both ardour inflamed by zeal, and a spirit of biting sarcasm, the first revealed in his Stabat Mater, the second in the terrible satires against Boniface VIII. The Franciscan order was democratic, and even when, feared and caressed, it penetrated like a wave of popular feeling into palaces and courts, it never abandoned its first tendencies, but entered with the easy contempt of a democracy conscious of its own strength. It was natural that the Guelph movement of the thirteenth century should find its painter in a Franciscan,—for Fra Salimbene of Parma, more than the historian, is the painter of his times. He was born at Parma in 1221. At the age of fifteen he left his father’s house to become a Franciscan friar, and firmly withstood the en­treaties, bribes, even the maledictions of his father, who implored him to return to the home where he was loved. From convent to convent he wandered through all central and northern Italy, stopping for a longer or shorter time in the principal places; he travelled through France for about two years, and on his return to Italy resided for a time at Ferrara, then resumed his wanderings from place to place, coming and going at random according to chance circumstances, the will of his superiors, and a certain restless craving in himself for change and novelty. He saw and knew a great number and variety of people of different nationalities, conditions and characters; popes, kings, bishops, barons; peasants and prophets; saints, buffoons and rogues. He negotiated several matters for his order, and co-operated in 1256, by naming an arbitrator, in settling certain differences between the communes of Bologna and Reggio. Soon after we find him near Piacenza, at the bedside of a plague-stricken patient; in 1260 he is at Modena, organizing one of those strange processions of flagellants, which just in those years excited the disordered religious passions of the people. Going to the Romagna, where he occupied himself with literature, and at Ravenna examined the Pontifical Book of Agnellus, he was spectator of many remarkable occurrences, and was thus “always with one foot in the cloister and one in the world, always in the midst of a confused movement of ideas and feelings, of re­pentance and crimes, of freedom and tyranny.”

He lived certainly until 1288, and probably till after 1290, thus traversing in his life the longer and more characteristic portion of the thirteenth century. After having composed various theological and historical works, most of which are lost, he finally collected for the use of a niece of his, nun in a convent at Parma, all that he had learnt from books or seen in the world, and mixing all this together formed from it a huge chronicle, which has come down to us safely.

In this chronicle, as in a faithful mirror, Salimbene reproduces the age in which he lived. Unlike most of the other principal Italian chroniclers, this friar was rather spectator than actor in the history of his day, but an acute and discerning spectator, with a turn for observation, and sufficiently free from the prejudices of his time and party to judge independently, sufficiently influenced by them to reflect them unconsciously in his pages. As a Franciscan of the thirteenth century he was drawn into an ascetic mysticism foreign to his nature, which was frank even to rudeness, and full of a rough common sense. In writing he tells what he knows about every one, whether they wore helmet, cowl, or mitre, and in the same way judges freely of things, writing in a careless but picturesque style, and in a rude Latin so full of Italian forms as hardly to retain anything of the original language. He is not an historian but a story-teller who describes things one by one as he happened to see them, familiarly, without order, almost without design, among continual digressions, and every now and then introducing into his narrative subtle observations and criticisms, which show a mind prompt to grasp the truth of things. The struggle between Frederick II and the Guelph communes of Lombardy is related fragmentarily, in a thousand episodes in which a number of those secondary, and more than secondary, figures appear and act, who, though playing so large a part in history, seldom receive other than passing notice from professional historians. And not only the lesser men are portrayed by him with a few bold strokes, but also the great ones, including the Emperor Frederick II, who “was without faith; a cunning man; sly, sensual, malicious, prone to anger; yet a man of parts when he chose to show good nature and courtesy; fond of amusement, cheerful, industrious; he could read, write and sing, and compose songs and poems; ... he knew and could speak many languages; and to sum up briefly, had he been a good Catholic he would have had few equals among the emperors ; he was a handsome man, well made but of middle stature. For I saw him, and sometimes I loved him.” And after having spoken of some cruelties committed by Frederick from a curiosity for scientific inquiry, he adds that he was an Epicurean, and “whatever he could find in the Holy Scriptures either by himself or his philosophers, about there being no other life after death, he found it all;” and it was his intention that “the pope as well as the cardinals and the rest of the prelates should be poor and go on foot; and he did not mean this to be done for holy zeal, but because he was very mean and greedy, and wished to have the riches and treasures of the Church for himself and his children, and this he said to some of his secretaries.” And in another place he says that Frederick, “together with his princes, strove to undo the liberty of the Church, and destroy the unity of the faithful.” This accusation, which must have been very general in those days, agrees also with the view taken by those modern writers, who attribute to Frederick and Petrus de Vinea the design of breaking with the papacy and founding a new Church, and would explain the favour accorded by the popes to Charles of Anjou against the house of Hohenstaufen. And this fortunate prince, with his hypocritical affectation of piety, who, through self-interest and without any attachment to the cause, became the head and ruin of the Guelph party in Italy, is also described in his real colours in several places throughout the chronicle of Salimbene, who first saw him in a French monastery with his brother St. Louis. But what is especially attractive and valuable in this chronicle is. the bold, and at the same time minute, picture of the state of Italy, which stands out clearly in every page and in every episode. The general agitation regarding theological dogmas is admirably depicted, as also the firm determination of Rome in the presence of this new speculative movement, which inclined, either like Frederick to a sort of Epicurean negation, or like the Joachimites to a visionary mysticism. Salimbene himself was for a time a follower of the Abbot Joachim, but did not remain long under that influence, owing to his practical character, which had little in common with the fantastic dreams of the Calabrian visionary. Hence he turns naturally in his chronicle to many incidents descriptive of the life and the various classes of the clergy, their virtues and vices, and their relations with the populace, of whose religious extravagances he approves partly and partly dis­approves. In the same way he depicts the political life of his times, the wide expanding of republican freedom, and the misery to which Frederick II’s wars reduced Lombardy, which he describes as “reduced to a desert, without any one cultivating it or travelling through it.... Nor could men plough or sow or reap or plant vineyards, or live in villages.... But near the towns men worked with a guard of soldiers,... and this had to be done on account of the highwaymen and robbers, who had greatly increased. And they carried off men and held them captive, till they might redeem themselves with money. And at that time a man would see another man passing him on the road as gladly as he would have seen the devil”; a sad state of things, still further aggravated by the continual local disputes, described everywhere by Salimbene, between the popular Guelph party and the old Ghibelline nobility irritated by the democracy, which forced it to bend before the law. But it is impossible to follow this chronicle in all its endless meanderings, wholly consisting as it does of digres­sions, episodes, and incidents great and small. It would be the same as trying to give in a few pages a complete picture of the men and manners of Italy in that era of changes, when municipal life was stretching out hardy shoots on all sides, and the blood was coursing hotly through the veins of a reinvigorated people.

Salimbene’s chronicle reaches to the year 1288, and there is good reason for attributing to him another chronicle which comes down to 1290, and which was published anonymously by Muratori, under the name of Memoriale Potestatum Regicusium. It concerns itself chiefly with the affairs of the city of Reggio, and also enlarges on the history of Lombardy and Emilia. And beginning now to speak of other local chronicles, we may say that hardly any city in those provinces is to be found, between the thirteenth century and the first years of the fifteenth, which does not possess its one or more chronicles, generally full of valuable information. Bologna, Ferrara, Modena, Parma, Piacenza, are among those whose chronicles deserve most attention, especially Piacenza, whose history has lately been enriched by the discovery of two other chronicles, most valuable for the times of Frederick II, published first by Huillard Breholles, and then again in an improved edition by the Historical Society of Parma and Piacenza. At Milan, Stefanardus of Vimercate, a Dominican, a theologian, and a learned author of books on canonical law, wrote in an elegant poetical form on the events which occurred in that town between 1262 and 1295, while Otho Visconti was archbishop. Another Dominican friar, Galvanus Flamma, a Milanese, born at the end of the thirteenth century, wrote various works important for Milanese history and for that of the Viscontis, of which the best known, called Manipulus Florum, was published by Muratori in his great collection. Also Milanese and a friend of Flamma’s was the notary John of Cermenate, who had some share in his country’s vicissitudes, and narrates with great precision and vigorous purity of style those which occurred between 1307 and 1313. With less elegance as a writer, but in equally good faith, Petrus Azarius of Novara composed the history of the Visconti family from 1250 to 1362. An anonymous writer wrote the life of Fra Dolcino, a heretic of Novara, and Bonincontrus Morigia the history of Monza, up to 1349,—an eyewitness and actor in the scenes which he describes. Of the less numerous chronicles of Piedmont, it will be enough to name that of Asti, written by a certain Ogerius, a member of the same family of Alfieri to which later the great tragic writer belonged another chronicle, also of Asti, by William Ventura, and the Chronicon Imaginis Mundi by James Acqui. On the other hand the province of the Marca Trivigiana, and especially the towns of Verona, Vicenza and Padua were abundantly supplied with writers of merit. In the first of these cities the Guelph chronicler Parisius de Cereta deserves mention for the simplicity and impartiality with which he wrote of what occurred in the early part of the thirteenth century, with special reference to Ezzelin da Romano and Mastinus della Scala. But the greatest historians of all that region are those of Vicenza and Padua. Often actively mixed up in the events of his narrative, Gerardus Maurisius of Vicenza gives us the exploits of the Da Romano family between 1182 and 1287, from an ardently Ghibelline point of view; dwelling especially on the early days of Ezzelin, and bestowing praises on him which would astonish us, did we not remember that in those days Ezzelin had not yet revealed the monstrous cruelty of his character. Besides, the original work of Maurisius was remodelled into its present form by his contemporary Thaddeus, a notary, who put it into Leonine verse, and very probably exaggerated the laudatory passages. It was also of Vicenza and the places with which she was on terms of hostility or friendship in the fourteenth century, that Antonius Godi and Nicholas Smerego wrote, the work of the latter being continued by an anonymous monk of Santa Giustina of Padua. Superior as historians, however, to all these are Ferretus of Vicenza, and Rolandinus and Albertinus Mussatus of Padua.

Ferretus Ferreti, born towards 1295 of a good and wealthy family of Vicenza, was attracted to literature through his quick and imaginative turn of mind, his lively and satirical disposition. His guide in poetry was Benvenuto dei Campesani, famous for a poem in abuse of Padua and in praise of Henry VII and Cangrande della Scala. Following the salutary impulse of his age, Ferretus studied the classics with great ardour, and strove to imitate them. Although regarded by Muratori as one of the best Latin writers of the time, he nevertheless did not succeed in avoiding that stiffness and affectation from which only the most finished writers of Latin escaped in the two following centuries of renaissance. He wrote a history of what occurred in Italy between 1250 and 1318, especially in connection with those events which happened near him, showing great skill in grouping and selecting facts, with a view to placing them vividly before the reader’s imagination. But this very skill, which arose from a rich vein of fancy, led him, rather than to minute researches, to look for the dazzling side of human actions, in order to produce striking effects in the picture he was painting. “Rerum gestarum splendida facta percurrimus” he exclaims: and indeed, as Professor Zanella observes in his fine essay on Ferretus, “he could not desire a better field for his talents; for that period which he undertook to describe, from 1250 to 1318, is among the most brilliant and most fertile in events that are to be found in Italian history. No one can deny that Charles of Anjou, Peter of Aragon, Boniface VIII, the Tuscan factions, Corso Donati, Clement V, Henry VII, Cangrande, Matteo Visconti, Uguccione della Faggiuola are not vividly depicted by Ferretus, who likewise takes pleasure in describing in florid language localities, battles, sieges, entries, coronations, deaths of popes and emperors. But as to his profession of always telling the truth and never letting himself be induced, either by love or hatred, to utter falsehood, I think that he often forgot his promise. It is to be noted that among many rumours circulated regarding any fact, he never fails to select that which redounds to the dishonour of someone in power—a satirical propensity not easily to be reconciled with a real love of truth.” Ferretus also tried historical subjects in verse, and his poem on the origin of the Scaliger family, dedicated to Cangrande, abounds in information relating to the principal towns of Venetia, and especially, besides Vicenza and Padua, to Verona, which, on account of the wide influence of the Scaligers who resided there, comes to be treated of by all the chroniclers of that part of Italy. And as he had sung the Scaligers, so also Ferretus dedicated a poem to the death of the great exile, who at their court had found his first refuge and entertainment, and who was probably known to him personally; but unfortunately this ancient tribute to the tomb of Dante is lost.

Rolandinus of Padua wrote the history from 1200 to 1260 of his native town. He had studied at the University of Bologna, and received there, in 1221, the title of Master and Doctor in Grammar and Rhetoric. On his return home, his father, who was a notary in Padua, gave up to him some notes which he had been preparing on the more remarkable events of his day, and exhorted him to write the history of their town. Rolandinus did not forget his father’s advice, and, enlarging on the original idea, composed by the aid of his academical studies a work in twelve books, which displayed such clearness, and such careful knowledge and classification of facts, as to gain immediately for its author a great reputation as historian. In 1262, two years after he had completed it, his history received the honour of being publicly read in the University of Padua, in the presence of pro­fessors and students, who conferred on it their formal approbation. Time has confirmed this judgment.

After Rolandinus came another even greater historian, indeed one of the most distinguished men of letters of whom Italy could then boast. Albertinus Mussatus, the friend and contemporary of Ferretus of Vicenza, was born in 1261, in Padua, of poor parentage. Being left an orphan at an early age, he supported himself and his younger brothers by copying books for the students of the university, until having gradually learnt much from the very fact of copying, he began to plead in the courts. His powerful talents and generous great­ness of character gained him general favour, and raised him rapidly to honours and riches, so that in 1296 he was knighted and called to the Council of Padua, which then administered the free Republic.

There he increased so quickly in reputation, that in 1302 he was sent as ambassador to Pope Boniface VIII, and from that time till the end of his life, whether as statesman, soldier, historian or poet, he remained a man of mark, and esteemed even by his enemies, throughout all his country’s vicissitudes, and the storms of fortune which some­times threatened him with ruin.

When, in the midst of Italy’s troubles between the Guelph and Ghibelline factions, Henry VII of Luxembourg, called upon by the latter party, came to take possession of the imperial crown, a great ferment resulted in the northern and central provinces of the peninsula. Not that the new emperor had a position of any real strength, but the different parties, receiving a fresh impulse from his coming, and shaken by a thousand vague hopes and fears, burned with a hotter and more impetuous flame. The Guelph cities of Lombardy, jealous of their liberties, and remembering the resistance made in the past to emperors of a very different stamp, either received this last one coldly, or resolutely opposed his entrance. On the other hand, he was favoured in the Ghibelline cities, but in neither one nor other, full as they were of independent life, had he any authority worth mentioning, and in his efforts as peacemaker he was quite unsuccessful. Far more powerful than reverence or hatred for the Empire were the local irritations, which divided each city into two parties, of which the prevailing one strove to maintain its position, while the other was constantly agitated by the hope of its turn coming, and its being then able to steer the helm of government in a different course. Hence a continual rise and fall of the two factions, and the Guelph cities changing to Ghibelline, and the Ghibelline to Guelph, and within the walls citizens fighting against citizens, and the victors destroying the houses of the vanquished, while these latter carry into exile a rancorous desire for revenge, and the ever-present hope of returning to wreak it. Such was also the troubled life of Padua. She was Guelph in her sympathies, both from the prevalence of that faction within the walls, and for fear lest Vicenza, her dependant, should shake off her yoke and go over to Cangrande della Scala, the master of Verona and head of the Ghibellines. On the first arrival, however, of Henry VII in Italy, Padua prudently, though with some reluctance, sent an embassy to greet him at Milan (A.D. 1311). One of the ambassadors was Albertinus Mussatus, now eminent among the literary men of his day, and already known as one of the first revivors of Latin poetry in Italy. Henry VII. received him with such special favour, as to inspire him with an affection which never cooled, even when his duty as a citizen obliged him to stifle his personal feelings, and to take up arms against the imperial cause. After some time Mussatus was again sent on an embassy to Henry VII, to ask for guarantees for the liberties of Padua, which were granted, though not unconditionally. On the return, however, of the ambassadors, they found their fellow-citizens violently agitated by a report that Henry had appointed Cane della Scala Imperial Vicar of Padua, a title hateful to the Guelphs, and almost always synonymous with master and tyrant In consequence they would not accept Henry’s conditions, which made him angry; and, the moment appearing favourable, Vicenza rebelled and threw herself into the arms of the Scaliger. This was the beginning of a long and obstinate war between the two cities (A.D. 1311). Mussatus, who had done all in his power to avert it, had several times to return to Henry VII, in his efforts to conclude a peace, and have the former concessions confirmed. But he found it an un­grateful task to negotiate between the angry sovereign, and the excited spirits of his fellow­ citizens, who lent an ear to peaceful counsels only when the danger was at its height. The ambassador felt the effect of this constantly changing tide in the reception he met with on his return, sometimes enthusiastic as for the saviour of the city, sometimes gloomy and threatening as were he bringing treason and dishonour. Things continued very serious: in September, 1311, Henry selected, according to certain conditions which had been agreed to, among four persons proposed by the Paduan council itself, one Gerardus da Enzola as imperial vicar for Padua. This hated name of Vicar increased the discontent among the people, and it grew more and more difficult for pacific proposals to prevail in the council. In 1312, returning from Genoa with the last conditions obtained from the emperor, Mussatus found the city in great uproar. The Scaliger had been named imperial vicar for Vicenza, and would certainly be named so for Padua before long; perhaps already the decree appointing him was signed, and its publication only delayed till the opportune moment presented itself. Such the rumours which excited this proud and warlike city, and the indignation of the entire people found its echo in the hearts of the councillors convened in the great Sala della Ragione. A thrill ran through the whole assembly when Roland of Piazzola, who had been one of Mussatus’ companions in the embassy, rising with great vehemence, and going back over the calamities inflicted by former vicars, prophesied that the Scaliger would prove another Ezzelin. “I saw,” he exclaimed with fire, and referring to his recent journey to the emperor, “I saw cities but lately flourishing now in ruins, and their citizens fugitives, the country districts deserted and covered with unaccustomed weeds, the aspect of the nobles grown sordid from hunger, while the poor people are exhausted by famine. Oh, shame! Lombardy, this fertile land, now uncultivated, may be compared to a forest wilderness. And who are the inhabitants of its noble cities ? The inhabitants are its old tyrants dressed up in the name of imperial vicars; by these the remnants of Lom­bardy are consumed. ... I saw Genoa beautiful, I saw her disfigured in three days ; beautiful, from the joy of her citizens welcoming this image of felicity, I saw her disfigured from the change in the aspect of her community who had to alter the customs of their country into an absolute rule. Thus it would be if our president were removed, O citizens, and a stranger substituted, and your votes were annulled and interfered with by laws, and this senate dissolved, your tribunes, whom you call Gastaldiones, being basely and shamefully deposed.... Was he ashamed to make this Cane, a wicked man, the Vicar of Vicenza almost at the very gate of our most prosperous city, having broken the alliance of Vicenza and Padua, at peace with each other? Not for this was he ashamed, but rather followed the advice of his partisans that this Cane might drag you into servitude, and stir up civil war in this State through its neighbours. Oh, may the cruel and horrible slaughter of your fathers come into your memory at this thought, namely by that son of Satan, Ezzelin da Romano, whom Frederick, the impious predecessor of this Henry of Luxembourg, under the false name of imperial vicar, appointed only as a minister of destruction!” Then turning to the imperial vicar, he continued: “And thou, Gerardus, if thou wouldst indeed agree to this, renounce being vicar, resume the sweet and holy office and name of our Podesta, rule this city in freedom for half a year, and swear to continue thus with all thy strength! But if not, take thy salary and go ; we have at hand an excellent man, Rudolph of St. Miniato, whom I propose to fill and attend to this free and blessed office of Podestà.” There was a general shout of applause. Vainly Mussatus strove to introduce calm into their counsels; in vain he explained the uncertain state of things in Italy, showed how the Ghibelline party, still vigorous, might become a dangerous assistance to the emperor whom they were defying; vainly he prayed, he implored for milder measures. All his eloquence was powerless against the popular wrath, and the war party conquered.

A few days later the war began; a war every now and then interrupted and again resumed, and carried on for many years; varied in fortunes, but always alike in the hatred with which those passionate spirits threw themselves into the fratricidal struggle. Albertinus Mussatus, who had shown himself so mild a counsellor, proved a lion in the fight; always in the most perilous enterprises, always the first to confront danger, the last to retire from it. It appeared as if he had forgotten that Henry to whom he was once so attached, and whose exploits he had celebrated, when, like Dante, he fondly hoped that they were destined to be beneficial to Italy. Padua, his beloved country, was engaged in war, and he was fighting her enemies. In the November of 1313 there was a momentary lull in this fierce contest. Mussatus and another native of Padua went to discuss terms of peace, which the Scaliger had proposed, but the discussion proved fruitless, and war became again imminent. In the meantime Henry VII was dead (August 24, 1313), and with him faded away many hopes of the more ardent Ghibellines, many illusions of those who had looked to him as to an angel with a message of peace. The Guelph party became puffed up with pride, and at Padua, under the pretext of reforms, it seized upon all authority, treated with outrage not only the Ghibellines, but all the more moderate citizens, and quickly degenerated into tyrannical anarchy (A.D. 1314). There resulted a violent uprising of the people, of which, without a show of reason, Mussatus became the victim, and his house was attacked by an infuriated mob, breathing death and destruction. In sight of this danger Mussatus did not lose his presence of mind. He refused to conceal himself when advised to do so, and would allow no defence to be made, for fear of shedding the citizens’ blood. Mounting a horse, he rode courageously out of the besieged gateway, and dashing at full speed through the crowd, escaped unharmed from the city, and retired to a place of safety. It inflicted a sharp pang on his generous heart, and he felt all the more bitterly injustice and exile, from the sense of how faithfully he had always served his beloved and ungrateful country. In an oration which he made in his defence, and then inserted in his history, he exclaimed in grief and indignation, “Need I be ashamed or blush to express my own praises, if I have deserved well in anything, being surrounded by such ingratitude? Need I be ashamed even to be arrogant? No. For when a past danger renders it necessary to speak, in order to repulse further injuries, a violent apprehension overcomes the calmness of the most courageous man. The other day, after the slaughter by those wicked ones and the horrible massacre, the tumultuous mob rushed to the house of Albertinus Mussatus, which was besieged by the raging multitudes demanding my goods, my children, and my blood. If one might say with the world’s Redeemer, ‘O my people, what have I done to thee? I have led thee,’ saith He, ‘forty years in the wilderness,’—I say, I, Mussatus, have led thee, O Paduan People, nearly for as many months through great dangers, in my footsteps, under my guidance, from which thou thyself confessest to have stepped aside through thy own fault.” And after enumerating a long series of services rendered by him to his country, and the mild counsels he gave them in good fortune, he continues, alluding to their timidity in dangers: “But repentance comes too late after the hail. And what remedies can be invented for all misfortunes? O Tribunes of the people, remember. I speak the truth. Lo, I speak to you who were aware of, and the causes of all that I foresaw. You held that Caesar was to be pacified if possible : you, O Magnates of the city, took counsel how to do it. And how should it be done? By what contrivance? By what means? How? That need, that fatigue called upon Albertinus Mussatus. It was asserted that he could save the Republic, could restore her from ruin. In case there was still anything to be done in the matter, you ran to him, prostrate as he was and deprived of all hope of public action, you took counsel with him, you implored him alone. When Vitalianus de Basiliis, then in command of the people, with his hands joined, falling on his knees and weeping, implored me, together with all you Tribunes, to go to the King. ... I confess that I regard myself with wonder and pity. I must hand down for posterity the reasons in writing. When at the head of this Republic, did I ever fail? I leave out the daily, nightly, yearly labours. Let me not, as a reward for my work, have to allege the bitter vigils, cares and anxieties. There is no want of witnesses; let them testify that I may be believed. Did I exhaust the treasury? How? When? Have I enriched myself at the expense of private persons? Who are they? Let one who has been hurt or despoiled by me say so. Take this, O Tribunes, as a sufficient proof of our rectitude: on the kalends of last December (not to go back to an infinite series), the lots selected me for the office of Elder. This honour is almost equal to that of consul among the Romans. I then called to judgment, to make restitution, that Peter of Alticlino against whom there was a popular accusation, a most powerful and formidable man, and several others of the military and civil orders: I desired them to be bound, convicted them and obliged them, with great firmness and severity, to return to the treasury the moneys they had stolen. Thus was I led to act by my habits, my daring, my love of the Commonwealth, by the atrocity of their thefts, and by justice?’ And after these fiery words, he adds others, telling of his deeds in time of war; also explains why he had desired the imposition of a tax, which appeared to him useful and fair, but which had led to his being hated by the people, and driven into exile; and concludes with proud indignation: “But it is natural that the unclean herd should hate the sheep with golden fleece. Be it far from you, O Tribunes, to imitate the ferocity of wild beasts thirsting for innocent blood. If I can save my health, fortunes and faculties, I dedicate them with whatever remains that I may be able to do, to the Fathers, the Magnates, and the wiser part of the People.”

Pages of a true eloquence, which excited the admiration of contemporaries, as they still do that of posterity, to whom they recall the Roman Republic, and those virile utterances which burst forth in Greece and Rome, when political passions boiled over, and the democracy exercised its agitating influence! At length, when the period of uproar had ceased and quiet was restored to the city, the council met, and having abolished the extravagant reforms, and re-established the old order of things, unanimously decreed the recall of Mussatus, and public honours to be paid to him in compensation for the insult he had suffered. This was a great satisfaction to the faithful citizen, but before he could return, the Paduan forces advanced unexpectedly against Vicenza, and he joined the army. In the engagements which followed he fought with his habitual valour, until in a chance encounter he fell from a bridge into a ditch, where, surrounded by Cangrande’s men, and having received eleven wounds, he was taken prisoner and conducted to Vicenza. There he remained in honourable captivity, was visited by Cane accompanied by his court, and held discourse with him, both grave and jocular,—an example not rare in that day, that as soon as the bloody swords were sheathed, wrath could give place to admiration, and a powerful baron was disposed to honour the virtues and talents of a simple citizen. In the November of 1314, on the conclusion of a peace, Mussatus was liberated, and returned to his native town to receive the distinctions decreed to him, and that crown of poetic laurel, for which Dante vainly sighed all his life, in the hope that his sacred poem might overcome the cruelty which kept him far from his country. With natural satisfaction Mussatus describes in his history, at length, and with characteristic touches, the festival held in his honour, which proved a great solemnity owing to the presence at it of the Senate, the university, and the whole town, which had grown proud of this son, whose literary fame was now universally recognized throughout Italy.

And indeed the works of Albertinus Mussatus deserved this recognition. An excellent writer of Latin for his day, he was one and perhaps the best of those like Giovanni del Virgilio, Dante and others of their contemporaries, who prepared the way for the renaissance which was realized by Petrarch; and while he studied the ancients and often attempted to imitate their expressions, he is nevertheless a very original writer in the ideas and the conception of his works. As a poet he wrote letters, eclogues, elegies, all of some merit, but especially showed a powerful creative faculty in his tragedy of Ezzelin. Freeing himself from all preconceived theories, without abandoning the classical foot-prints of Seneca, he was the first among Italians to choose a modern subject, nay, one still living in the memory and in the fears of the people,—a subject gloomily tragic, which he handled with dramatic force, and especially in the choruses with wonderful lyric impetus. The historical subject which he choose, and which added so much to the popularity of his work, indicates his turn for history. Mussatus, enamoured as he was of the writers and times of Rome, and gifted with vigorous powers of thought and imagination, felt himself naturally and irresistibly impelled to relate the story through which he had lived, to tell of the things seen and felt amidst scenes of such violent action, of such grandeur of vices and virtues. And if we have related this writer’s life at great length, it is because his life has appeared to us to be the compendium of his age, as he has described it, and as it really was. He wrote the Historia Augusta, a narrative of the deeds in Italy of Henry VII of Luxembourg (A.D. 1308-1313), a prince of good intentions but of little power, eagerly invoked by the Ghibellines, esteemed even by the Guelphs, but never really feared or obeyed. He crossed the Alps to restore the mere ghost of an Empire, which had lost all reality, in the midst of so many republics, and of the popes, hostile and powerful still, owing to the assistance of the Guelph and Anjou factions. Mussatus wrote with great impar­tiality, but with the warmth of one who has taken part in public life, and placed in it all his hopes of doing good. His frequent journeys, generally as ambassador, in many parts of Italy—in the last years he went on an embassy also to Germany—gave him opportunities for seeing the condition of the different localities which were the scenes of his history, as also for knowing the principal personages, and gaining or verifying much of his information. Neither wholly Guelph nor wholly Ghibelline, he seems to vacillate between the two, and such vacillation is not uncommon among the most elevated spirits of that day. He would have hoped from the Empire that strong unity of government which could alone silence party discords, while on the other hand he inclined towards the Guelphs from a love of Republican traditions and of liberty which could not choose but be suspicious of the imperial eagle, and of the petty tyrants who, with the name of Vicars, grew up and prospered under the shadow of its wings. A friend and admirer of Henry’s, to whom he dedicated his history, but at the same time an independent and severe historian, he warns the emperor that he would not find in those pages either flattery or only the record of his praiseworthy actions, but also the faults from which as a man he could not be free. The death of Henry interrupted the work, but later Mussatus continued it in a second history, that described the Gesta of the Italians after Henry VII’s death, and was divided into twelve books, of which three are in verse and describe the siege of Padua by Cangrande in 1320. This unfinished work, inter­rupted by many gaps, is far less perfect in style than the Historia Augusta, but is not second to it in historical importance, and shows even greater freedom of judgment. He undertook it at the suggestion of Pagano della Torre, then bishop of Padua, and continued it for many years through all his laborious occupations, to finish it at last in exile at Chioggia, where he also made the sketch of a writing on Ludovic the Bavarian, of which, however, there is only a fragment. For, about the year 1330, Albertinus Mussatus closed his valiant and honoured life in exile. After many other services rendered to his country and many changes of fortune, he was again driven forth, and this time he was not recalled. He was left to die away from home, in a misery and old age rendered more oppressive through a friend’s treason, a son’s ingratitude, and the sight of Padua’s liberties crushed in the hands of tyrants. A melancholy end, which moves to compassion, and yet is not without consolation, nor without that moral beauty which shines forth from a pure and consistent life, equally firm in good and evil fortunes ; one of those lives which, while they present the inexplicable problem of earthly destinies, bear certain witness to the Eternal Justice.

CHAPTER VII.

THE CHRONICLERS OF THE MARITIME REPUBLICS: VENETIAN CHRONICLES—MARTIN DA CANALE—ANDREA DANDOLO—THE GENOESE ANNAL­ISTS FROM CAFFARO TO JAMES D’ORIA—PISA : PETRUS PISANUS—BERNARD MARANGO—THE CHRONICLERS OF THE REST OF TUSCANY AND PRINCIPALLY THE FLOREN­TINES—DINO COMPAGNI—THE VILLANI.