286 Travels in Italy 



hension, to assert that all the collected magnificence of the House 

 of Bourbon governing for eight hundred years twenty millions 

 of people is trivial when compared with what the Medicis family 

 have left for the admiration of succeeding ages — sovereigns only 

 of the little mountainous region of Tuscany, and with not more 

 than one million of subjects. And if we pass on to Spain, or 

 England, or Germany, the same astonishing contrast will strike 

 us. Would Mr. Hope, of Amsterdam, said to be the greatest 

 merchant in the world, be able in this age to form establishments 

 to be compared with those of the Medicis ? We have merchants 

 in London that make twenty and even thirty thousand pounds 

 a year profit, but you will find them in brick cottages, for our 

 modern London houses are no better compared with the palaces 

 of Florence and Venice, erected in the age of their commerce; 

 the paintings, in the possession of our merchants, a few daubed 

 portraits; their statues, earthenware figures on chimney-pieces; 

 their libraries — their cabinets, — how contemptible the idea of a 

 comparison ! It is a remarkable fact that with this prodigious 

 commerce and manufactures Florence was neither so large nor 

 so populous as at present. This is inexplicable, and demands 

 inquiries from the hisLorical traveller : — a very useful path to be 

 trodden by a man of abilities, who should travel for the sake of 

 comparing the things he sees with those he reads of. Trade in 

 that age must, from the fewness of hands, have been a sort of 

 monopoly, yielding immense profits. From the modern state of 

 Florence, without one new house that rivals in any degree those 

 of the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries, it might be thought that 

 with their commerce the Florentines lost every sort of income ; 

 yet there is no doubt that the revenue from land is at this mo- 

 ment greater than it was in the most flourishing age of the 

 republic. The revenue of Tuscany is now more equally spent. 

 The government of the Grand Dukes I take to have been far 

 better than the republican, for it was not a republic equally 

 formed from all parts of the territory, but a city governing the 

 country, and consequently impoverishing the whole to enrich 

 itself, which is one of the worst species of government to he 

 found in the world. When Italy was decorated with fine build- 

 ings, the rich nobles must have spent their incomes in raising 

 them : at present those of Florence have other methods of apply- 

 ing their fortunes; not in palaces, not in the fine arts, not in 

 dinners ; — the account I received was that their incomes are for 

 the greatest part consumed by keeping great crowds of domes- 

 tics, many of them married, with their families, as in Spain. 



