Italy and the Visconti 



The arts of necessity and of luxury had been cultivated with not 

 less success than the fine arts : in every street, warehouses and shops 

 displayed the wealth that Italy and Flanders only knew how to 

 produce. It excited the astonishment and cupidity of the French or 

 German adventurer, who came to find employment in Italy, and who 

 had no other exchange to make than his blood against the rich stuffs 

 and brilliant arms which he coveted. The Tuscan and Lombard 

 merchants, however, trafficked in the .barbarous regions of the west, 

 to carry there the produce of their industry. Attracted by the fran- 

 chises of the fairs of Champagne and of Lyons, they went thither, 

 as well to barter their goods as to lend their capital at interest to 

 the nobles, habitually loaded with debt ; though at the risk of finding 

 themselves suddenly arrested, their wealth confiscated, by order of 

 the king of France, and their lives, too, sometimes endangered by 

 sanctioned robbers, under the pretext of repressing usury. Industry, 

 the employment of a superabundant capital, the application of mechan- 

 ism and science to the production of wealth, secured the Italians 

 a sort of monopoly through Europe : they alone offered for sale 

 what all the rich desired to buy ; and, notwithstanding the various 

 oppressions of the barbarian kings, notwithstanding the losses occa- 

 sioned by their own often-repeated revolutions, their wealth was 

 rapidly renewed. The wages of workmen, the interest of capital, 

 and the profit of trade, rose simultaneously, while every one gained 

 much and spent little; manners were still simple, luxury was unknown, 

 and the future was not forestalled Hy accumulated debt. 



3. THE COMPANIES OF ADVENTURE 



Sismondi, Eng., says : 



The most immediate cause of the sufferings of the kingdom of 

 Naples, and of all Italy, was the formation of what was called 'com- 

 panies of adventure.' Wherever tyrants had succeeded to free gov- 

 ernments, their first care had been to disarm the citizens, whose 

 resistance was to be feared ; and although a little industry might 

 soon have supplied swords and lances, yet the danger of being 

 denounced for using them soon made the subjects of these princes 

 lose every military habit. Even the citizens of free towns no longer 

 thought of defending themselves : their way of life had weakened 

 their corporeal strength ; and they felt an inferiority too discourag- 

 ing when they had to oppose, without defensive armor, cuirassiers 

 on horseback. The chief strength of armies henceforth was in the 

 heavy-armed cavalry, composed of men who had all their lives fol- 

 lowed the trade of war, and who hired themselves for pay. The 

 emperors had successively brought into Italy many of their country- 

 men, who afterwards passed into the service of the tyrant princes. 



