own resources, the popular element early developed itself. Such communities finding themselves without a master, a position which, when real freedom was unknown, only exposed them to attacks from stronger neighbours, their instinct of self-preservation, ere long, induced attempts at self-government. Townships consequently multiplied, developed themselves into cities, and became republics.
Thus rose the Italian republics, not as is often superficially supposed, in the mercantile cities alone, but in almost every township of Upper Italy. Their constitutional forms not only varied from each other, but were constantly fluctuating, under a desire for novelty, the contests of rival factions, and the influence of external events. Republics they were, in so far as they owned no hereditary head. They believed themselves self-governed, because their ever-recurring revolutions were their own act, or at least were effected by their own instrumentality. But the democratic element seldom long existed in purity.*13 After the émeute was over, a self-constituted oligarchy, a rich and designing citizen, or an ambitious prelate, often stepped in, to enjoy that power for which the people had fought, until these, roused by some too undisguised tyranny, or by some new caprice, rushed to the piazza, and threw off their masters, leaving it to chance or intrigue to give them new ones.
Lamartine, the eloquent advocate and partially successful hero of popular rights, has admitted that there can be no progress unless "many interests are injured," and that "such transformations are not operated without great resistance, without an infinity of anguish and private misfortune." This, however, is no place to raise the question, how far the benefit of so much political liberty was balanced by the inadequate guarantee of person and property, inherent in such a state of things, or whether the security of domestic peace would have been too dearly purchased by a partial sacrifice of popular power. Yet few who argue these points will deny that whatever influence the republican constitutions of Italy may have had upon the individual happiness of their own citizens, they sowed the seeds of that intelligence, that freedom of thought, that ardent aspiration for the amelioration of mankind, which have ever since so beneficially acted upon European civilisation.
The liberty of Italian republics has been frequently misapprehended, and will disappoint those who seek in it such safeguards of life and property as freedom in its modern sense is understood to afford. Under no form of civilised government were those guarantees more feeble or ineffective than where tyranny of the wayward and irresponsible many was substituted for domination by one. The philosophic Guizot has even condemned these republics as "utterly irreconcilable with security for life (that first ingredient in social existence) and with progress;" as "incapable of developing freedom or extending the scope of institutions;" as tending to "limit their range and concentrate authority in a few individuals." To these conclusions we must demur, and they appear inconsistent with the just tribute he gracefully pays to the intelligence, wealth, and brilliancy of Italian democracies; to the courage, activity, genius, and general prosperity of their denizens. But the argument and inferences of this French historian are easily reconcilable with a political creed largely prevailing among his countrymen, who find in centralisation the triumph of our age, the panacea for social anomalies. To that end has doubtless tended the progress of Europe during the last four centuries, and more especially the present rapid career of events, whether for ultimate weal or woe must be hereafter seen. Yet whilst we hesitate to paint the Ausonian republics in the utopian colours of Sismondi, we cannot adopt the narrow proportions ascribed to them by his less enthusiastic countryman. They filled the Peninsula with separate aims and paltry interests at a time when union was its sole security, yet they trained men to self-government, the first step towards that constitutional freedom without which nationality itself is a questionable boon.
The growth of communities opposed by every interest to the domination of the imperial counts was viewed by these with natural jealousy. But in many instances their alarm proved groundless, as eventually some of them came to swell the very power which they were originally established to limit. Those towns which, from the fault of their site or other incidental circumstances, did not increase in population and wealth, found themselves defenceless in a land where might made right. They therefore often passed, after a more or less feeble resistance, under the sway of some powerful feudatory, or, by voluntary surrender of their unsubstantial independence, sought from his strong arm protection against the grasp of more dreaded neighbours, or redress from the ravages of rival factions which lacerated their internal repose. The title usually assumed with the authority thus acquired was that of Signore, which in the following pages is generally rendered by Lord or Seigneur, there being no term in our idiom adapted to express exactly a jurisdiction at no time known to our constitution, but resembling the "tyranny" of the old Greek commonwealths. The same word is used to designate those citizens or military adventurers who, by force or popular consent, acquired a temporary or enduring mastery in the free towns of the Peninsula. Widely different in its exercise as in its origin from feudal jurisdiction, the power which had thus been more or less derived from the people was for the most part temperately wielded. The territorial baron dwelt among his citizen subjects, conforming to their usages and encouraging their progressive civilisation. His authority was originally personal, but in many instances it was skilfully used as a foundation for family claims, which talent or influence enabled a series of persons of the same race to make good. But, as in Celtic chieftainship, rules of hereditary succession were less attended to than individual fitness for the change. Younger branches often excluded the elder ones, and in some cases, such as the Malatesta,
"The bastard slips of old Romagna's line,"
illegitimacy seems to have been practically a recommendation.*14 To those at all conversant with Italian history, it may be superfluous to add that, while some of these petty sovereigns
"Did fret and strut their hour upon the stage,
And then were heard no more,"
others, more able or more fortunate, founded dynasties to which, as promoters of commerce, literature, and the fine arts, modern civilisation is largely indebted, and from whom are descended several reigning families of Europe.
No circumstance more generally affected all governments in Italy, or is of more importance to a comprehension of their history, than the contests of the Guelphs and Ghibellines. Upon this wide and complicated topic it is unnecessary now to enter, further than to state, as a general rule, that the feudatories adhered to the emperor, whilst the self-governed communities were more partial to the Guelphic or papal faction. This was natural, as the Ghibelline or imperial party was essentially opposed to democratic tendencies, while the Church had, from various causes, become almost identified with popular principles. But the distinction was often inapplicable; for these words underwent the usual fate of party epithets, changing and counterchanging their signification with time and place, until the original meaning was lost, though their fatal influence on human passions remained unmodified. For alas! in all ages,
"Some watchword for the fight
Must vindicate the wrong, and warp the right;
Religion, freedom, vengeance, what you will,
A word's enough to rouse mankind to kill."
Thus, free cities which, like Florence, were regarded as strongholds of the Guelphs, were occasionally by a sudden revolution thrown into the hands of the opposite faction; even the Ghibelline nobles were sometimes induced, by ambition or pique, to make their peace with the Church; whilst more unprincipled holders of power sought to extend it by alternately selling their services to either party, and in turn betraying both. It also happened that counts of the empire, on obtaining the seigneury of towns, found these so much the most valuable portion of their dignities, that they were glad to strengthen their title to them by accepting papal investitures, instead of holding them by the sword, or by popular will. The pontiffs readily promoted a device, which converted into ostensible supremacy the vague and undefined claims they asserted to temporal domination, whether arising out of Countess Matilda's donation, or from other disputed titles; and they hesitated not to include even imperial countships in their charters. They thus transferred to the Holy See feudal presentations of money and military service which were legitimately due to the emperors, whose waning influence in Italy rendered such usurpations little hazardous; whilst the vassals, suiting themselves to the change of times, were content to hold their sovereignty as vicars of the Church, instead