by a German envoy. By this one act, the area of the Papal CHAP. VII State was nearly doubled. In 1280, Nicholas III formed a plan of still larger proportions. This was a division of the Empire into four kingdoms: (1) Germany, which should belong by hereditary right to Rudolf of Hapsburg; (2) the Kingdom of Arles, or Lower Burgundy, which, under the name of the "Kingdom of Vienne," should be a dower for Clemence, a daughter of Rudolf married to a prince of the House of Anjou; (3) the Kingdom of Lombardy; and (4) the Kingdom of Tuscany. These last were to be given to the Pope's own nephews. In the midst of this array of hereditary kingdoms, the Pope was to sit as the head of Christendom, thus virtually absorbing the imperial office in himself. The project shows that, even then, this far-sighted pontiff was able to perceive that the future of the world belonged to the local governments. The Empire, which the Papacy had originally revived for its own protection, had at last proved its most dangerous enemy. A presidency over local kings had now become its ideal of supremacy. But this pre-eminence demanded a statesman like Nicholas III to render it effective. Unhappily for his projects, his successor, a French prelate, Martin IV, was the mere creature of Charles of Anjou; who now resumed the senatorship of Rome, which Nicholas III had forced him to resign, and for a time was practically master in Italy. With a French pope and a French king, Italy, from the Bay of Naples to the Po, was overrun by French prelates and officials. The French occupation imposed upon Italy a domination as hateful as that which had been endured from the Germans; but an awful vengeance was awaiting the foreigner. On March 31, 1282, the whole island of Sicily rose in open insurrection. All Frenchmen were murdered; and, to avenge the fate of Manfred and Conradin, Peter of Aragon, who had married Manfred's daughter Constance, was invited to become the King of Sicily. An entire people had risen in the might of its newly awakened national conscious A. D. 1191-1300 The “Sicilian the expulsion CHAP. VII A. D. 1191-1300 The field opened for diplomacy The internal condition of the city-states ness to expel a usurper imposed by papal authority, and had expressed its political will by the choice of a national king. The "Sicilian Vespers " stand out as one of the most horrible tragedies of history, but the event marks the beginning of a new era in the political development of Europe. All Italy joined in the revolution begun at Palermo, and both King and Pope were abandoned by the city republics, now for the first time inspired by a common motive and uniting in a common cause. On January 7, 1285, Charles of Anjou, broken by his misfortunes, passed away; and, in March of the same year, Martin IV followed him. With no powerful adversary to oppose them, the Italian commonwealths were now free to develop their own locall sovereignty. Italy found itself composed of a great number of small city-states, each with its own interests, and confronted on every side with rivals and competitors. War on any great scale was impossible; and, to be conducted with success, must be directed with circumspection. It was, therefore, the fruitful and legitimate field of diplomacy, already long practised in the formation and administration of the numerous leagues by which local liberties had been protected. Only one step was yet to be taken, the perfection of its organization. After a long struggle, an Aragonese dynasty was firmly established at Palermo, while the House of Anjou continued to rule at Naples. In 1297, Pope Boniface VIII conferred his blessing upon both dynasties at the wedding of Charles of Anjou's grandson, Robert, with Manfred's granddaughter, Violante of Aragon. It was the moment of the Pope's greatest triumph; for two weak kingdoms, both under his influence, were far more advantageous to the Papacy than a single strong monarchy. At Rome, notwithstanding the quarrels of their families, the Gaetani, the Orsini, and the Colonna ruled with a powerful hand, and portioned out to their relatives high places in Church and state. In the republics, every form of political experiment was A. D. 1191-1300 tried, and Italy became a vast laboratory of governmental CHAP. VII schemes and devices. The constitutional history of the cities runs through the entire gamut, from the simplest forms of pure democracy to the most absolute type of personal tyranny. No such school of practical politics had ever before existed, not even in the city-states of Greece, whose problems were far simpler; for Greece had no imperial traditions and no papal intermeddling. No society was ever so heterogeneous as that of the Italian city-republics, for none had ever been composed of so many conflicting elements, or inspired by motives so diverse. Into the midst of the industrial and commercial population, controlled by its official aristocracy, had been brought by the conquest of the surrounding country the feudal barons, whose castles were torn down or garrisoned for public defence. This contingent of strangers, -idle as respects business, but active in striving to retrieve a lost position by political intrigue, soon proved an element of danger to the public peace. The artisans and the gentry, the tradespeople and the officials, the popolo grasso and the popolo minuto, the Guelfs and the Ghibellines, and the subdivision of the Guelfs into the Neri and the Bianchi, were all causes of discord and division in this chaos of conflicting elements. for external security The problem of governing these masses of unrest was in- Expedients tensified by foreign complications. The memory of ancient conflicts and unforgiven injuries extended from city to city and deepened the chasm between them. Each party and faction, taking advantage of these animosities, strove to weaken the influence of its opponent by maintaining a constant secret correspondence with neighboring cities. The general anarchy was increased by the espionage, the intrigues, and the betrayals of these conspiring partisans. The feudal nobles, dwelling in the towns, not only bore arms in the streets and menaced the population with the sword or the dagger; they transformed their palaces into fortresses, furnished with strong towers and deep dungeons. The war against the castles had now to be repeated against the palaces. CHAP. VII A. D. 1191-1300 When the consuls became unable to stem this tide of private war, a podestà was clothed with almost dictatorial authority for this purpose. The earlier constitutions remained in force, and the ancient councils continued to meet and deliberate; but the podestà,- always a stranger, invoked as a mediator, and holding for one year the power of life and death, was placed at the head of the Signory, and exercised the functions of an executive. As the storm gathered violence, mediation was found to be ineffectual, and a capitano del popolo was chosen. The "Captain of the People," chief of the victorious party,by the arts of the demagogue and the devices of the usurper, was soon transformed into a permanent despot. Thus, the commonwealths of Italy, after a heroic struggle, finally abdicated their power and sought shelter under the protection of their local masters. Only Florence, Genoa, and Venice, amidst intermittent periods of tyranny, retained their republican traditions. A fatal necessity drove the Italian cities to this course. After the failure of so many brilliant endeavors, the unity of Italy under a national monarchy was hopeless. The Papacy, which persistently rendered this unity impossible, was too feeble to perform the task it had obstructed, and its own humiliation was at hand. Distrusting a federation of independent communities, it made no attempt to promote such a union. Indeed, its princely pretensions made such a project impracticable; for the republics would, no doubt, have perceived in such a proposition a scheme to absorb them in the papal monarchy. As Machiavelli has pointed out, the sovereign pontiffs would not promote or tolerate a power which they could not control. "Whenever they have contributed to the elevation of a prince, they have soon repented and thought only of his ruin, never permitting the country they were too feeble to possess to be possessed by others."1 Nor could the republics, jealous, suspicious, and revengeful, form a conception of Italian solidarity. No really instructed 1 Machiavelli, Istoria fiorentina, Lib. I, cap. IX. A. D. 1191-1300 statesman of that time seems to have believed in its possi- CHAP. VII bility. The only public utterance that has reached us on this subject is the apostrophe of an obscure priest, preaching in the cathedral of Milan, whose pathetic cry, unheard and unanswered, indicated the way of salvation for his country: "And thou, Milan, thou seekest to supplant Cremona, to overthrow Pavia, to destroy Novara. Thy hands are raised against all, and the hands of all against thee. . . . Oh, when shall the day dawn in which the inhabitant of Pavia shall say to the Milanese: 'Thy people are my people,' and the citizen of Crema to the Cremonese: Thy city is my city'!" becomes a system A little world by itself, whose component parts were Diplomacy numerous, feeble, and hostile, Italy soon created an organism to take the place which the Empire had left vacant. To know the intentions of one's neighbor, to defeat his hostile designs, to form alliances with his enemies, to steal away his friends, and to prevent his union with others, — became matters of the highest public interest. Less costly and hazardous than war, diplomacy now, in large measure, superseded it with plot and counterplot. But espionage and negotiation demanded secrecy, which favored the concentration of power and the direction of a single mind. The system long in use by Venice was now applied by every Italian state. Florence was already a skilful adept, but the Venetians carried their methods to a still higher perfection, and Venice continued to be "the school and touchstone of ambassadors." 1 1 In the text of this work, the words "envoy " and "ambassador " have been used in their ordinary literary sense, without technical distinction, as free translations of the Latin words "missus," "nuntius," and "legatus," which are also used indiscriminately by Latin writers. It is, perhaps, desirable, however, to point out certain distinctions which, later, will be of importance. The name ordinarily applied to an envoy before the fourteenth century was, among the Italians, "orator." After that time, the more eminent envoys were called "ambaxiatores." In the middle of the sixteenth century, the Emperor Charles V ordained that the word "ambassador" should be applied only to the |