DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.63447#0321
FREDERICK II. AND THE POPES.
305
that to this day all the traditions of the country in Italy
are Ghibelline. In Romagna, in the Pisano, and in the
Lucchese, excepting with regard to the personality of the
great Countess Matilda, all the legends and tales of old
castles and passes are in favour of the nobler and more
chivalrous though defeated faction. With a kind of
pensive triumph, the Lucchese peasant will tell you : “ By
this path came the Ghibellines from the Lunugiana “In
this castle Ugolino della Gherardesca dreamed his dream.”
Even in the Pistojese hills, the ways to the territories of
Uguccione della Faggiuola are pointed out, and the arms
of the Montefeltro are eagerly shown at Pisa.
Genoa and this latter city were also in the first part of
the thirteenth century at angry feud for the privilege of
carrying the Crusaders to the East on their galleys, a
lucrative monopoly, which ensured to the fortunate com-
petitor the preponderating share of the gains of Eastern
commerce, besides the powerful protection of the Christian
warriors.
In order to pacify these animosities, and soothe all
discords by the authority of his presence, the inde-
fatigable Pontiff, Innocent, set out, notwithstanding the
heat of summer, for Genoa. He passed by Perugia,
where he was suddenly struck with fever and paralysis of
the brain ; and, at the early age of fifty-five years, closed
his memorable career on the 17th of July, 1216.
Innocent III. had the glory of framing the policy
which may be said to have preponderated in Western
Europe, in spite of all opposition, for four hundred years,
and the arid dogmas of which are being invoked even in
our own day under a civil law and organisation of
society utterly at variance from that of the Middle Ages.
Like the wisest of all human codes, that of Rome had
the sole defect of not recognising its own limitations of
power. It seems fated for the genius of Italy to stop short
within one point of completeness in sagacity: it fails in
observing, from the history of the past, that “ time ” is
but another word for “ change; ” and when every country,
even those assumed most repugnant to the new forms of
305
that to this day all the traditions of the country in Italy
are Ghibelline. In Romagna, in the Pisano, and in the
Lucchese, excepting with regard to the personality of the
great Countess Matilda, all the legends and tales of old
castles and passes are in favour of the nobler and more
chivalrous though defeated faction. With a kind of
pensive triumph, the Lucchese peasant will tell you : “ By
this path came the Ghibellines from the Lunugiana “In
this castle Ugolino della Gherardesca dreamed his dream.”
Even in the Pistojese hills, the ways to the territories of
Uguccione della Faggiuola are pointed out, and the arms
of the Montefeltro are eagerly shown at Pisa.
Genoa and this latter city were also in the first part of
the thirteenth century at angry feud for the privilege of
carrying the Crusaders to the East on their galleys, a
lucrative monopoly, which ensured to the fortunate com-
petitor the preponderating share of the gains of Eastern
commerce, besides the powerful protection of the Christian
warriors.
In order to pacify these animosities, and soothe all
discords by the authority of his presence, the inde-
fatigable Pontiff, Innocent, set out, notwithstanding the
heat of summer, for Genoa. He passed by Perugia,
where he was suddenly struck with fever and paralysis of
the brain ; and, at the early age of fifty-five years, closed
his memorable career on the 17th of July, 1216.
Innocent III. had the glory of framing the policy
which may be said to have preponderated in Western
Europe, in spite of all opposition, for four hundred years,
and the arid dogmas of which are being invoked even in
our own day under a civil law and organisation of
society utterly at variance from that of the Middle Ages.
Like the wisest of all human codes, that of Rome had
the sole defect of not recognising its own limitations of
power. It seems fated for the genius of Italy to stop short
within one point of completeness in sagacity: it fails in
observing, from the history of the past, that “ time ” is
but another word for “ change; ” and when every country,
even those assumed most repugnant to the new forms of