Manchester Memoirs, Vol. Ixi. (IQI/), 'No. 0- 13 



and also against the " robberies of the other barbarians who 

 called themselves their masters.""*'^ The old Italian nobility 

 which remained soon discovered that these cities were deter- 

 mined to be left alone to develop their resources in peace. 

 Nobles managed in time to gain a footing in some towns, but 

 their turbulence caused the peaceful citizens to eject them. 

 Sometimes they established themselves, and the contrast be- 

 tween the towns which were purely republican and those which 

 were governed by nobles is striking. 



Florence was republican and democratic at a time when 

 Venice was governed by an aristocracy. Sismondi describes 

 the difference between the two places. " Florence was the 

 Athens of Italy. The genius displayed by some of its citizens — 

 the talent and intelligence in business to be found in the men 

 of the people — the generosity which seemed the national char- 

 acter, wherever it was necessary to protect the oppressed or 

 defend the cause of liberty— raised the city above every other." 

 The Florentines " pursued for themselves the noble policy of 

 opposing all usurpation or conquest by any who pretended 

 to domination in Italy.'"^^ Sismondi then describes the effect 

 of the superposition of an aristocracy, of who'm he says that 

 " war was their sole occupation. '"^^ 



" The virtue and elevation of soul, which had done such 

 honour to the Italian nation became obscured, even in the 

 republics of Genoa, Lucca, Pisa, Sienna, Perugia, and Bologna. 

 These republics, in the course of the fourteenth century, had 

 all more than once fallen under the power of some tyrant; 

 accordingly, the examples of cruelty, perfidy, and the success 

 of these usurpers to whom they had been forced to submit, 

 had had a corresponding effect upon their citizens. Neither 

 had Venice presented the true Italian virtue; its citizens often 

 gave proofs of an unbounded submission to its most severe 

 ordinances, but it was a narrow-minded and jealous aristocracy, 

 which, according to the spirit of that government, substituted 

 national selfishness for patriotism. The Venetians took not 

 into the least consideration any other people; they fancied they 

 gave proofs of heroism, when the advantage of their republic 

 was in question, in suppressing every human sentiment, in 

 silencing every moral duty. Venice was governed by secret 

 councils, where the voice of the people was never heard; its 

 foreign policy was administered by the Council of Ten, which 

 in its mysterious meetings took interest only for a guide.'"^^ 



If the warlike temper of a people depends upon the pres- 

 ence or absence of a class which follows war as a profession, 

 it is reasonable to suppose that warfare forms part of a system; 



44. Sismondi, " Italian Rejiublics," London, p. 2;. 



45. Op. cit., p. 130. 



46. Ibid., p. 25. 



47. Sismondi, op. cit., p. 185. The description of \'cnice under 

 an aristocracy is strikingly similar to that of Germany at the present 

 dav. 



