MILAN, fast losing its republican independence, was racked with class feuds and cross-racked with family feuds. In 1259 the Guelfs, under their great leader, Martino della Torre, overthrew the Ghibelline nobles, and became lord of the great Lombard city, bringing Lodi, Como, Vercelli, and Bergamo into subjection to him. But the Ghibelline revolution of 1277, under the Archbishop Otto Visconti, set Visconti in the seat of lordship ; from him it passed, on his death, to his nephew Matteo Visconti, founder of the Visconti dynasty of Dukes of Milan, which, however, was not yet to be, the Guelfs first, for a short while, restoring their line, bringing Guido della Torre to rule in Milan.

The fortunes of VENICE we will follow later, in her great art achievement-such worlds apart from that of Florence.

So for some sixty years the affairs of Italy had drifted towards the rule of local despots, when the Emperor, Henry VII., decided on his hopeless scheme of restoring the empire throughout Italy. He but clutched at a shadow. His policy of moderation was carried out. As he passed through the cities of Lombardy, he recalled all [51] exiles of whatever party. On receiving the Iron Crown of Lombardy at Milan, on the 6th of January 1311, he recalled Matteo Visconti without setting aside Guido della Torre. But his moderation fell upon stony ground in Italy. Milan rose against his levy for money ; it ended in disaster, and Guido della Torre and his house were driven into exile, the Guelfs were put down with a stern hand, and Matteo Visconti was again established as lord of Milan, thus creating the dynasty of the Visconti, which ruled Milan for a century and a half.

Thenceforth the dream of Henry VII. vanished into smoke. On his southward journey the Guelf city of Florence refused to admit him or his troops, and he had to pass aside on his wayfaring to Rome. Finding Rome in possession of the Guelf Orsini, and seeing that a battle must be fought before he could be crowned in St. Peter's, he was crowned instead at St. John Lateran, on the 29th of June 1312. Convinced now that Italy could only be reduced by war, his line of communication with Germany threatened by the Guelfs in the north, Henry decided to strike at the Guelf cause in Florence. But he arrived before the city's walls in the September of 1312, to find them too strong. He withdrew to Pisa to await reinforcements, as the king of Naples was advancing to the support of Florence. He had commenced his march to attack the Neapolitan army when he died suddenly of fever at Buonconvento, twelve miles from Siena, on August 24, 1313, supposed to have been poisoned by a Dominican monk in giving him the sacrament. So vanished the Emperor's and Dante's dream of the Holy Roman Empire. For several years the Popes had departed to the banks of the Rhone. Italy, freed from her two great masters, fell apart, and the thirteen-hundreds show the rise of the [52] despots-the lesser states fell under the dominion of their more powerful neighbours, and thus arose the five great powers whose fierce motives create the story of the century. The later invasions from the north, first of Lewis of Bavaria and then of John of Bohemia, with their German legions, to establish the empire, equally failed.

The despot Visconti in Milan, and Della Scala in Verona, overthrew republican independence in the cities of Lombardy. The Papal States were governed by legates of the Popes, though these were constantly assailed by Ghibelline despots in the several cities.

Florence remained republican. It must be remembered that to an Italian patriotism meant nothing. A Florentine was a Florentine only. Outside that, Italy meant nothing to him. A man of Milan or Venice was as much a foreigner to him as was a Frenchman. He had no sense of shame in calling in the French to assist him against another Italian city.

The humiliating defeat of Florence by Pisa in 1341, and the loss of Lucca, made the citizens in an evil moment call in the foreigner Walter de Brienne, Duke of Athens, as dictator. But ten months of despotism roused the liberty-loving Florentines. The fall of the Duke of Athens led to the further democratisation of Florence.

Unfortunately, the martial vigour that overthrew the Duke of Florence was not common in Italy, and was soon also to pass from Florence herself. The thirteen-hundreds saw a change come over the military training of Italy, which was to be disastrous to her liberties. During the two centuries just past, the whole of the male population had been trained as a militia. It was a citizen army, and was the finest security for political liberty. Directly the despots arose, their first concern was to disarm the citizen, [53] and to hire alien troops who had no sympathy with the people whatsoever. The invasions of Henry VII., Lewis of Bavaria, and John of Bohemia had left a horde of German adventurers behind, willing to take Italian wage ; and these men passed into the bodyguards of the despots. The republics found themselves compelled to do the same, as their citizen infantry were no match for these heavily armed cavalry. Wars were become elaborate affairs-the short sharp city fight was gone, and citizens could not afford the time for campaigning. The Florentines followed the fashion. Thus, until gunpowder came to blow the business to pieces, great hired armies of heavy cavalry became the fashion. The leaders of these mercenaries soon became conscious of the power that they held ; they created armies and lived upon the unwarlike states, reaching to wealth and power by hiring their services to the highest bidder. One of the most picturesque of these warriors who poured into Italy to the great looting was the famous Englishman, John Hawkwood, whom the Florentines called Giovanni Acuto, and who, with his White Company, was famed for his high honour and good faith, to which the Florentines bore handsome witness by giving him a tomb and monument in the Duomo.

The later thirteen-hundreds saw the Italians themselves taking to the game of condottieri. Thus in 1379 was formed the famous company of St. George by Alberigo da Barbiano, a noble of Romagno, to which only Italians were admitted, and which produced Braccio and Sforza, the two great Italian commanders of the fourteen-hundreds.

The thirteen-hundreds beheld Florence rent with continual strife of class against class, and family against family, for power. The expulsion of the Duke of Athens saw [54] the Ghibelline nobles of Florence deprived of all power, which passed to the two orders of the Greater and the Lesser guilds. The Greater guilds decided to seize power by stealth. By the law of 1301, any person accused of being a Ghibelline was not to hold office. To carry this out, the Ostracism was created in Florence, whereby a charge brought against any man, supported by six witnesses, compelled the priors to strike the name of the accused from public service. The wealthy burgess class of the greater guilds forthwith systematically struck off the names of all men of the lesser guilds who came up for office. But the plutocrats had no sooner won to power than the family feud of the Albizzi and the Ricci broke out. The Albizzi got the whip hand of the Ricci by applying the " admonition " of Ghibellinism against them ; until, by 1378, the rejected had grown into so strong a party that they were becoming dangerous. The Albizzi had become reckless. In May, Salvestro de' Medici, of the Ricci faction, was drawn as gonfalonier ; but retired on the outburst of a revolt of the people, headed by the Ricci ; the mob swept all before it, under the leadership of the noble-hearted and great-souled Michel Lando, a poor woolcomber of the people, who was made gonfalonier, restored order, extended democracy, and having proved himself a statesman, modestly retired from office. A violent reaction in 1382, however, undid all the good, and brought the Albizzi back to power.

From 1382, for fifty years, Florence came under the power of an ever-narrowing oligarchy. Under the resolute guidance of this oligarchy, however, Florence heroically fought Gian Galeazzo Visconti of Milan, and saved the city. She added to her dominions.

[55] The vital essence of the Florentine's life was his love of liberty. A large body of the rejected merchants, together with the whole people, bitterly resented the plutocratic manipulation of the government by lot under the Albizzi. The burden of taxation fell terribly upon the people-as it always does upon the governed. The cause of the people grew to be associated with the family of the Medici. In the fourteen-hundred-and-twenties, Giovanni de' Medici, a money-changer and rich banker, was grown to be regarded as the leader of the popular party. He was the richest man in Florence. He bought popularity with astute caution. He died in 1429, leaving two sons, Cosimo and Lorenzo.

The defeat of the Florentines under Malatesta at Zagonara in 1424, shook the Albizzi influence. Rinaldo degli Albizzi's disastrous and unjust attack on Lucca failed, and further discredited the plutocrats. Cosimo de' Medici boldly came forward as his rival. In the September of 1432, Rinaldo determined on violence, seized Cosimo de' Medici, and tried him for his life. The Medici moneys bought the magistracy ; he was exiled for ten years to Padua, and Lorenzo for five years to Venice. But Rinaldo alienated the plutocrats by fearing to abolish the Medicean income-tax of a seventh of all incomes, which hit the rich as much as the poor. His disastrous defeats in war brought about a rising of the people; the Medici were recalled; and Rinaldo and his son and about seventy partisans were banished-few ever saw Florence again.