BOOK THE FIRST.
CHAPTER II.
FROM A.D. 17 TO A.D. 650.
Etruria, Tuscia, and Tyrrhenia, were ancient names of Tuscany; and its
boundaries the Magra, the Tiber, the Apennines and
the Tyrrhenian or Etruscan Sea. The first river divided it from Liguria, now
for the most part comprised in the Genoese state, and the second from Latium
and Umbria, which are a portion of the ecclesiastical dominions: this was
central Etruria; but the Etruscans’ territory, says Livy, extended from the
Alps to the Sicilian Sea and filled all Italy with their renown. The political
power of Etruria was based on a confederation of twelve principal cities and
their territories, each governed by its own Lucumo or king; and, though
various associations existed amongst them, it does not appear that the nation
was ever steadfastly united by any supreme government, like that of the United
States of America.
The chief Tuscan river is the Arno, which, like the
Tiber, has its source in the mountain of Falterona:
flowing through the Casentine valleys, and passing
within three miles of Arezzo, it descends rapidly into the upper Val d’Arno,
bathes the town and fields of Florence; winds between Monte Lupo and Capraia;
and after refreshing and fertilising the plains of Pisa sweeps grandly through
that capital and casts its turbid waters to the sea.
Florence is placed in the centre of Tuscany between
the hills of Montughi, Monte Morello and Fiesole to the north; and those of San
Miniato, San Giorgio and Bellosguardo to the south.
Seated in a spacious and fertile plain, it seems as if some white and rocky
mass had been dashed violently down, and breaking through olive groves and
vineyards had promiscuously scattered its fragments on the soil; so thick are
the villas and hamlets that stud the country round.
To the north-east is the treble-peaked Fiesole with
its frowning convent and huge Etruscan walls: the valley of Mugnone, a place
made classical by Boccaccio, divides it from Monte Morello and the neighbouring
heights, once wooded, now brown and bare, the resort of herds and herdsmen. To
the north-west, under the skirts of Monte Morello, lurks the city of Prato, one
of the earliest Florentine conquests: further westward, Pistoia, the “City
of Factions” and supposed memorial of Catiline’s defeat, is seen in dim
perspective melting in the softened features of its own romantic hills. Behind
all, the rugged peaks of Carrara, Pelligrino and the Appuan Alps break on the western sky, while to the southwest the eye ranges over a
succession of villa-studded heights rich in agrarian industry; and for to the
east, in a lofty recess of the Apennines, sits the woody Vallombroso,
darkly contrasted with the general view.
Except the quotation from Florus, the earliest notice
of Florence is by Tacitus, who at the end of his first book tells us that
during the reign of Tiberius, in order to control the frequent floods of the
Tiber, a question arose in the senate about the expediency of directing its
tributary streams into new channels; and that in an audience given to the
Ambassadors of the various Municipia and Colonies, those of Florence
entreated that the river Chiana might not be turned into the Arno, as it would
assuredly ruin their city by the increased volume of water which might thus be
rolled down on them in rainy seasons. This vain though natural apprehension was
first shaken by the scientific spirit of the Medici and afterwards dispelled by
the lights of modern science, which besides arresting those devastating floods
has metamorphosed the Chiana swamps into rich firms with a healthy population;
and the poisonous wastes of the Maremma now promise similar and equally
beneficial consequences.
It is believed that Christianity was first secretly
taught in Florence about Nero’s reign (AD 56) by Frontinus and Paulinus, disciples
of Saint Peter; this was followed by a persecution of the Christians which
nearly ceased under Vespasian and Titus, and recommenced under Decius in the
third century (AD 250). St. Miniato is supposed to have then suffered
decapitation on the spot where the Church of Santa Candida alla Croce a Gorgo was afterwards erected, bequeathing
its name to the Present Gate of La Croce, and his body was interred, not
without a miracle, on the opposite hill which still bears his name.
The first publicly acknowledged bishop seems to have
been a certain Felice in 313, but no sure indication of any other appears about
the year 400, when St. Zanobi was consecrated, a man reverenced in life and
death for his exemplary conduct and miracles; that of causing a decayed elm to
spring into full leaf by the accidental touch of his body on its way to
interment, was early commemorated by the erection of a marble column on the
spot, and long afterwards produced a beautiful specimen of pictorial art from
the genius of Ridolfo Ghirlandaio.
While the western Empire was in rapid decay, the
barbarian Radagasius with a numerous army laid siege to Florence, but met a
bold resistance and was totally defeated by Stilicho in October 405 or 406,
with the loss of all his army by sword and famine. In honour of this victory
games were celebrated at Florence on the eighth of the above month, it being
the festival of St. Reparata, to whom the Church of St. Salvadore which
occupied the place of the present Cathedral was then dedicated. Long before the
year 330 when the western Empire was first weakened by Constantine’s
emigration, and as early as the time of Marcus Aurelius, symptoms of the great
northern movement began to appear; it is even believed that during Domitian’s
reign the Dacians might have been pressed by the Alani and these again by a
forward motion of the distant Goths. But while this was in preparation all
southern Europe had gradually sunk into effeminacy and corruption, and half the
world was effete when the grand infusion of young and vigorous blood rushed
southward, as if by a powerful effort of nature, to restore her moral and
physical equilibrium.
From Adrian’s reign the seventeen provinces of Italy
were governed by Consuls, Presidents, and Rectors or Correctors, Tuscany being
ruled by the last; and this continued, with the exception perhaps of Odoacer’s
rule, down to Longinus, who degraded the provincial Dukes of Narses to mere
governors of cities. But the Empire still mouldered away, and its division by
Valentinian the First was of no more avail than a change of the western
government, from Rome to the stronger positions of Milan and Ravenna, by Maximian
and Diocletian in the fourth century: Italy soon fell a prey to these northern
hordes, who pouring in countless numbers from their gloomy forests and icy
lakes, revelled in the milder air of the more fertile Ausonia.
The ravages of the Visigoths under Alaric, of the Huns
under Attila, and the Vandals under Genseric, were so many destructive storms
that struck the land with death and desolation; but the Heruli of King Odoacer changed the whole moral and political aspect of Italy: they
planted a new and a freer spirit in a country which they had no wish to abandon
for the less brilliant skies of their own inclement region. After defeating
Augustulus and Orestes on the plains of Pavia, Odoacer remained for seventeen
years the master of Italy’s fairest provinces, but without the imperial title,
because from policy or habitual veneration for the majesty of the Caesars it is
even doubted whether he ever assumed that of royalty, being content as it
seemed with the simple dignity of Patrician or imperial Vicar. The
sovereignty of Rome thus fell into the hands of a barbarian, who nevertheless
governed well and wisely; who was tolerant although an Arian; who respected the
institutions and prejudices of the vanquished although a conqueror; and caused
Italy to be once more feared, courted and respected by the world.
Five centuries later the Italian Berenger reigned; he
was deposed, and saw Otho of Saxony seated in his place as Emperor of the West:
and these two revolutions, says Sismondi, “in one of which the name of Empire
was changed to Monarchy, and in the other that of Monarchy to Empire, mark the
long course of adversity that the Italian nation was compelled to endure for
the recovery of its natural character, and the production of an energy that
might render it worthy of freedom.” In Odoacer’s day the native Italians were
in fact reduced to the last state of corruption, and a union of this degrading
softness with the rough northern spirit, like the mixture of different soils,
produced that harvest of intelligence and liberty which has nourished the
European world to its present vigour: from the most abject degradation they
passed through a long course of adversity to an energetic independence of
character that rendered them worthy of the liberty they afterwards achieved.
Theodoric King of the Ostrogoths, a great soldier, a
just ruler, and a virtuous man; for he was above the standard of his day;
invaded Italy with the Emperor Zeno’s concurrence, defeated Odoacer in several
battles, and after a long struggle remained master of that kingdom, which he
governed in peace and justice for two-and-thirty years (AD 493-526). He put
Odoacer to death, as Odoacer had put Orestes, and in his latter years became
gloomy and even ferocious to his immediate attendants; and the execution of Boethius
and Symmachus will ever darken his memory in despite of subsequent remorse.
Theodoric nevertheless was one of those glorious barbarians who, themselves
ignorant of the first rudiments of literature, furnish ample materials for the
philosopher’s reflection and the historian’s pen. Through the influence of
Cassiodorus, secretary to both him and Odoacer, learning was never slighted and
genius generally repaid; and although the death of those celebrated
philosophers was a just reproach, the honour they received through life will
still do credit to his memory. Justinian’s generals, Belisarius and Narses,
ultimately subdued the Ostrogoths after a supremacy of sixty years, their final
struggles being the battles of Nocera and Tagina,
where Teias and Totila successively fell, quelled by the mightier genius of an
old neglected general and a mutilated courtier. The able, vigorous, but
unpopular and somewhat avaricious rule of Narses lasted sixteen years, until he
fell by female intrigues and adverse machinations accompanied by insults so
bitter as, in the opinion of some writers, to cause the subsequent invasion of
Alboin and his Lombards by a direct invitation. The fact is doubtful; but the
Lombards, after forty years, abandoned Pannonia to the fiercer Huns, and with
numerous Saxon auxiliaries rose in arms and marched to Italy breaking through
every barrier and spreading in one broad flood from the Alps to the capital.
The Venetians were safe in their Lagoons; Rome and its immediate territory
remained faithful to the emperor; the southern maritime cities were defended by
Greeks; and Zoton, an adventurous chief of the
Lombard race, had established himself from the year 561 in the heart of Italy
under the title of Duke of Beneventum: his independence may perhaps be
doubtful; but with these exceptions the realm of Lombardy included all the peninsula,
Pavia being then the permanent seat of government.
This invasion gave fresh energy to Italy, and tended
to rouse her from that state of drowsy indifference with which she was still
oppressed in despite of northern inroads : at first the Lombards’ rule was
intolerably fierce, and though subsequently modified by time and intercourse,
they never thoroughly mixed with the Italians, who could not forget their
pristine ferocity even after that monarchy was destroyed. In conjunction with
the bitter feeling between conquerors and conquered, diversity of manners and
opinions must have occasioned hatred and disgust to both, and the despicable
notion that the barbarians entertained of their new subjects is forcibly
expressed by Luitprand, Bishop of Cremona; uttered, it is true, in a moment of
anger, but not on that account the less sincere. “In the word Roman”, says he,
“is included all that is ignoble, timid, avaricious, lascivious, and false, and
every vice that can debase the dignity of man.” This would have astonished
Fabricius, yet agrees with the opinions in Salviani’s “Governo di Dio” quoted by Lami, where there is a disgusting picture of
Roman depravity, especially at public spectacles; while the chastity and
generally moral, though uncivilised conduct of all the northern tribes except
the Huns, is acknowledged. “The Goths” are described as “perfidious but chaste;
the Alani not chaste but less perfidious; the Franks liars, but hospitable; the
Saxons cruel and savage, but venerating chastity.” In fact the Goths and
Lombards found all the vices that they most abhorred still flourishing in
Italy, but in peculiar rankness about the theatres, amphitheatres, baths, and
all other places of public diversion; they were therefore destroyed; not from
wanton barbarity but honest indignation; and though Theodoric through policy
and general love of the arts, repaired the Coliseum and granted public games at
the repeated petitions of the Romans, he yet designates them as “exhibitions
contrary to the gravity of manners, evacuators of modesty, fountains of strife,
and the mockery of times to come.” The courage of northern spirits, ruthless in
battle but not wantonly cruel, revolted from the bloody sports of Rome, and
even the Italian clergy endeavoured unsuccessfully to prevent them. Nothing
however was gained before the reign of Odoacer except an edict against their
being held on the Sabbath, and this was not long attended to; nor did they
entirely cease until the country was ruined by misfortunes that destroyed the
power or wish for such amusements, and reduced man almost to the level of those
beasts which he was wont to hunt for pastime.
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