Chapter I (2)

In 1547, an act passed the cortes general of Aragon, providing for the office of national chronicler, with a fixed salary, whose duty it should be to compile, from authentic sources, a faithful history of the monarchy. The talents and eminent qualifications of Zurita recommended him to this post, and he was raised to it by the unanimous consent of the legislature, in the following year, 1548. From this time he conscientiously devoted himself to the execution of his great task. He visited every part of his own country, as well as Sicily and Italy, for the purpose of collecting materials. The public archives, and every accessible source of information, were freely thrown open to his inspection, by order of the government; and he returned from his literary pilgrimage with a large accumulation of rare and original documents. The first portion of his annals was published at Saragossa, in two volumes folio, 1562. The work was not completed until nearly twenty years later, and the last two volumes were printed under his own eye at Saragossa, in 1580, a few months only before his death. This edition, being one of those used in the present history, is in large folio, fairly executed, with double columns on the page, in the fashion of most of the ancient Spanish historians. The whole work was again published, as before, at the expense of the state, in 1585, by his son, amended and somewhat enlarged, from the manuscripts left by his father. Bouterwek has fallen into the error of supposing, that no edition of Zurita's Annals appeared till after the reign of Philip II., who died in 1592. (Geschichte der Poesie und Beredsamkeit, band iii. p. 319.)

No incidents worthy of note seem to have broken the peaceful tenor of Zurita's life; which he terminated at Saragossa, in the sixty-eighth year of his age, in the monastery of Santa Engracia, to which he had retired during a temporary residence in the city, to superintend the publication of his Annals. His rich collection of books and manuscripts was left to the Carthusian monastery of Aula Dei; but from accident or neglect, the greater part have long since perished. His remains were interred in the convent where he died, and a monument, bearing a modest inscription, was erected over them by his son.

The best monument of Zurita, however, is his Annals. They take up the history of Aragon from its first rise after the Arabic conquest, and continue it to the death of Ferdinand the Catholic. The reign of this prince, as possessing the largest interest and importance, is expanded into two volumes folio; being one-third of the whole work.

The minuteness of Zurita's investigations has laid him open to the charge of prolixity, especially in the earlier and less important periods. It should be remembered, however, that his work was to be the great national repository of facts, interesting to his own countrymen, but which, from difficulty of access to authentic sources, could never before be fully exhibited to their inspection. But, whatever he thought of his redundancy, in this or the subsequent parts of his narrative, it must be admitted that he has uniformly and emphatically directed the attention of the reader to the topics most worthy of it; sparing no pains to illustrate the constitutional antiquities of the country, and to trace the gradual formation of her liberal polity, instead of wasting his strength on mere superficial gossip, like most of the chroniclers of the period.

There is no Spanish historian less swayed by party or religious prejudice, or by the feeling of nationality, which is so apt to overflow in the loyal effusions of the Castilian writers. This laudable temperance, indeed, has brought on him the rebuke of more than one of his patriotic countrymen. There is a sobriety and coolness in his estimate of historical evidence, equally removed from temerity on the one hand, and credulity on the other; in short, his whole manner is that of a man conversant with public business, and free from the closet pedantry which too often characterizes the monkish annalists. The greater part of his life was passed under the reign of Charles V., when the spirit of the nation was not yet broken by arbitrary power, nor debased by the melancholy superstition which settled on it under his successor; an age, in which the memory of ancient liberty had not wholly faded away, and when, if men did not dare express all they thought, they at least thought with a degree of independence which gave a masculine character to their expression. In this, as well as in the liberality of his religious sentiments, he may be compared favorably with his celebrated countryman Mariana, who, educated in the cloister, and at a period when the nation was schooled to maxims of despotism, exhibits few glimpses of the sound criticism and reflection, which are to be found in the writings of his Aragonese rival. The seductions of style, however, the more fastidious selection of incidents, in short, the superior graces of narration, have given a wider fame to the former, whose works have passed into most of the cultivated languages of Europe, while those of Zurita remain, as far as I am aware, still undisturbed in the vernacular.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Zurita, Historia del Rey Don Hernando el Cathólico, (Anales, tom. v. vi., Zaragoza, 1580,) lib. 1, Introd.

[2] The "Legazione," or official correspondence of Machiavelli, while stationed at the different European courts, may be regarded as the most complete manual of diplomacy as it existed at the beginning of the sixteenth century. It affords more copious and curious information respecting the interior workings of the governments with whom he resided, than is to be found in any regular history; and it shows the variety and extent of duties attached to the office of resident minister, from the first moment of its creation.

[3] "Sed diu," says Sallust, noticing the similar consequence of increased refinement among the ancients, "magnum inter mortales certamen fuit, vine corporis an virtute animi res militaris magis procederet. ***** Tum demum periculo atque negotiis compertum est, in bello plurimum ingenium posse." Bellum Catilinarium, cap. 1, 2.

[4] Machiavelli's political treatises, his "Principe" and "Discorsi sopra Tito Livio," which appeared after his death, excited no scandal at the time of their publication. They came into the world, indeed, from the pontifical press, under the privilege of the reigning pope, Clement VII. It was not until thirty years later that they were placed on the Index; and this not from any exceptions taken at the immorality of their doctrines, as Ginguené has well proved, (Histoire Littéraire d'Italie, (Paris, 1811-19,) tom. viii. pp. 32, 74,) but from the imputations they contained on the court of Rome.

[5] "Aquel Senado é Señoría de Venecianos," says Gonzalo de Oviedo, "donde me parece á mi que esta recogido todo el saber é prudencia de los hombres humanos; porque és la gente del mundo que mejor se sabe gobernar; é la republica, que mas tiempo há durado en el mundo por la buena forma de su regimiento, é donde con mejor manera hán los hombres vivido en comunidad sin tener Rey;" etc. Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 3, dial. 44.

[6] Of all the incense which poets and politicians have offered to the Queen of the Adriatic, none is more exquisite than that conveyed in these few lines, where Sannazaro notices her position as the bulwark of Christendom.

"Una Italum regina, altae pulcherrima Romae
Aemula, quae terris, quae dominaris aquis!
Tu tibi vel reges cives facis; O decus! O lux
Ausoniae, per quam libera turba sumus;
Per quam barbaries nobis non imperat, et Sol
Exoriens nostro clarius orbe micat!"

Opera Latina, lib. 3, eleg. 1, 95.

[7] Guicciardini, Istoria, tom. i. lib. 3, p. 147.

[8] Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 119, 123.--Fleury, Histoire Ecclésiastique, contin. (Paris, 1722,) tom. xxiv. lib. 117, p. 545.--Peter Martyr, whose residence and rank at the Spanish court gave him access to the best sources of information as to the repute in which the new pontiff was held there, expresses himself in one of his letters to Cardinal Sforza, who had assisted at his election, in the following unequivocal language. "Sed hoc habeto, princeps illustrissime, non placuisse meis Regibus pontificatum ad Alexandrum, quamvis eorum ditionarium, pervenisse. Verentur namque ne illius cupiditas, ne ambitio, ne (quod gravius) mollities filialis Christianam religionem in praeceps trahat." Epist. 119.

[9] A remarkable example of this occurred in the middle of the fifteenth century, when the inundation of the Turks, which seemed ready to burst upon them, after overwhelming the Arabian and Greek empires, had no power to still the voice of faction, or to concentrate the attention of the Italian states, even for a moment.

[10] Guicciardini, Istoria, tom. i. lib. 1, p. 2.

[11] Brantôme, Vies des Hommes Illustres, Oeuvres Complètes, (Paris, 1822- 3,) tom. ii. disc. i. pp. 2, 20.

[12] Sismondi, Hist. des Français, tom. xv. p. 112.--Gaillard, Rivalité, tom. iv. pp. 2, 3.

[13] Daru, Histoire de la République de Venise, (Paris, 1821,) tom. iii. liv. 20.--See the deed of cession, in the memoir of M. de Foncemagne. (Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, tom. xvii. pp. 539-579.) This document, as well as some others which appeared on the eve of Charles's expedition, breathes a tone of Quixotic and religious enthusiasm that transports us back to the days of the crusades.

[14] The conflicting claims of Anjou and Aragon are stated at length by Gaillard, with more candor and impartiality than were to be expected from a French writer. (Histoire de François I., (Paris, 1769,) tom. i. pp. 71- 92.) They form the subject of a juvenile essay of Gibbon, in which we may discern the germs of many of the peculiarities which afterwards characterized the historian of the Decline and Fall. Miscellaneous Works, (London, 1814.) vol. iii. pp. 206-222.

[15] Essai sur les Moeurs, chap. 107.--His politic father, Louis XI., acted on this principle, for he made no attempt to maintain his pretensions to Naples; although Mably affects to doubt whether this were not the result of necessity rather than policy. "Il est douteux si cette modération fut l'ouvrage d'une connoissance approfondie de ses vrais intérêts, ou seulement de cette défiance qu'il avoit des grands de son royaume, et qu'il n'osoit perdre de vue." Observations sur l'Histoire de France, Oeuvres, (Paris, 1794-5,) liv. 6, chap. 4.

[16] Flassan, Histoire de la Diplomatic Française, (Paris, 1809,) tom. i. pp. 254-259.--Dumont, Corps Universel Diplomatique du Droit des Gens, (Amsterdam, 1726-31,) tom. iii. pp. 297-300.

[17] See the narrative of these transactions in the Fifth and Sixth Chapters of Part I. of this History.

Most historians seem to take it for granted, that Louis XI. advanced a sum of money to the king of Aragon; and some state, that payment of the debt, for which the provinces were mortgaged, was subsequently tendered to the French king. (See, among others, Sismondi, Républiques Italiennes, tom. xii. p. 93.--Roscoe, Life and Pontificate of Leo X., (London, 1827,) vol. i. p. 147.) The first of these statements is a palpable error; and I find no evidence of the last in any Spanish authority, where, if true, it would naturally have been noticed. I must, indeed, except Bernaldez, who says, that Ferdinand having repaid the money, borrowed by his father from Louis XI., to Charles VIII., the latter monarch returned it to Isabella, in consideration of the great expenses incurred by the Moorish war. It is a pity that this romantic piece of gallantry does not rest on any better foundation than the Curate of Los Palacios, who shows a degree of ignorance in the first part of his statement, that entitles him to little credit in the last. Indeed, the worthy curate, although much to be relied on for what passed in his own province, may be found frequently tripping in the details of what passed out of it. Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 117.

[18] Zurita, Hist. del Rey Hernando, lib. 1, cap. 4, 7, 10.

[19] Fleury, Histoire Ecclésiastique, contin., tom. xxiv. pp. 533-555.-- Zurita, Hist. del Rey Hernando, lib. 1, cap. 14.--Daru, Hist. de Venise, tom. iii. pp. 51, 52.--Gaillard, Rivalité, tom. iv. p. 10.--Abarca, Reyes de Aragon, tom. ii. rey 30, cap. 6.

Comines, alluding to the affair of Roussillon, says that Ferdinand and Isabella, whether from motives of economy or hypocrisy, always employed priests in their negotiations. "Car toutes leurs oeuvres ont fait mener et conduire par telles gens (religieux), ou par hypocrisie, ou afin de moins despendre." (Mémoires, p. 211.) The French king, however, made more use of the clergy in this very transaction than the Spanish. Zurita, Hist. del Rey Hernando, lib. 1, cap. 10.

[20] Paolo Giovio, Historia sui Temporis, (Basiliae, 1578,) lib. 1, p. 16.--The treaty of Barcelona is given at length by Dumont. (Corps Diplomatique, tom. iii. pp. 297-300.) It is reported with sufficient inaccuracy by many historians, who make no hesitation in saying, that Ferdinand expressly bound himself, by one of the articles, not to interfere with Charles's meditated attempt on Naples. (Gaillard, Rivalité, tom. iv. p. 11.--Voltaire, Essai sur les Moeurs, chap. 107.--Comines, Mémoires, liv. 8, chap. 23.--Giovio, Hist. sui Temporis, lib. 1, p. 16.-- Varillas, Politique d'Espagne, ou du Roi Ferdinand, (Amsterdam, 1688,) pp. 11, 12.--Roscoe, Life of Leo X., tom. i. chap. 3.) So far from this, there is no allusion whatever to the proposed expedition in the treaty, nor is the name of Naples once mentioned in it.

[21] Zurita, Hist. del Rey Hernando, lib. 1, cap. 18.--Abarca, Reyes de Aragon, ubi supra.

[22] Zurita, Hist. del Rey Hernando, lib. 1, cap. 28.--Bembo, Istoria Viniziana, (Milano, 1809,) tom. i. lib. 2, pp. 118, 119.--Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 3, dial. 43.

[23] Comines, Mémoires, liv. 7, introd.

[24] Zurita, Hist. del Rey Hernando, lib. 1, cap. 20.--Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 123.--Comines, Mémoires, liv. 7, chap. 3.--Mariana, Hist. de España, tom. ii. lib. 26, cap. 6.--Zurita concludes the arguments which decided Ferdinand against assuming the enterprise, with one which may be considered the gist of the whole matter. "El Rey entendia bien que no era tan facil la causa que se proponia." Lib. 1, cap. 20.

[25] Zurita, Hist. del Rey Hernando, lib. 1, cap. 31.

[26] Oviedo notices Silva as one of three brothers, all gentle cavaliers, of unblemished honor, remarkable for the plainness of their persons, the elegance and courtesy of their manners, and the magnificence of their style of living. This one, Alonso, he describes as a man of a singularly clear head. Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 4.

[27] Zurita, Hist. del Rey Hernando, ubi supra.

[28] Zurita, Hist. del Rey Hernando, lib, 1, cap. 31, 41.

[29] Villeneuve, Mémoires, apud Petitot, Collection des Mémoires, tom. xiv. pp. 255, 256.

The French army consisted of 3600 gens d'armes, 20,000 French infantry, and 8000 Swiss, without including the regular camp followers. (Sismondi, Républiques Italiennes, tom. xii. p. 132.)

The splendor and novelty of their appearance excited a degree of admiration, which disarmed in some measure the terror of the Italians. Peter Martyr, whose distance from the theatre of action enabled him to contemplate more calmly the operation of events, beheld with a prophetic eye the magnitude of the calamities impending over his country. In one of his letters, he writes thus; "Scribitur exercitum visum fuisse nostra tempestate nullum unquam nitidiorem. Et qui futuri sunt calamitatis participes, Carolum aciesque illius ac peditum turmas laudibus extollunt; sed Italorum impensâ instructas." (Opus Epist., epist. 143.) He concludes another with this remarkable prediction; "Perimeris, Galle, ex majori parte, nec in patriam redibis. Jacebis insepultus; sed tua non restituetur strages, Italia." Epist. 123.

[30] Guicciardini, Istoria, tom. i. lib. 1, p. 71.--Scipione Ammirato, Istorie Fiorentine, (Firenze, 1647,) p. 205.--Giannone, Istoria di Napoli, tom. iii. lib. 29, introd.--Comines, Mémoires, liv. 7, chap. 17.--Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 3, dial. 43.

[31] Du Bos, Histoire de la Ligue faite à Cambray, (Paris, 1728), tom. i. dissert, prélim.--Machiavelli, Istorie Fiorentine, lib. 5.--Denina, Rivoluzioni d'Italia, lib. 18, cap. 3.

[32] Arte della Guerra, lib. 2.

[33] Machiavelli, Arte della Guerra, lib. 3.--Du Bos, Ligue de Cambray, tom. i. dis. prélim.--Giovio, Hist. sui Temporis, lib. 2, p. 41. Polybius, in his minute account of this celebrated military institution of the Greeks, has recapitulated nearly all the advantages and defects imputed to the Swiss _hérisson_, by modern European writers. (See lib. 17, sec. 25 et seq.) It is singular, that these exploded arms and tactics should be revived, after the lapse of nearly seventeen centuries, to be foiled again in the same manner as before.

[34] Guicciardini, Istoria, tom. i. pp. 45, 46.--Machiavelli, Arte della Guerra, lib. 3.--Du Bos, Ligue de Cambray, ubi supra.

[35] Guicciardini speaks of the name of "cannon," which the French gave to their pieces, as a novelty at that time in Italy. Istoria, pp. 45, 46.

[36] Giovio, Hist. sui Temporis, lib. 2, p. 42.--Machiavelli, Arte della Guerra, lib. 7.

[37] Zurita, Hist. del Rey Hernando, lib. 1, cap. 35.--Alonso da Silva acquitted himself to the entire satisfaction of the sovereigns, in his difficult mission. He was subsequently sent on various others to the different Italian courts, and uniformly sustained his reputation for ability and prudence. He did not live to be old. Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 4.

[38] Mariana, Hist. de España, tom. ii. lib. 26, cap. 6.--Salazar de Mendoza, Monarquía, lib. 3, cap. 14.

This branch of the revenue yields at the present day, according to Laborde, about 6,000,000 reals, or 1,500,000 francs. Itinéraire, tom. vi. p. 51.

[39] Zurita, Abarca, and other Spanish historians, fix the date of Alexander's grant at the close of 1496. (Hist. del Rey Hernando, lib, 2, cap. 40.--Reyes de Aragon, rey 30, cap. 9.) Martyr notices it with great particularity as already conferred, in a letter of February, 1495. (Opus Epist., epist. 157.) The pope, according to Comines, designed to compliment Ferdinand and Isabella for their conquest of Granada, by transferring to them the title of Most Christian, hitherto enjoyed by the kings of France. He had even gone so far as to address them thus in more than one of his briefs. This produced a remonstrance from a number of the cardinals; which led him to substitute the title of Most Catholic. The epithet of Catholic was not new in the royal house of Castile, nor indeed of Aragon; having been given to the Asturian prince Alfonso I. about the middle of the eighth, and to Pedro II., of Aragon, at the beginning of the thirteenth century.

I will remark, in conclusion, that, although the phrase _Los Reyes Católicos_, as applied to a female equally with a male, would have a whimsical appearance literally translated into English, it is perfectly consonant to the Spanish idiom, which requires that all words, having reference to both a masculine and a feminine noun, should be expressed in the former gender. So also in the ancient languages; _Aemen tyrannoi_, says Queen Hecuba; (Euripides, _Troad_, v. 476.) But it is clearly incorrect to render _Los Reyes Católicos_, as usually done by English writers, by the corresponding term of "Catholic kings."

[40] Carbajal, Anales, MS., año 1495.

[41] Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 138.--Sismondi, Républiques Italiennes, tom. xii. pp. 192-194.--Garibay, Compendio, lib. 19, cap. 4.

[42] Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 3, dial. 43.--Zurita, Hist. del Rey Hernando, lib. 1, cap. 43.--Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 138.--Giovio, Hist. sui Temporis, lib. 2, p. 46.--Lanuza, Historias, tom. i. lib. 1, cap. 6.

This appears from a letter of Martyr's, dated three months before the interview; in which he says, "Antonius Fonseca, vir equestris ordinis, et armis clarus, destinatus est orator, qui eum moneat, ne, priusquam de jure inter ipsum et Alfonsum regem Neapolitanum decernatur, ulterius procedat. Fert in mandatis Antonius Fonseca, ut Carolo capitulum id sonans ostendat, anteque ipsius oculos (si detrectaverit) pacti veteris chirographum laceret, atque indicat inimicitias." Opus Epist., epist. 144.

[43] Comines, Mémoires, liv. 7, chap. 16.--Villeneuve, Mémoires, apud Petitot, Collection des Mémoires, tom. xii., p. 260.--Ammirato, Istorie Florentine, tom. iii. lib. 26.--Summonte, Hist. di Napoli, tom. iii. lib. 6, cap. 1, 2.

[44] Giovio, Hist. sui Temporis, lib. 2, p. 55.--Giannone, Istoria di Napoli, lib. 29, cap. 1, 2.--André de la Vigne, Histoire de Charles VIII., (Paris, 1617,) p. 201.

[45] Giovio, Hist. sui Temporis, lib. 2, p. 56.--Guicciardini, Istoria, tom. i. pp. 86, 87.--Bembo, Istoria Viniziana, tom. i. lib. 2, p. 120-- Zurita, Hist. del Rey Hernando, lib. 2, chap. 3, 5.--Comines, Mémoires, liv. 7, chap. 19.

[46] Guicciardini, Istoria, tom. i. lib. 2, p. 88.--Comines, Mémoires, liv. 7, chap. 20.--Bembo, Istoria Viniziana, tom. i. lib. 2, pp. 122, 123.--Daru, Hist. de Venise, tom. iii. pp. 255, 256.--Zurita, Hist. del Rey Hernando, lib. 2, cap. 5.

[47] Comines, Mémoires, p. 96.--Comines takes great credit to himself for his perspicacity in detecting the secret negotiations carried on at Venice against his master. According to Bembo, however, the affair was managed with such profound caution, as to escape his notice until it was officially announced by the doge himself; when he was so much astounded by the intelligence, that he was obliged to ask the secretary of the senate, who accompanied him home, the particulars of what the doge had said, as his ideas were so confused at the time, that he had not perfectly comprehended it. Istoria Viniziana, lib. 2, pp. 128, 129.