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Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
deepest pity toward the suffering ones of earth, and I would gladly
be able to console them all.”
Saying this, Northumberland paused, overcome by emotion.
“Ah!” at length replied Walsh, who had listened with rapt attention,
“how limited are our judgments! Had I been asked the name of the
happiest mortal living, I should have given yours without a moment’s
hesitation.”
“I know it, and have been told it a hundred times,” replied
Northumberland earnestly. “Many men have had their marriage
relations dissolved, their fortunes changed, and have still borne up
courageously under their misfortunes; but with me it cannot be thus.
If Anne Boleyn had married another lord of the court—well, I might
have been reconciled. I should at least have been spared the
outrage of her dishonor; for her dishonor is mine! I had so taken her
heart into my own, united my life so entirely with hers, in order not
to suffer the slightest stain to touch it, that there is no torture equal
to that which I now endure. Every moment I feel, I suffer; I hear the
whisperings of this infamous and widespread report which her
foolish vanity alone prevents her from discovering around her.”
“Dear Percy,” replied Walsh, “you cannot imagine how much you
exaggerate all this! The solitude in which you live has excited you to
such a degree that you almost imagine she bears the name of
Countess of Northumberland.”
“Yes!” he exclaimed excitedly, “she bears it in my heart; and there,
at least, no one can dispute her right!”
“And poor Lady Shrewsbury?” replied Walsh.
“Lady Shrewsbury,” cried Northumberland, “is the victim, like myself,
of compulsion! Never have I regarded her as my wife. If the king
had demanded my head, I should not have been bound to obey; but
a father’s curse is a weight that cannot be supported! My obstinacy
would have brought upon his tottering old age the bitterness of
poverty and want. No, no; that is my only excuse, and Lady
Shrewsbury herself would have forgiven me had she known my
sorrow.”
“My dear Percy,” interrupted Walsh anxiously, “I am deeply grieved
to find you in this condition; your heart misleads you, and I perceive
the commission with which I am charged will be anything but
agreeable. However, what can I do? Here,” he added, unfolding a
letter and a roll of written parchment, from which hung the king’s
seals, “take and read.”
He preferred giving him the order to read rather than have the
unpleasant task of verbally announcing what he now foresaw would
cause him such extreme grief. Northumberland had no sooner
glanced over it than the parchment fell from his hands.
“Who? I?” he cried. “I go to arrest the archbishop at the very
moment when all the nobility of these parts are assembled to assist
at the ceremony of his installation! I, formerly of his household, who
have spent all the happiest years of my youth with him—charge me
with such a commission? The king wishes, then, to have me
regarded with horror and detestation by all the inhabitants of this
country! Know, my friend,” continued Percy, fixing his flashing eyes
upon Walsh, “that since Wolsey came here he has made himself
universally loved and cherished. He is no longer the vain, imperious
man whom you knew; adversity has entirely changed him. He
occupies himself only in doing good, reconciling family differences,
and relieving the distressed. And this gorgeous entry, which causes
the king so much uneasiness, he was to have made on foot with the
utmost possible simplicity.
“For a long time Wolsey hesitated, entirely for fear of seeing his
enemies array themselves against him; but his clergy seemed so
wounded at conduct contrary to the usage of all his predecessors
that he at length consented. But see how they deceive the king, and
endeavor to excite him against those who least of all merit his
displeasure!”
“What shall I say to you, my dear Northumberland?” replied Walsh.
“When the king issues an order, how can its execution be avoided?
All that you say is true beyond doubt, but neither you nor I can do
anything; it only remains for us to try and accomplish this
disagreeable commission with as little noise as possible.”
“Ah!” replied Northumberland, “why has he imposed such a
commission on me? See if even the slightest pleasure of my life is
not instantly extinguished. I was rejoicing at seeing you, and
immediately I am made to pay for it.”
He continued for a long time talking in this manner, when, Walsh
having expressed a desire to go through the castle, Northumberland
consented. They found everything in a state of extreme disorder. In
many places no care was taken even to open the house to admit the
light of day. As old Henry successively opened to them each new hall
of the immense castle, the dust, collected in heaps like piles of
down, arose and flew away to collect again further on in the
apartment upon some more valuable piece of furniture.
Walsh could not avoid expressing to the earl his surprise at seeing
him so neglect the magnificent abode of his ancestors. “It is wrong,”
replied Percy, “but I prize nothing any more. Of what consequence is
it to me whether the roof that shelters me is handsome or plain?
When our hearts are crushed by sorrow, we become oblivious to all
outward surroundings.”
* * * * *
When night came on, his host retired and left him to that repose of
which, after the fatigue of his journey, he stood so much in need.
Northumberland ordered old Henry to retire and leave him alone as
usual; but Henry had decided otherwise, and continued for a long
time to come and go and pass the chamber slowly under various
pretexts, as his solicitude on account of his master was more and
more increased on remarking that his habitual sadness had been
redoubled since the advent of his visitor.
“Accursed stranger!” he said to himself, “bird of ill-omen, what has
brought him here? That famished maw of his would have been very
well able to carry him far from the moats of our castle! It is the king
who sends him here; but is not our son king of these parts?” And
thus muttering to himself, old Henry walked on. Not being able to
determine on leaving his master, he stopped and peered through the
door in order to observe Lord Percy. The latter sat leaning on the
table before him, his eyes closed, his head resting on his hands, and
seemingly oblivious to everything around him.
“There he sits still, to take a cold with this trouble!” continued Henry.
“However, I must go and leave him.” And the old domestic, still
turning his palsied head to look back, passed slowly under the heavy
tapestry screen, that fell rustling behind him.
“He is gone,” said Northumberland to himself—“gone, perhaps, for
ever; for who knows how long Henry has yet to live? What
happiness to think we must die! When weary with suffering, the soul
reposes with a bitter joy upon the brink of that tomb which alone
can deliver her from her woes! How the certainty of seeing them end
sweetens the sorrows we endure! Here where I stand” (he arose to
his feet), “beside this hearth, each one of my sires has taken his
place, and each has successively passed away. Their armor hangs
here empty; their names alone remain inscribed upon them. Why
have not I the courage, then, to endure this time of trial they call
‘life,’ which I have wished to consider the end, but which is only a
road leading to the end—a road perilous, rough, and wearing? The
shortest is the one I consider the best; and he who travels over it
most rapidly, has he not found true happiness?
“Have you not sometimes seen, in the midst of a violent storm, a
poor bird wildly struggling with winds and waves? You behold it for a
moment in the whirlpool, and suddenly it disappears. Just so I have
passed through the midst of the world; I had hoped to shine there,
because I was dazzled with it. To-day it becomes necessary to forget
it. O my soul! I wish thee, I command thee, to forget.”
At this moment a slight noise was heard. Northumberland started.
“What do you want, Henry?” he asked, seeing the old man standing
like a shadow at the end of the apartment.
“Nothing!” he replied impatiently.
“But truly,” said Lord Percy, “why have you returned?”
“To see if you were asleep,” brusquely answered the old servant,
approaching him. “It was scarcely worth the trouble,” he continued,
elevating his voice, “of harboring so carefully this new-comer, if he
must pay his reckoning in this way.”
“Ah!” replied Northumberland, regarding his old foster-father with a
suppliant expression.” Tell me, Henry, have you never known what it
was to grieve for one whom you loved?”
“Ay, in sooth,” replied Henry, “unfortunately I have known it; but we
are not able to live, like you, in idleness, and have hardly time to be
unhappy. When I lost my poor Alice, your foster-mother, what
anguish did I not feel in the depths of my soul! Well, if I had
stopped to think of her, I should have heard immediately my name
resounding through all the turrets of the castle: ‘Henry! my lord—my
lord goes hunting; hurry! make haste! my lord gives a ball this
evening to all the ladies of the country.’ And away I had to go, to
come, to run; otherwise my lord your father would fly into a passion.
How would you find time to weep if somebody was always calling
after you? Besides, I—poor Henry—if they had seen me sitting, like
you, all the day in silence, with tears in my eyes and my arms
folded, they would have laughed at me, and the pages would have
called me a fool.”
“That is true; you are right,” replied Northumberland in an
abstracted manner. “You say, then they gave balls here?”
“And superb ones, too!” replied Henry, who liked, above all things, to
talk about the old times. “In those days you were not here; they
educated you with Monseigneur the Cardinal, our good archbishop at
present.”
On hearing these words Northumberland became violently agitated,
and his old servant, perceiving his countenance change and his
features contract, stopped suddenly in great alarm.
“You are ill, my lord?” he exclaimed.
“No, no,” replied Northumberland; “be calm. Leave me, Henry; I
want to be alone. Go to your bed—I command you.”
Henry, forced to leave his master, as he went reproached himself for
having spoken of the fêtes the Countess of Northumberland had
given in the castle; he imagined it was the recollection of his mother
that had so affected Lord Percy.
“The archbishop! the archbishop!” repeated Northumberland. “Oh!
let me banish the name, in mercy—for a few hours, at least! He said,
I believe, that they gave balls here! What did he say? Yes, that must
be it: my mother loved them. Yes,” he continued, looking round at
the large and magnificent panels of his chamber, “here they hung
garlands and baskets of flowers; a thousand lamps reflected their
brilliant colors; delicious music floated on the perfumed air; crowds
of people of every age, sex, and rank eagerly gathered here. Time
has very soon reduced them to an equality; the sound of their
footsteps is heard no more; their voices are mute; they have all
passed away. I alone still exist.”
The entire night was spent in these reflections, and when day began
to dawn the heavy tramp of horses was heard in the courtyard, and
soon, in the cold fog of morning, there issued from the castle gate a
troop of armed men wearing long cloth cloaks and caps. It was the
earl’s retainers, whom he had assembled during the night from all
the surrounding country. He rode in the midst of them in profound
silence; even Sir Walsh, reading in his countenance the melancholy
dejection under which he labored, had simply pressed his hand
without daring to address him a word.
As to the followers of Northumberland, they were astonished at this
sudden departure; they were completely ignorant of whither their
master was carrying them, having learned nothing from old Henry
himself, to whom Lord Percy had deemed it inexpedient to reveal the
destination, and still less the object, of this expedition. The old man
felt singularly anxious on the subject, as he was every day becoming
more and more accustomed to regard himself as the guardian and
adviser of him whom he called his son. Therefore, after having
closed the gate of the castle upon the travellers, he went sadly and
took his station on the highest tower, to see in what direction his
master was going.
A few moments only he followed them with his eyes; for, the valley
once crossed, their route conducted them into the depths of the
forest, and the cavalcade was soon lost to view.

TO BE CONTINUED.
VAGO ANGELLETTO CHE CANTANAS VAI.

FROM PETRARCH.

Sweet bird, that, singing under altered skies,

Art mourning for thy season of delight—
For lo! the cheerful months forsake thee quite,
And all thy sunshine into shadow dies—
O thou who art acquainted with unrest!
Could thy poor wit my kindred mood divine,
How wouldst thou fold thy wings upon my breast,
And blend thy melancholy plaint with mine!
I know not if with thine my songs would rhyme,
For haply she thou mournest is not dead:
Less kind are death and heaven unto me;
But the chill twilight, and the sullen time,
And thinking of the sweet years and the sad,
Move me, wild warbler, to discourse with thee.
 ITALIAN COMMERCE IN THE MIDDLE AGES.
“Your mind is tossing on the ocean;
There, where your argosies with portly sail,
Like signiors and rich burghers of the flood,
Or, as it were, the pageants of the sea,
Do overpeer the petty traffickers,
That curt’sy to them, do them reverence,
As they fly by them with their woven wings.”
Merchant of Venice, act i. sc. i.

Thucydides, in the introduction to his history, remarks that one of the

principal causes that raised some of the Greek cities to such a high
degree of prosperity and power was their engagement in mercantile
pursuits. All the great peoples of antiquity by whom the shores of
the Mediterranean were occupied—Phœnicians, Carthaginians,
Etruscans, Ionians of Asia Minor—rose to wealth and importance by
the same means. The Romans alone despised it.
After the subversion of the Western Empire and the last inroads of
the barbarians, the natives of Italy were the first to emerge from the
ruins of the ancient world. Except religion, they found no worthier or
more potent element of civilization than commerce, which procures,
to use the words of a celebrated writer, what is of far greater value
than mere money—“the reciprocation of the peculiar advantages of
different countries”; and throughout the middle ages, until the
passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope and the discovery of
America, Italy was the most forward nation in Christendom for
wealth, refinement of manners, and intellectual culture.
Italian commerce reached its greatest development between the
thirteenth and fifteenth centuries—that is, between the ages when
Marco Polo travelled to Tartary, China, and the Indies and
Christopher Columbus discovered America. In these two men,
representatives of Venice and Genoa, are embodied the geniuses of
trade and navigation; and as though Florence, seated between the
rival cities and engaged rather in reaping the fruits than in sowing
the seeds of enterprise, were destined to unite in herself the glory of
both Italian shores, one of her citizens—Americus Vespucius—gives
his name to the New World. This commerce began slowly but
progressed rapidly, and attained its noblest proportions during the
fourteenth century, when for a hundred years it spread over every
sea and land then known in the eager search after riches, bringing
back to its votaries whatever luxury Europe, Asia, and Africa
produced or man’s invention had evolved out of the necessities of
his nature. Next, it gradually fell away and almost disappeared in the
sixteenth century, leaving behind it only the cold consolation that
there was no reason why it alone should be excepted from the
common doom of human affairs, which, when they have enjoyed a
certain measure of success, must surely decline and fall.
When the Goths, Longobards, and Carlovingians had conquered
Italy, although most of the arts and sciences were lost or hidden in
cloisters, neither trade nor commerce was quite neglected; but,
despite the dangers from pirates, the ignorance of the sea, and the
exactions of the lawless on land, the Adriatic and Mediterranean
were timidly attempted by the inhabitants of the coast, while in the
interior of the country an interchange of commodities was carried on
between neighboring districts at places set apart for the purpose.
These places were generally the large square or principal street of a
town, or under the walls of a monastery, and the interchange took
place on certain days appointed by public authority.
The assemblies of the people were usually held on the Saturday, and
were at first called markets; but afterwards the rarer and more
important ones, which were held annually and for several
consecutive days, were termed fairs, from the Latin word feria,
because they always took place on the feast of some saint. Many
rights and privileges were granted at an early period to the
merchants who exhibited wares at these yearly gatherings; for
without such inducements few cared to undertake a journey with a
part, or perhaps the whole, of their earthly substance about them,
along roads and across ferries beset by robber-nobles, who levied
toll from passers-by and sometimes seized goods and persons for
their own use.
The Venetians began earlier to sail on distant seas, and maintained
themselves longer on the water, than did the natives of any other
parts of Italy. Cassiodorus represents them in the sixth century as
occupied solely in salt-works, from which they derived their only
profit; but in course of time they issued from their lagoons to
become the most industrious and venturesome traffickers in the
world. At the beginning of the ninth century they had already
introduced into Italy some of the delicacies of the East, but drew
odium on themselves for conniving with pirates and men-stealers to
capture people and sell them into slavery in distant quarters of
Europe and Asia. On the opposite shore of Italy the inhabitants of
Amalfi showed themselves the most successful navigators during the
early middle ages, trading with Sicily and Tarentum, and even with
Egypt, Syria, and Constantinople. Their city is described by the poet-
historian William of Apulia, in the eleventh century, as the great mart
for Eastern goods, and the enterprise of its sailors as extending to all
the ports of the Mediterranean. Flavio Gioja, a citizen of Amalfi, if he
did not invent the mariner’s compass, as is somewhere asserted,
certainly improved it about the year 1302, either by its mode of
suspension or by the attachment of the card to the needle itself. This
discovery gave such an impulse to navigation that what had been for
ages hardly more than a skilful art became at once a science, and
vessels no longer crept along the shore or slipped from island to
island, but attempted “the vasty deep” and crossed over the ocean
to the New World.
Another rich emporium at an early period, on the same side of Italy,
was Pisa. The city was four or five miles from the sea, but had a port
formed by a natural bay to the southward of the old mouth of the
Arno at a place called Calambrone. The Pisans at first traded
principally with Sicily and Africa. They fitted out expeditions against
the Saracens,[31] seized several islands in the Mediterranean, and
with both land-troops and seamen took an important part in the first
Crusade, being careful, before returning from the East, to establish
factories at Antioch and Constantinople. They also sent fleets to
humble the Mohammedan cities of Northern Africa. Through
commercial jealousy and political reasons they became involved in
bitter wars with the Genoese for the possession of Corsica, and with
the Amalfitans, who had sided against the emperor. The Pisans, as
auxiliaries of the Emperor Lothaire, sent a strong squadron to
Amalfi, which was held by the Normans, and, after a rigorous
blockade, took it by storm in 1137. It was on this occasion that a
copy of the long-lost Pandects of Justinian was found, which is said
to be the original from which all subsequent copies in Italy were
made, thus reviving the study of Roman law. It was taken from its
captors by the Florentines in 1411, and is now preserved in the
Laurentian Library at Florence. The monk Donizo, in his metrical life
of the Countess Matilda, being annoyed that the mother of the
countess should have been buried in Pisa, describes the city
somewhat contemptuously as a flourishing emporium whose port
was filled with large ships and frequented by many different races of
people, even by swarthy Moors.
To the north of Pisa rose her haughty rival, Genoa, surnamed the
Superb from her pride and magnificent natural position. After four
sanguinary wars with the Pisans, the Genoese swept their fleets
from the sea, destroyed their port, and ruined their foreign
commerce. The city never recovered from that blow, and the
population, which once exceeded 100,000, has fallen to a fifth of
that number.
The Genoese had at first been the allies of the Pisans, and united
with them to drive the Saracens out of several important islands.
They also ravaged the coast of Northern Africa in the eleventh
century, and, taking part in the first Crusade, obtained settlements
on the shore of Palestine, particularly at Acre. Owing to their secure
position at home and their foothold in the East and the islands of the
West, their city became one of the two great maritime powers of
Italy and the only noteworthy rival of Venice. The power of the
Genoese and Venetians was immensely increased by the Crusades,
and at one time so feared were they in the Levant that they were
able to draw pensions and exact tribute from the pusillanimous
emperor at Constantinople. The Venetians were especially favored
by Alexius Comnenus, through whom they acquired convenient
establishments along the Bosphorus and at Durazzo in Albania. Their
doge was honored with the pompous title of Protosebaste. In the
meanwhile intestine disturbances and wars with neighboring
republics had reduced several of those cities which had lately been
most flourishing, and none could compete successfully in the
fourteenth century with Venice and Genoa, to which the foreign
trade of Italy was left, and to whose marts the produce of the
Levant and the countries bordering on the lower Mediterranean was
brought, and either there or at the great cities of the interior
exchanged for domestic manufactures and the industries of Central
and Northern Europe. The carrying trade was almost exclusively
their own, but the home or inland business was shared by many
other cities—principally by Bologna, Ferrara, Florence, Lucca, and
Milan. At that period the Atlantic ocean and northern coasts of
Europe were but rarely navigated by Italian merchants. The
Venetians alone despatched annually a large fleet, which—taking its
name, the Flanders fleet, from its destination—carried on an
enterprising and lucrative traffic with the Low Countries, and, in
connection with the Hanseatic League or directly, spread over
England, Scotland, and the nations lying on the North Sea and the
Baltic, the spices, gums, silks, pearls, diamonds, and numerous
other articles of oriental origin which they had procured from the
Levant and further Indies. The Genoese furnished the same things
to the French, Spaniards, and Moors of Andalusia; but Portugal was
served by their rivals.
A maritime power had risen before this time which disputed with the
Genoese and Venetians the ascendency on the Mediterranean. This
was Barcelona, whose sailors were among the best on the sea, and
whose merchants were largely engaged in commerce. Many bold
encounters took place between the Catalans and Italians, through
jealousies of trade, but the former finally succumbed.
The products of the more distant East reached Italy in Genoese and
Venetian ships, through Armenian merchants at Trebizond, and
through Arabs by way of Alexandria and Damascus. Those of the
north, so necessary for a seafaring people, were brought from the
mouth of the Don, the merchandise being floated down that great
river in boats from the interior. The Mongols were the masters of all
the region thereabouts; but the insinuating Italians, aware of the
interest of this branch of commerce, played upon their barbarous
pride with so much dexterity that they succeeded in making treaties
with them by which they were allowed to occupy certain trading
posts where the goods ordered might accumulate and their own
wares be exchanged for the productions of Russia, Tartary, and
Persia. The wily Genoese had bought from a Tartar prince, at the
beginning of the fourteenth century, a small piece of land on the
south-eastern shore of the Crimea on which to build a factory. Only
a few rude cabins were raised at first, for stores and the dwellings of
their agents; but the traffic soon brought together a large
population, sumptuous palaces were erected, a strong and lofty wall
was built around, and Kaffa[32] became one of the most opulent
colonies of the republic, with a population at one time of 80,000.
The rival Venetians had their great deposit at the city of Azov, on the
banks of the Don, twenty miles from its mouth. They were not the
proprietors, and, although they received numerous favors from the
Tartar governor, they were obliged to share them with the Genoese,
Florentines, and others, who also did a flourishing business. The
amount of goods collected there was so immense and the value so
considerable, that when, as sometimes happened, a destructive fire
broke out or the place was plundered, the loss was felt as a shock to
commerce throughout the whole of Europe.
All along the coast of the Black Sea the Italians plied a profitable
trade, and many merchants were settled at Trebizond, from which
vantage-ground they had an important communication open with
Armenia, whose people, being united by religion to the Latins,
granted them very valuable commercial privileges. The Venetians
were favored above the rest. They had churches, magazines, and
inns, coined money, and in all matters in dispute were tried by
judges chosen among their countrymen, or rather their own fellow-
citizens. They could introduce their goods without paying duty, freely
traverse the kingdom, and monopolize the exportation of camel’s
hair, which was an important article of traffic. The Genoese were no
less enterprising than their rivals, and restored in the port of
Trebizond a mole that had been built by the Roman Emperor
Hadrian. Large quantities of India goods, and especially spiceries,
were stored by Italian merchants in the warehouses of Trebizond,
Damascus, and Alexandria. There were several overland routes by
which this merchandise was transported, but none of them was safe,
on account of the frequent revolutions in the countries through
which they ran. Some of the caravans that brought the commodities
of India and China passed through Balkh, the Baetria of the ancients
and at one time the commercial centre of eastern Asia, then up to
Bokhara, whence they descended the Oxus for a distance, touched
at Khiva, and, traversing the Caspian Sea, ascended the river Kour
(the Cyrus of Strabo, xi. p. 509) for seventy miles to its junction with
the Aras (the Araxes of Herodotus, iv. 40), from which they crossed
by a journey of four or five days into the historical Phasis at
Sharapan and down to the Euxine. Another beaten track entered
Syria by the Tigris and the Euphrates, and diverged towards the
several ports of Palestine and Asia Minor. It passed through Bagdad,
which was a great commercial emporium during the middle ages and
an entrepôt for the commodities of eastern and western Asia. A
memorial of those days when Frank merchants, mingling with
Persians, Arabs, Turks, Hindoos, Koords, and Armenians, ransacked
her splendid bazaars, remains in our language in the word
Baldachin, because canopies made of costly stuff interwoven with
gold thread were manufactured in this city, which was known to the
Italians as Baldacca, and in the adjective form Baldacchino. Much
trade was also done by way of the Red Sea, Cairo, and Alexandria.
In all the ports of the Euxine and Mediterranean the Italians had
shops and warehouses, and every rich company kept a number of
factors, who despatched goods as they got orders and maintained
the interests of their principals. An officer called a consul, who was
appointed by the government at home, resided in each of these
foreign sea-ports, to defend the rights of his countrymen, and decide
differences among themselves, or between them and strangers.
Consuls were recognized as official personages by the sovereign in
whose territory they resided, and were honored as public
magistrates by their own people, from whom they received certain
fees for their support, according to the quality and amount of
business they were called upon to perform.
The maritime republics of Italy were very fortunate in having
transported the Crusaders to the Holy Land in their ships, for by this
they acquired many rich establishments in the Levant, and it was not
long before the dissolute and degraded Greeks, who would neither
take counsel in peace nor could defend themselves in war, became
subject to the imperious will of the Italians.
The Venetians obtained in 1204 the fertile island of Candia, which
became the centre of their extensive Egyptian and Asiatic trade.
They also had a quarter in Constantinople, which they surrounded
by a wall, the gates of which were guarded by their own soldiers,
and a distinct anchorage for their own vessels in the Golden Horn. A
senate and bailiff representing the doge held authority in this
settlement, and exercised jurisdiction over the minor establishments
of the republic in Roumelia.
The Genoese were still more powerful at the capital, and the
Emperor Michael Palæologus, who was indebted to them for his
return to the throne, had given them the beautiful suburbs of Pera
and Galata, on an elevated plateau, which they made still more
secure, under the elder Andronicus, by a moat and triple row of
walls. To these places they transferred their stores and stock; nor
was it long before the churches, palaces, warehouses, and public
buildings of Pera vied in magnificence with those of the metropolis
itself. The island of Chios, where gum-mastic was collected and the
finest wine produced, was another of their colonies. These were all
ruled by a podestà annually sent from Genoa. The Genoese and
Venetians had also factories in Barbary, through which they drove a
brisk trade with the interior of Africa. To them more than to any
others was it due that for three hundred years the commerce of Italy
was famous from the Straits of Gibraltar to the remotest gulf in the
Euxine.
The maritime strength of the Italian republics, especially of Genoa
and Venice, corresponded to their vast commercial interests and the
number of colonies they were expected to enlarge and defend. Thus,
the Pisans in 1114 sent an armament, consisting of 300 vessels of
various sizes, carrying 35,000 men and 900 horses, to the conquest
of the Balearic Islands, which had become a nest of Moorish pirates.
A great part of these troops were mercenaries procured from all
parts of the world, and contingents drawn from their possessions in
Sardinia. In 1293 the Genoese fitted out in a single month, against
the Venetians, 200 galleys, each of which bore from 220 to 300
combatants recruited within the continental limits of the republic;
and in the vast arsenal of Venice during the fourteenth century 800
men were continually at work, and 200 galleys, not to count the
smaller craft, were kept ready in port for any emergency that might
arise. Such formidable fleets were manned either by voluntary
enlistments or impressment; the hope of heavy plunder, according to
the barbarous war-system of those days, which the church strove
against but could not wholly change, appealing to young men to
serve as sailors or soldiers. The furious rivalry between Genoa and
Venice began to show itself soon after the taking of Constantinople
by the Franks in 1244, each desiring to reap alone the profits of the
Levant trade. After many bloody encounters a peace was patched up
in 1298, by which the latter was excluded for thirteen years from the
Black Sea, along whose shores the former had colonies, forts, and
factories, and was forbidden to send armed vessels to Syria. Terms
so propitious raised the pride and influence of Genoa to the utmost;
and feared by all, and claiming to be mistress of the seas, she
upheld the honor of her flag with extravagant solicitude. In 1332 she
wasted the coast of Catalonia with a force of 200 galleys, and
inflicted great injury on the commerce of Barcelona; and two years
later, having captured twelve ships of the enemy, heavily freighted
with merchandise, in the waters of Sicily, Cyprus, and Sardinia, with
an example of ferocious cruelty which only the “accursed greed of
gold” and a determination to exclude the Catalans from any share in
Eastern commerce could prompt, six hundred prisoners were hanged
at a single execution. She was resolved to command the seas, and
consequently the trade of the world; but her rival, although crippled,
was not prostrate, and the fourth war broke out between them in
1372 for possession of the classical island of Tenedos, so valuable as
a naval station and renowned for its wheat and excellent red wine.
The Genoese actually got into the lagoons of Venice, vowing to
reduce her to the stagnant level of the waters, and approached so
near to the city that their admiral could shout to the affrighted
people on the quays, Delenda est Carthago! but by a singular freak
of fortune they were themselves totally defeated, and glad to accept
the mediation of Amadeus VI., Duke of Savoy. It was agreed that
neither party should have the island in dispute, but that the duke
should hold it at their common expense for two years and then
dismantle the fortress.
During this war, called the War of Chioggia, which lasted until 1381,
an unusually large number of corsairs roved the seas; but the
Italians had long practised piracy, and whole communities were
corsairs by profession, just as on land condottieri could be hired to
sack cities and castles and desolate whole provinces. The little town
of Monaco was notorious during the middle ages for its pirates, as it
still is for its ravenous land-sharks. There were two sorts of corsairs.
Some were private individuals who went to sea through lust of gain,
or because driven from their homes during the fights of faction, and
seized whatever they could. These robberies and depredations
marked piracy in its original form. Nevertheless during the twelfth,
thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries many otherwise honorable
characters, who were often unjustly despoiled of their patrimony and
driven as outcasts from their native cities, took to this occupation
not entirely from inclination, but impelled by the brutality of their
countrymen. We may recall as an extenuating circumstance what
that grave judge, Lord Stowell, observed (2 Dods. 374) of the
buccaneers, whose spirit at one time approached to that of chivalry
in point of adventure, and whose manner of life was thought to
reflect no disgrace upon distinguished Englishmen who engaged in
it.
Other corsairs were patriotic citizens who armed their ships to injure
the enemy during lawful hostilities; and although there was abuse in
the system, they were not pirates, but privateersmen. Foreign
nations used to buy ships from the Italians to increase their own
armaments, or engage them to harass their opponents. It is curious,
considering how completely maritime supremacy has deserted the
Mediterranean for northern seas, to know that the poet Chaucer was
sent by King Edward III. in November, 1372, as envoy to the
republic of Genoa to hire vessels for his navy; and Tytler says (Hist.
of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 261) that in the same century many of the
privateers employed by the Scots against England appear to have
been vessels of larger dimensions and more formidable equipment
than those of England, probably from their being foreign built, and
furnished by the Genoese or the Venetians, for the purposes both of
trade and piracy.
It was now that the word Jane came into the language—Chaucer
and Spenser use it—for a small coin so-called from Janua (Genoa). It
is termed in the old English statutes a galley half-pence.
The Florentines had originally no seaboard, and were obliged to
charter ships wherever they could. In 1362, having taken into the
service of the republic Pierin Grimaldi of Genoa, with two galleys,
and hired two more vessels, their little fleet took the island of Giglio
from the Pisans, and the following year, having broken into the port
of Pisa itself, they took away the chains that protected it and hung
them as trophies on the porphyry columns of their Baptistery.
The foreign commerce for which the maritime cities of Italy, and
particularly Genoa and Venice, so savagely disputed, to the scandal
of the Christian name among the infidels, as the old English traveller
Sir John de Mandeville shows, was certainly very considerable, and a
source of almost fabulous profit to those engaged in it who were
fortunate in their ventures. Commerce was the foundation of Italy’s
prosperity, which was greater than that of any other European
country from the twelfth to the fourteenth century. The Italian
merchants got cottons, silken goods, brocades, Cashmere shawls,
spices, rhubarb and other medicines, amber, indigo, pearls, and
diamonds from India and Central Asia. From Persia there came silks,
carpets, skins, and manufactured articles used by the great for
clothing or for the comfort of their homes. Tartary and Russia
furnished hemp, canvas, ship-timber, tar, wax, caviare, raw-hides,
and peltries. From the ports of Syria and Asia Minor, and particularly
from Smyrna, were shipped to Italy hare-skins, leather, camel’s hair,
valonia, cotton stuffs, damasks, dried fruits, beeswax, drugs and
electuaries, arms, armor, and cutlery; and many articles of Asiatic
luxury and magnificence found their way thence through Italian
merchants to the courts and castles of England, Scotland, France,
Germany, and other northern nations. Greece sent fine wines,
raisins, currants, filbert-nuts, silk, and alum. A large quantity of grain
was brought into Italy from Egypt and the Barbary States; but the
supply to the colonies in the Levant came mostly from the Black Sea.
Wool, wax, sheep-skins, and morocco came from the Moorish
provinces of Africa. These were the principal imports, and were
exchanged for the products and manufactures of Italy and the
countries to the north, for which the Italians acted as agents. The
Genoese exported immense quantities of woven fabrics from the
looms of Lombardy and Florence, fine linens from Bologna, and
cloths of a coarser make from France, for which a ready market was
found in the East and among the Italians settled in the Archipelago
and Levant. The oils of Provence and the Riviera of Genoa, soaps,
saffron, and coral, were also largely exported. Quicksilver was a
valuable article in the hands of the Venetians, who got it from Istria
and sold it in Spain and the Levant; they also extracted a great
amount of salt from Istria and Dalmatia, which was sold at a good
profit in Lombardy and other parts of Italy. Sardinia, Sicily, and
Naples also did a large foreign business; the last city importing
cargoes of delicate Greek and Oriental wines, such as the famous
Cyprian, Malmsey, and Muscatel, much of which was sent to
different parts of Italy, and into England and the Netherlands. Spain,
Portugal, and Flanders were supplied with the products of the Indies
and Levant principally by Genoese and Venetian merchants. The
latter especially had many privileges and fiscal exemptions in
Flanders, and in returning from the North loaded their ships in
Portugal with tin, silver bars, wines, and raisins; while the former
had the greater part of the trade with the Moors of Africa and
southern Spain, from whom, in return for spiceries and other Eastern
products, they got gold, cordovans, and merino wool, which were
sold to advantage in France and Italy.
The Italians were the best cloth-weavers in Europe in the fourteenth
century, although the Flemings were not contemptible rivals. The
manufacture of cloth was industriously carried on in many of their
cities; in those of Tuscany particularly, the finest kind of work being
done in Lucca. When this city was taken by Uguccione della
Faggiuola, in 1314, the factories and goods were destroyed, and
many citizens emigrated to other parts of Italy, and even into
France, Germany, and England. Yet long before this Italian
operatives had introduced, or at least improved, the art in the
northern countries. Crapes, taffetas, velvets, silks, camelots, and
serges were extensively made in Italy, the richest quality being sold
at Florence, where the home industries seemed to centre, and only
the most skilled artisans were employed. The art of weaving wool
was practised by thousands of citizens, and, nominally at least, by
some of the noblest families of the city and contado (commune),
since there was a law that no one could aspire to public office unless
he were a member of one of the trades-corporations of the republic.
The citizens of Florence were classed from 1266 into twelve
companies of trades or professions, seven of which were called arti
maggiori, viz., 1. lawyers and attorneys; 2. dealers in foreign stuffs;
3. bankers and money-changers; 4. woollen manufacturers and
drapers; 5. physicians and apothecaries; 6. silk manufacturers and
mercers; 7. furriers. The lower trades were called arti minori. The
records of these corporations are now preserved in a part of the
Uffizi palace devoted to the public archives of Florence. They range
from A.D. 1300 to the end of the eighteenth century. Around the hall,
which was fitted up a few years ago to receive them, are the
portraits of some of the distinguished men who belonged to these
guilds: Dante, Cosimo de’ Medici, Francesco Guicciardini, and others.
Balmes gives an interesting account, after Capmany, in his European
Civilization, p. 476, of “the trades-unions and other associations
which, established under the influence of the Catholic religion,
commonly placed themselves under the patronage of some saint,
and had pious foundations for the celebration of their feasts, and for
assisting each other in their necessities.” Although his long note
refers principally to the industrial organization of the city of
Barcelona, it is acknowledged that Catalonia borrowed many of its
customs and usages in this matter from the towns of Italy.
Before the middle of the fourteenth century there were over two
hundred drapers’ shops in Florence, in which from seventy to eighty
thousand pieces of cloth were made every year, to the value of
1,200,000 gold florins, and employing more than thirty thousand
people. The historian John Villani says that the trade had been still
more flourishing, when there were three hundred shops open and
one hundred thousand pieces were made yearly, but that they were
of a coarser quality and consequently did not bring as much money
into the city, although more people got work. The art of dyeing
cloths and other stuffs was cultivated by the Italians during the
middle ages with considerable success. Alum, which is much used
for this purpose, was eagerly sought after, and the Genoese
obtained from Michael Palæologus, on payment of an annual sum,
the exclusive right of extracting it from a certain mine in the Morea
that had previously been worked by Arabs, Catalans, and others.
The lessees began operations with a force of fifty men, and soon
built a castle to protect themselves, and finally a town, which was
destroyed by the Turks in 1455. The Florentines were so expert in
dyeing wool that the material was sent to them for the purpose from
other parts of Italy, and even from Germany and the Netherlands. It
was only in 1858 that an immense wooden building for stretching
and drying cloth in the sun, called Il tiratoio della lana, which had
been used for over five hundred years, was torn down as too liable
to catch fire.
The cloths of France and other northern countries found a sale in
Florence, not so much for home use as for exportation through the
Genoese and Venetians. An exception, however, must be made for a
rich article called say, manufactured in Ireland, and esteemed so
beautiful as to be worn by the ladies of that refined city.[33] John
Villani, already mentioned, says that there was a quarter of Florence
called Calimala, containing twenty stores of the coarser cloths of the
North, of which thirty thousand pieces, of the value of three hundred
thousand gold florins, were yearly imported.
Florence in the middle ages had a territory extending only a few
miles round its walls; but the industry and speculative spirit of its
citizens wonderfully enriched them, and, since “all things obey
money” (Ecclesiastes x. 19), they soon became the predominant
power, and finally the masters in Tuscany. They were money-
changers, moneylenders, jewellers, and goldsmiths for the whole of
Europe and no little part of the East. The elements of a business
education were given to its youth in numerous schools, attended by
some twelve hundred boys, who were taught arithmetic and book-
keeping. A great deal of money circulated within the city itself, and a
large amount was necessary, particularly before the introduction of
bills of exchange, to accommodate merchants in their visits to other
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