The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy

Or mi coprite col vostro mantello,” etc.

27

Corio, fol. 301 and sqq. Comp. Ammian. Marcellin., xxix. 3.

28

So Paul. Jovius, Elogia, pp. 88-92, Jo. Maria Philippus.

29

De Gingins, Dépêches des Ambassadeurs Milanais, Paris and Geneva 1858, ii. pp. 200 sqq. (N. 213). Comp. ii. 3 (N. 144) and ii. 212 sqq. (N. 218).

30

Paul. Jovius, Elogia, pp. 156 sqq. Carolus, Burg. dux.

31

This compound of force and intellect is called by Macchiavelli Virtù, and is quite compatible with scelleratezza. E.g. Discorsi, i. 10. in speaking of Sep. Severus.

32

On this point Franc. Vettori, Arch. Stor. vi. p. 29. 3 sqq.: ‘The investiture at the hands of a man who lives in Germany, and has nothing of the Roman Emperor about him but the empty name, cannot turn a scoundrel into the real lord of a city.’

33

M. Villani, iv. 38, 39, 44, 56, 74, 76, 92; v. 1, 2, 14-16, 21, 22, 36, 51, 54. It is only fair to consider that dislike of the Visconti may have led to worse representations than the facts justified. Charles IV. is once (iv. 74) highly praised by Villani.

34

It was an Italian, Fazio degli Uberti (Dittamondo, l. vi. cap. 5—about 1360) who recommended to Charles IV. a crusade to the Holy Land. The passage is one of the best in this poem, and in other respects characteristic. The poet is dismissed from the Holy Sepulchre by an insolent Turk:

‘Con passi lunghi e con la testa bassa
Oltre passai e dissi: ecco vergogna
Del cristian che’l saracin qui lassa!
Poscia al Pastor (the Pope) mi volsi far rampogna
E tu ti stai, che sei vicar di Cristo,
Co’ frati tuoi a ingrassar la carogna?
Similimente dissi a quel sofisto (Charles IV.)
Che sta in Buemme (Bohemia) a piantar vigne e fichi
E che non cura di si caro acquisto:
Che fai? Perchè non segui i primi antichi
Cesari de’ Romani, e che non segui,
Dico, gli Otti, i Corradi, i Federichi?
E che pur tieni questo imperio in tregui?
E se non hai lo cuor d’esser Augusto,
Che non rifiuti? o che non ti dilegui?’ etc.

Some eight years earlier, about 1352, Petrarch had written (to Charles IV., Epist. Fam., lib. xii. ep. 1, ed. Fracassetti, vol. ii. p. 160): ‘Simpliciter igitur et aperte … pro maturando negotio terræ sanctæ … oro tuo egentem auxilio quam primum invisere velis Ausoniam.’

35

See for details Vespasiano Fiorent. ed. Mai, Specilegium Romanum, vol. i. p. 54. Comp. 150 and Panormita, De Dictis et Factis Alfonsi, lib. iv. nro. 4.

36

Diario Ferrarese, in Murat. xxiv. col. 217 sqq.

37

‘Haveria voluto scortigare la brigata.’ Giov. Maria Filelfo, then staying at Bergamo, wrote a violent satire ‘in vulgus equitum auro notatorum.’ See his biography in Favre, Mélanges d’Histoire littéraire, 1856, i. p. 10.

38

Annales Estenses, in Murat. xx. col. 41.

39

Poggii, Hist. Florent. pop. l. vii. in Murat. col. 381. This view is in accordance with the anti-monarchical sentiments of many of the humanists of that day. Comp. the evidence given by Bezold, ‘Lehre von der Volkssouverainität während des Mittelalters,’ Hist. Ztschr. bd. 36, s. 365.

40

Some years later the Venetian Lionardo Giustiniani blames the word ‘imperator’ as unclassical and therefore unbecoming the German emperor, and calls the Germans barbarians, on account of their ignorance of the language and manners of antiquity. The cause of the Germans was defended by the humanist H. Bebel. See L. Geiger, in the Allgem. Deutsche Biogr. ii. 196.

41

Senarega, De reb. Genuens, in Murat. xxiv. col. 575.

42

Enumerated in the Diario Ferrarese, in Murat. xxiv. col. 203. Comp. Pic. ii. Comment. ii. p. 102, ed. Rome, 1584.

43

Marin Sanudo, Vita de’ Duchi di Venezia, in Murat. xxii. col. 1113.

44

Varchi, Stor. Fiorent. i. p. 8.

45

Soriano, Relazione di Roma, 1533, in Tommaso Gar. Relaz. della Corte di Roma, (in Alberi, Relaz. degli ambasc. Veneti, ii. ser. iii.).

46

For what follows, see Canestrini, in the Introduction to vol. xv. of the Archiv. Stor.