DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.63447#0280
264
THE HISTORICAL PAST OF ITALY.
brutal and vulgar despot, and to establish his claim to
high intellectual and administrative capacity; and it
is scarcely necessary to point out that whilst in the East
power is invariably associated with decrepitude and decay,
in Western Europe it is often allied with genius far in
advance of its age. Whilst, therefore, we fully sympa-
thise with the Italians who leagued against a stranger
and a conqueror, we cannot indiscriminately level the
latter to the traditional tyrant of the Levant. We have
impartially shown from undoubted testimony that even in
these particular instances of cruelty, which are his
greatest reproach, he was far outdone by the Italians
themselves; nor can we forget that one hundred years
later, when there arose a clamour for the utter destruc-
tion of Florence at the hands of the Italians, only one
voice, that of Farinata degli Uberti, rose to plead for so
“ nobile e gentile ” a city.
In future pages we shall trace, with equal impartiality,
the use and the abuse the cities made of their rights
and privileges, and the long vicissitudes of the Penin-
sula, until, from the Alps to the southernmost point of
the land, she once more exultingly cried aloud, “By Thy
•right hand and by Thy holy arm, oh Lord, we have
gotten the victory.”
And this time the victory is not of war and of rival-
ries ; it is the victory of union and of peace. The
enemies of Italy are now aliens; her sons have at last
recognised their common brotherhood.
The mere narrative of the vivid and interesting struggle
between the “ Tiara and the Crown ” would be incom-
plete without some considerations of the domestic state
of Italy, and some remarks on the broad and definite
line of demarcation which now, more than ever, sepa-
rated her in sympathies and interests from the rest
of Europe, and more especially from Germany, the great
empire, perpetually pressing on her frontiers.
Every other kingdom was warlike and aggressive; but
if we except the commercial dominion of the Venetians in
the east, and the romantic forays of some of the Nor-
THE HISTORICAL PAST OF ITALY.
brutal and vulgar despot, and to establish his claim to
high intellectual and administrative capacity; and it
is scarcely necessary to point out that whilst in the East
power is invariably associated with decrepitude and decay,
in Western Europe it is often allied with genius far in
advance of its age. Whilst, therefore, we fully sympa-
thise with the Italians who leagued against a stranger
and a conqueror, we cannot indiscriminately level the
latter to the traditional tyrant of the Levant. We have
impartially shown from undoubted testimony that even in
these particular instances of cruelty, which are his
greatest reproach, he was far outdone by the Italians
themselves; nor can we forget that one hundred years
later, when there arose a clamour for the utter destruc-
tion of Florence at the hands of the Italians, only one
voice, that of Farinata degli Uberti, rose to plead for so
“ nobile e gentile ” a city.
In future pages we shall trace, with equal impartiality,
the use and the abuse the cities made of their rights
and privileges, and the long vicissitudes of the Penin-
sula, until, from the Alps to the southernmost point of
the land, she once more exultingly cried aloud, “By Thy
•right hand and by Thy holy arm, oh Lord, we have
gotten the victory.”
And this time the victory is not of war and of rival-
ries ; it is the victory of union and of peace. The
enemies of Italy are now aliens; her sons have at last
recognised their common brotherhood.
The mere narrative of the vivid and interesting struggle
between the “ Tiara and the Crown ” would be incom-
plete without some considerations of the domestic state
of Italy, and some remarks on the broad and definite
line of demarcation which now, more than ever, sepa-
rated her in sympathies and interests from the rest
of Europe, and more especially from Germany, the great
empire, perpetually pressing on her frontiers.
Every other kingdom was warlike and aggressive; but
if we except the commercial dominion of the Venetians in
the east, and the romantic forays of some of the Nor-