Chapter XXII: Section II: Rise of Modern Italian Cities

In the tenth century cities began to revive. Those in Lombardy, even in the ninth century, showed signs of returning prosperity. They rebuilt their walls, purchased or manufactured arms, addicted themselves more to commercial industry, and acquired some wealth; and, as a natural consequence of this, they felt the desirableness of self-government and self-defence. About the same time, the political institutions of the towns of Lombardy underwent a change. The bishops, in many instances, became counts or temporal governors of their sees. The citizens elected their own magistrates, subject to the approval of the bishops; the emperor--though not always without the consent of the people--appointing them to their sees, in consequence of the introduction of the feudal principle into the church, the prelates having become temporal lords and feudatories of the empire. The emperors also appointed commissioners or vicars for these towns, who there represented the imperial authority. The episcopal government in cities seems to have been favourable to the growing independence of the towns, the churchman, even if disposed, being by no means able to become so formidable an oppressor as the soldier, while the consent, at least, of the people, on his appointment, kept up a notion of their municipal importance. During, and after the war of investitures, when the cities of Italy took part in the quarrel between the emperor and the pope, some arraying themselves on one side and some on another, they received an impulse which quickened their desire for independence.

A considerable mist rests over the morning of Italian liberty. The history of the rise of her republican cities is extremely obscure. They seem to have silently grown up, and to have gradually appropriated to themselves the prerogatives of sovereignty. We discern an increasing spirit of activity and independence among the people--the assembling of the citizens, at the sound of the great bell, in the square, or market-place, of the town, for consultation--their election of consuls, who had the charge of justice at home, and of war abroad--and the organization of militias for self-defence. In the eleventh century "the militia of every city was divided into separate bodies, according to local partitions, each led by a gonfaloniere, or standard-bearer. They fought on foot, and assembled round the _carroccio_, a heavy car drawn by oxen, and covered with the flags and armorial bearings of the city. A high pole rose in the middle of the car, bearing the colours and a Christ, which seemed to bless the army, with both arms extended. A priest said daily mass at an altar placed in front of the car. The trumpeters of the community, seated on the back part, sounded the charge and the retreat. It was Heribert, archbishop of Milan, contemporary of Conrad, the Salic, who invented this car in imitation of the ark of alliance, and caused it to be adopted at Milan. All the free cities of Italy followed the example: this sacred car intrusted to the guardianship of the militia gave them weight and confidence." "It was from A.D. 900 to A.D. 1200, that the most prodigious works were undertaken and accomplished by the towns of Italy. They began by surrounding themselves with thick walls, ditches, towers, and counter-guards at the gates--immense works which a patriotism ready for every sacrifice could alone accomplish. The maritime towns, at the same time, constructed their ports, quays, canals, and custom-houses, which served also as vast magazines for commerce. Every city built public palaces for the _signora_, or municipal magistrates, and prisons, and constructed also temples, which, to this day, fill us with admiration by their grandeur and magnificence. These three regenerating centuries gave an impulse to architecture, which soon awakened the other fine arts."[1] Yet it must not be supposed that these renovated cities, in the early stages of their modern history, presented an unmingled scene of social advancement, prosperity, and happiness. Very far from it. In their struggles with the emperor of Germany for the establishment of their liberties, they endured sieges and sufferings the most heartrending; nor were they free from dissensions among themselves, and from acts of infamous oppression perpetrated by the strong upon the weak. While a city was fighting for its own liberties, it often invaded the rights of its neighbours; an implacable spirit strongly marked the private habits of the citizens; sufficient security for human life was not provided, the moral condition of the mass of the people was degraded; peace was made the prey of faction, and, in too many cases, the blossoms of freedom, which might have set into precious fruit, "went up as dust."

There were some Italian cities, especially Amalfi and Venice, which, in consequence of their dependence on the eastern emperors, their relations and intercourse with Constantinople, and their commercial activity, differed in their social condition from the cities of Lombardy. They were decidedly in advance of their neighbours--civilisation there made more rapid strides and reflected some tinge of orientalism. Amalfi shines with conspicuous lustre from the sixth to the twelfth century, when its glory was extinguished by the Norman king of the Sicilies. There can be no doubt that its commercial intercourse with Constantinople, where eastern luxury prevailed, in the middle ages, and the trade which it carried on with the Saracens, who were the chief cultivators of the arts and sciences during that period, tended to raise the city of Amalfi, as it relates to artistic civilisation, to a proud position. Some additional refinement might probably be imparted to it, by its close vicinity to Salerno, which was only seven miles distant, where learning was cultivated, and a school of medicine established--the first of the kind in Europe.

But the lustre of Amalfi is eclipsed by that of Venice, which, if at an earlier period she were inferior, at a later period vastly surpassed her rival in commercial greatness. Formed by bands of refugees who fled from the sword of Alaric and Attila to the lagoons, which spread at the extremity of the Adriatic gulf, this city of the waters rose till she became the ocean queen. For a hundred years, Venice consisted only of some scattered fishers' huts, like the nests of aquatic fowls, on the shifting sands, protected by slender fences of twisted osiers.[2] The population was supported by fishing, the making of salt, and some other humble manufactures; and probably the insignificance of the infant republic preserved her from the attacks of enemies, and from the oppression of the eastern emperors, to whom she owed subjection. Her earliest form of government was essentially democratic, for tribunes elected by the people ruled her affairs; but owing to the factions and jealousies which arose among them it was resolved, at the close of the seventh century, that one chief magistrate, called a doge, should be elected by the people, who should be invested with sovereign authority, and should choose inferior officers. Many were the civil commotions of Venice under this form of government; and out of about forty of her citizens who successively wore the ducal bonnet, nearly half were killed, deprived of sight, or banished. Yet, withal, Venice went on growing in importance, wealth, and power, and as we look upon her history, a sort of magical effect is produced, somewhat like a dissolving view. The huts on her lagoon became palaces; her humble boats, splendid argosies; her fishermen, princes; and her traffickers the honourable of the earth.

"And whence the talisman whereby she rose
Towering? It was found there in the barren sea.
Want led to enterprise; and far or near
Who met not the Venetian?"

In the tenth and eleventh centuries, Venice presented the picture of a rich and prosperous commercial city, though still far inferior to what she afterwards became. She could boast, even a century earlier, of the commencement of the famous church of St. Mark, with its five hundred columns of marble,--an edifice, built on the Byzantine model of architecture, and showing the influence of eastern example upon the opening taste of the Venetian people. Saracenic luxuries and arts also began to flow into Venice, and before the close of the period under review, she sent forth her fleets, which returned to the lagoons, after anchoring in the port of the Egyptian Caliph; and the Arabian maiden wove the rich sandal of silk and gold which arrayed her priests, when they prayed before the altar.[3] There might then be seen the brides of Venice with ostrich plumes, and "veils transparent as the gossamer, and jewelled chains in many a winding wreath, wreathing a gold brocade;" and her youthful sons "walking with modest dignity, folding their scarlet mantle," and her doge, gliding in a stately barge of gold, through the canals, while

"Old and young
Throng'd her three hundred bridges: the grave Turk
Turban'd, long vested; and the cozening Jew,
In yellow hat and threadbare gaberdine,
Hurrying along."[4]

Arms, silks, furs, fine linen, and other luxuries from the east, formed the staple commodities of the Venetian markets, and were supplied by her merchants to other parts of Italy. Indeed, almost all the commerce of Europe was carried on through the medium of Venice and Amalfi. But it should not be forgotten, that the amount of traffic there, at that period, compared with the commerce of modern times, must have been very limited, as neither these cities, nor any others in Europe, had any manufactures which they could exchange for the commodities of the east; and they were, therefore, limited to the export of their gold and silver in payment for their purchases. There was, indeed, another kind of traffic which these Venetians pursued, and it is, observes Hallam, "a humiliating proof of the degradation of Christendom, that they were reduced to purchase the luxuries of Asia, by supplying the slave-market of the Saracens. Their apology would, perhaps, have been that these were purchased of their heathen neighbours; but a slave-dealer was, probably, not very inquisitive as to the faith or origin of his victim." This abominable trade in human flesh and blood, must then, as ever, have brought a number of vices in its train, tending greatly to demoralize the Venetian merchants, so that, at an early period, the language of Scripture, in reference to Tyre, was applicable to Venice: "By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned."

[1] Italian Rep. 22.

[2] Cassiodorus.

[3] Quarterly Review, vol. xxv. p. 144.

[4] Rogers' Italy. The poet thus describes the Costumes and luxury of the Venetians, in his beautiful tale of "The Brides of Venice," which belongs to the tenth century: perhaps the description more correctly applies to a somewhat later period.