Italy
From LoveToKnow 1911
ITALY (Italia), the name1 applied both in ancient and in modern times to the great peninsula that projects from the mass of central Europe far to the south into the Mediterranean Sea, where the island of Sicily may be considered as a continuation of he continental promontory. The portion of the Mediterranean commonly termed the Tyrrhenian Sea forms its limit on the W. and S., and the Adriatic on the E.; while to the N., where it joins the main continent of Europe, it is separated from the adjacent regions by the mighty barrier of the Alps, which sweeps round in a vast semicircle from the head of the Adriatic to the shores of Nice and Monaco.
1 On the derivation see below, History, section A, ad. init.
Topography
The land thus circumscribed extends between the parallels of 46° 40' and 36° 38' N., and between 6° 30' and 18° 30' E. Its greatest length in a straight line along the mainland is from N.W. to S.E., in which direction it measures 708 m. in a direct line from the frontier near Courmayeur to Cape Sta Maria di Leuca, south of Otranto, but the great mountain peninsula of Calabria extends about two degrees farther south to Cape Spartivento in lat. 37° 55'. Its breadth is, owing to its configuration, very irregular. The northern portion, measured from the Alps at the Monte Viso to the mouth of the Po, has a breadth of about 270 m., while the maximum breadth, from the Rocca Chiardonnet near Susa to a peak in the valley of the Isonzo, is 354 m. But the peninsula of Italy, which forms the the largest portion of the country, nowhere exceeds 150 m. in breadth, while it does not generally measure more than 100 m. across. Its southern extremity, Calabria, forms a complete peninsula, being united to the mass of Lucania or the Basilicata by an isthmus isthmus 35 m. in width, while that between the gulfs of Sta Eufemia and Squillace, which connects the two portions of the province, does not exceed 20 m. The area of the kingdom of Italy, exclusive of the large islands, is computed at 91,277 sq. m. Though the Alps form throughout the northern boundary of Italy, the exact limits at the extremities of the Alpine chain are not clearly marked. Ancient geographers appear to have generally regarded the remarkable headland which descends from the Maritime Alps to the sea between Nice and Monaco as the limit of Italy in that direction, and in a purely geographical point of view it is probably the best point that could be selected. But Augustus, who was the first to give to Italy a definite political organization, carried the frontier to the river Varus or Var, a few miles west of Nice, and this river continued in modern times to be generally recognized as the boundary between France and Italy. But in 1860 the annexation Nice and the adjoining territory to France brought the political frontier farther east, to a point between Mentone and Ventimiglia which constitutes no natural limit.
Towards the north-east, the point where the Julian Alps approach close to the seashore (just at the sources of the little stream known in ancient times as the Timavus) would seem to constitute the best natural limit. But by Augustus the frontier was carried farther east so as to include Tergeste (Trieste), and the little river Formio (Risano) was in the first instance chosen as the limit, but this was subsequently transferred to the river Arsia (the Arsa), which flows into the Gulf of Quarnero, so as to include almost all Istria; and the circumstance that the coast of Istria was throughout the middle ages held by the Republic of Venice tended to perpetuate this arrangement, so that Istria was generally regarded as belonging to Italy, though certainly not forming any natural portion of that country. Present Italian aspirations are similarly directed.
The only other part of the northern frontier of Italy where the boundary is not clearly marked by nature is Tirol or the valley of the Adige. Here the main chain of the Alps (as marked by watershed) recedes so far to the north that it has never constituted the frontier. In ancient times the upper valleys of Adige and its tributaries were inhabited by Raetian tribes and included in the province of Raetia; and the line of demarcation between that province and Italy was purely arbitrary, as it remains to this day. Tridentum or Trent was in the time of Pliny included in the tenth region of Italy or Venetia, but he tells us that the inhabitants were a Raetian tribe. At the present day the frontier between Austria and the kingdom of Italy crosses the Adige about 30 m. below Trent—that city and its territory, which previous to the treaty of Lunéville in 1801 was governed by sovereign archbishops, subject only to the German emperors, being now included in the Austrian empire.
While the Alps thus constitute the northern boundary of Italy, configuration and internal geography are determined almost entirely by the great chain of the Apennines, which branches off from the Maritime Alps between Nice and Genoa, and, after etching in an unbroken line from the Gulf of Genoa to the Adriatic, turns more to the south, and is continued throughout Central and Southern Italy, of which it forms as it were the back-bone, until it ends in the southernmost extremity of Calabria at Cape Spartivento. The great spur or promontory projecting towards the east to Brindisi and Otranto has no direct connexion with the central chain.
One chief result of the manner in which the Apennines traverse Italy from the Mediterranean to the Adriatic is the marked division between Northern Italy, including the region north of the Apennines and extending thence to the foot of the Alps, and the central and more southerly portions of the peninsula. No such line of separation exists farther south, and the terms Central and Southern Italy, though in general use among geographers and convenient for descriptive purposes, do not correspond to any natural divisions.
1. Northern Italy
By far the larger portion of Northern Italy is occupied by the basin of the Po, which comprises the whole of the broad plain extending from the foot of the Apennines to that of the Alps, together with the valleys and slopes on both sides of it. From its source in Monte Viso to its outflow into the Adriatic—a distance of more than 220 m. in a direct line&mdsah;the Po receives all the waters that flow from the Apennines northwards, and all those that descend from the Alps towards the south, Mincio (the outlet of the Lake of Garda) inclusive. The next river to the E. is the Adige, which, after pursuing a parallel course with the Po for a considerable distance, enters the Adriatic by a separate mouth. Farther to the N. and N.E. the various rivers of Venetia fall directly into the Gulf of Venice.
There is no other instance in Europe of a basin of similar extent equally clearly characterized—the perfectly level character of the plain being as striking as the boldness with which the lower slopes of the mountain ranges begin to rise on each side of it. This is most clearly marked on the side of the Apennines, where the great Aemilian Way, which has been the high road from the time of the Romans to our own, preserves an unbroken straight line from Rimini to Piacenza, a distance of more than 150 m., during which the underfalls of the mountains continually approach it on the left, without once crossing the line of road.
The geography of Northern Italy will be best described by following the course of the Po. That river has its origin as a mountain torrent descending from two little dark lakes on the north flank of Monte Viso, at a height of more than 6000 ft. above the sea; and after a course of less than 20 m. it enters the plain at Saluzzo, between which and Turin, a distance of only 30 m., it receives three considerable tributaries—the Chisone on its left bank, bringing down the waters from the valley of Fenestrelle, and the Varaita and Maira on the south, contributing those of two valleys of the Alps immediately south of that of the Po itself. A few miles below Valenza it is joined by the Tanaro, a large stream, which brings with it the united waters of the Stura, the Bormida and several minor rivers.
More important are the rivers that descend from the main chain of the Graian and Pennine Alps and join the Po on its left bank. Of these the Dora (called for distinctions sake Dora Riparia), which unites with the greater river just below Turin, has its source in the Mont Genèvre, and flows past Susa at the foot of the Mont Cenis. Next comes the Stura, which rises in the glaciers of the Roche Melon; then the Orca, flowing through the Val di Locana; and then the Dora Baltea, one of the greatest of all the Alpine tributaries of the Po, which has its source in the glaciers of Mont Blanc, above Courmayeur, and thence descends through the Val d'Aosta for about 70 m. till it enters the plain at Ivrea, and, after flowing about 20 m. more, joins the Po a few miles below Chivasso. This great valley—one of the most considerable on the southern side of the Alps—has attracted special attention, in ancient as well as modern times, from its leading to two of the most frequented passes across the great mountain chain—the Great and the Little St Bernard—the former diverging at Aosta, and crossing the main ridges to the north into the valley of the Rhone, the other following a more westerly direction into Savoy. Below Aosta also the Dora Baltea receives several considerable tributaries, which descend from the glaciers between Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa.
About 25 m. below its confluence with the Dora, the Po receives the Sesia, also a large river, which has its source above Alagna at the southern foot of Monte Rosa, and after flowing by Varallo and Vercelli falls into the Po about 14 m. below the latter city. About 30 m. east of this confluence—in the course of which the Po makes a great bend south to Valenza, and then returns again to the northward—it is joined by the Ticino, a large and rapid river, which brings with it the outflow of Lago Maggiore and all the waters that flow into it. Of these the Ticino itself has its source about 10 m. above Airolo at the foot of the St Gotthard, and after flowing above 36 m. through the Val Leventina to Bellinzona (where it is joined by the Moësa bringing down the waters of the Val Misocco) enters the lake through a marshy plain at Magadino, about 10 m. distant. Or the west side of the lake the Toccia or Tosa descends from the pass of the Gries nearly due south to Domodossola, where it receives the waters of the Doveria from the Simplon, and a few miles lower down those of the Val d'Anzasca from the foot of Monte Rosa, and 12 m. farther has its outlet into the lake between Baveno and Pallanza. The Lago Maggiore is also the receptacle of the waters of the Lago di Lugano on the east and the Lago d'Orta on the west.
The next great affluent of the Po, the Adda, forms the outflow of the Lake of Como, and has also its sources in the Alps, above Bormio, whence it flows through the broad and fertile valley of the Valtellina for more than 65 m. till it enters the lake near Colico. The Adda in this part of its course has a direction almost due east to west; but at the point where it reaches the lake, the Liro descends the valley of S. Giacomo, which runs nearly north and south from the pass of the Splügen, thus affording one of the most direct lines of communication across the Alps. The Adda flows out of the lake at its south-eastern extremity at Lecco, and has thence a course through the plain of above 70 m. till it enters the Po between Piacenza and Cremona. It flows by Lodi and Pizzighettone, and receives the waters of the Brembo, descending from the Val Brembana, and the Serio from the Val Seriana above Bergamo. The Oglio, a more considerable stream than either of the last two, rises in the Monte Tonale above Edolo, and descends through the Val Camonica to Lovere, where it expands into a large lake, called Iseo from the town of that name on its southern shore. Issuing thence at its southwest extremity, the Oglio has a long and winding course through the plain before it finally reaches the Po a few miles above Borgoforte. In this lower part it receives the smaller streams of the Mella, which flows by Brescia, and the Chiese, which proceeds from the small Lago d'Idro, between the Lago d'Iseo and that of Garda.
The last of the great tributaries of the Po is the Mincio, which flows from the Lago di Garda, and has a course of about 40 m. from Peschiera, where it issues from the lake at its south-eastern angle, till it joins the Po. About 12 m. above the confluence it passes under the walls of Mantua, and expands into a broad lake-like reach so as entirely to encircle that city. Notwithstanding its extent, the Lago di Garda is not fed by the snows of the high Alps, nor is the stream which enters it at its northern extremity (at Riva) commonly known as the Mincio, though forming the main source of that river, but is termed the Sarca; it rises at the foot of Monte Tonale.
The Adige, formed by the junction of two streams—the Etsch or Adige proper and the Eisak, both of which belong to Tirol rather than to Italy—descends as far as Verona, where it enters the great plain, with a course from north to south nearly parallel to the rivers last described, and would seem likely to discharge its waters into those of the Po, but below Legnago it turns eastward and runs parallel to the Po for about 40 m., entering the Adriatic by an independent mouth about 8 m. from the northern outlet of the greater stream. The waters of the two rivers have, however, been made to communicate by artificial cuts and canals in more than one place.
The Po itself, which is here a very large stream, with an average width of 400 to 600 yds., continues to flow with an undivided mass of waters as far as Sta Maria di Ariano, where it parts into two arms, known as the Po di Maestra and Po di Goro, and these again are subdivided into several other branches, forming a delta above 20 m. in width from north to south. The point of bifurcation, at present about 25 m. from the sea, was formerly much farther inland, more than 10 m. west of Ferrara, where a small arm of the river, still called the Po di Ferrara, branches from the main stream. Previous to the year 1154 this channel was the main stream, and the two small branches into which it subdivides, called the Po di Volano and Po di Primaro, were in early times the two main outlets of the river. The southernmost of these, the Po di Primaro, enters the Adriatic about 12 m. north of Ravenna, so that if these two arms be included, the delta of the Po extends about 36 m. from south to north. The whole course of the river, including its windings, is estimated at about 450 m.
Besides the delta of the Po and the large marshy tracts which it forms, there exist on both sides of it extensive lagoons of salt water, generally separated from the Adriatic by narrow strips of sand or embankments, partly natural and partly artificial, but havin openings which admit the influx and efflux of the sea-water, and serve as ports for communication with the mainland. The best known and the most extensive of these lagoons is that in which Venice is situated, which extends from Torcello in the north to Chioggia and Brondolo in the south, a distance of above 40 m.; but they were formerly much more extensive, and afforded a continuous means of internal navigation, by what were called "the Seven Seas" (Septem Maria), from Ravenna to Altinum, a few miles north of Torcello. That city, like Ravenna, originally stood in the midst of a lagoon; and the coast east of it to near Monfalcone, where it meets the mountains, is occupied by similar expanses of water, which are, however, becoming gradually converted into dry land.
The tract adjoining this long line of lagoons is, like the basin of the Po, a broad expanse of perfectly level alluvial plain, extending from the Adige eastwards to the Carnic Alps, where they approach close to the Adriatic between Aquileia and Trieste, and northwards to the foot of the great chain, which here sweeps round in a semicircle from the neighborhood of Vicenza to that of Aquileia. The space thus included was known in ancient times as Venetia, a name applied in the middle ages to the well-known city; the eastern portion of it became known in the middle ages as the Frioul or Friuli.
Returning to the south of the Po, the tributaries of that river on its right bank below the Tanaro are very inferior in volume and importance to those from the north. Flowing from the Ligurian Apennines, which never attain the limit of perpetual snow, they generally dwindle in summer into insignificant streams. Beginning from the Tanaro, the principal of them are—(1) the Scrivia, a small but rapid stream flowing from the Apennines at the back of Genoa; (2) the Trebbia, a much larger river, though of the same torrent-like character, which rises near Torriglia within 20 m. of Genoa, flows by Bobbio, and joins the Po a few miles above Piacenza; (3) the Nure, a few miles east of the preceding; (4) the Taro, a more considerable stream; (5) the Parma, flowing by the city of the same name; (6) the Enza; (7) the Secchia, which flows by Modena; (8) the Panaro, a few miles to the east of that city; (9) the Reno, which flows by Bologna, but instead of holding its course till it discharges its waters into the Po, as it did in Roman times, is turned aside by an artificial channel into the Po di Primaro. The other small streams east of this—of which the most considerable are the Solaro, the Santerno, flowing by Imola, the Lamone by Faenza, the Montone by Forlì, all in Roman times tributaries of the Po—have their outlet in like manner into the Po di Primaro, or by artificial mouths into the Adriatic between Ravenna and Rimini. The river Marecchia, which enters the sea immediately north of Rimini, may be considered as the natural limit of Northern Italy. It was adopted by Augustus as the boundary of Gallia Cispadana; the far-famed Rubicon was a trifling stream a few miles farther north, now called Fiumicino. The Savio is the only other stream of any importance which has always flowed directly into the Adriatic from this side of the Tuscan Apennines.
The narrow strip of coast-land between the Maritime Alps, the Apennines and the sea—called in ancient times Liguria, and now known as the Riviera of Genoa—is throughout its extent, from Nice to Genoa on the one side, and from Genoa to Spezia on the other, almost wholly mountainous. It is occupied by the branches and offshoots of the mountain ranges which separate it from the great plain to the north, and send down their lateral ridges close to the water's edge, leaving only in places a few square miles of level plains at the mouths of the rivers and openings of the valleys. The district is by no means devoid of fertility, the steep slopes facing the south enjoying so fine a climate as to render them very favorable for the growth of fruit trees, especially the olive, which is cultivated in terraces to a considerable height up the face of the mountains, while the openings of the valleys are generally occupied by towns or villages, some of which have become favorite winter resorts.
From the proximity of the mountains to the sea none of the rivers in this part of Italy has a long course, and they are generally mere mountain torrents, rapid and swollen in winter and spring, and almost dry in summer. The largest and most important are those which descend from the Maritime Alps between Nice and Albenga. The most considerable of them are—the Roja, which rises in the Col di Tenda and descends to Ventimiglia; the Taggia, between San Remo and Oneglia; and the Centa, which enters the sea at Albenga. The Lavagna, which enters the sea at Chiavari, is the only stream of any importance between Genoa and the Gulf of Spezia. But immediately east of that inlet (a remarkable instance of a deep landlocked gulf with no river flowing into it) the Magra, which descends from Pontremoli down the valley known as the Lunigiana, is a large stream, and brings with it the waters of another considerable stream, the Vara. The Magra (Macra), in ancient times the boundary between Liguria and Etruria, may be considered as constituting on this side the limit of Northern Italy.
The Apennines (q.v.), as has been already mentioned, here traverse the whole breadth of Italy, cutting off the peninsula properly so termed from the broader mass of Northern Italy by a continuous barrier of considerable breadth, though of far inferior elevation to that of the Alps The Ligurian Apennines may be considered as taking their rise in the neighborhood of Savona, where a pass of very moderate elevation connects them with the Maritime Alps, of which they are in fact only a continuation. From the neighbourhood of Savona to that of Genoa they do not rise to more than 3000 tO 4000 ft., and are traversed by passes of less than 2000 ft. As they extend towards the east they increase in elevation; the Monte Bue rises to 5915 ft., while the Monte Cimone, a little farther east, attains 7103 ft. This is the highest point in the northern Apennines, and belongs to a group of summits of nearly equal altitude; the range which is continued thence between Tuscany and what are now known as the Emilian provinces presents a continuous ridge from the mountains at the head of the Val di Mugello (due north of Florence) to the point where they are traversed by the celebrated Furlo Pass. The highest point in this part of the range is the Monte Falterona, above the sources of the Arno, which attains 5410 ft. Throughout this tract the Apennines are generally covered with extensive forests of chestnut, oak and beech; while their upper slopes afford admirable pasturage. Few towns of any importance are found either on their northern or southern declivity, and the former region especially, though occupying a tract of from 30 to 40 m. in width, between the crest of the Apennines and the plain of the Po, is one of the least known and at the same time least interesting portions of Italy.
2. Central Italy
The geography of Central Italy is almost wholly determined by the Apennines, which traverse it in a direction from about north-north-east to south-south-west, almost precisely parallel to that of the coast of the Adriatic from Rimini to Pescara.
The line of the highest summits and of the watershed ranges is about 30 to 40 m. from the Adriatic, while about double that distance separates it from the Tyrrhenian Sea on the west. In this part of the range almost all the highest points of the Apennines are found. Beginning from the group called the Alpi della Luna near the sources of the Tiber, which attain 4435 ft., they are continued by the Monte Nerone (5010 ft.), Monte Catria (5590), and Monte Maggio to the Monte Pennino near Nocera (5169 ft.), and thence to the Monte della Sibilla, at the source of the Nar or Nera, which attains 7663 ft. Proceeding thence southwards, we find in succession the Monte Vettore (8128 ft.), the Pizzo di Sevo (7945 ft.), and the two great mountain masses of the Monte Corno, commonly called the Gran Sasso d'Italia, the most lofty of all the Apennines, attaining to a height of 9560 ft., and the Monte della Maiella, its highest summit measuring 9170 ft. Farther south no very lofty summits are found till we come to the group of Monti del Matese, in Samnium (6660 ft.), which according to the division here adopted belongs to Southern Italy. Besides the lofty central masses enumerated there are two other lofty peaks, outliers from the main range, and separated from it by valleys of considerable extent. These are the Monte Terminillo, near Leonessa (7278 ft.), and the Monte Velino near the Lake Fucino, rising to 8192 ft., both of which are covered with snow from November till May. But the Apennines of Central Italy, instead of presenting, like the Alps and the northern Apennines, a definite central ridge, with transverse valleys leading down from it on both sides, in reality constitute a mountain mass of very considerable breadth, composed of a number of minor ranges and groups of mountains, which preserve a generally parallel direction, and are separated by upland valleys, some of them of considerable extent as well as considerable elevation above the sea. Such is the basin of Lake Fucino, situated in the centre of the mass, almost exactly midway between the two seas, at an elevation of 2180 ft. above them; while the upper valley of the Aterno, in which Aquila is situated, is 2380 ft. above the sea. Still more elevated is the valley of the Gizio (a tributary of the Aterno), of which Sulmona is the chief town. This communicates with the upper valley of the Sangro by a level plain called the Piano di Cinque Miglia, at an elevation of 4298 ft., regarded as the most wintry spot in Italy. Nor do the highest summits form a continuous ridge of great altitude for any considerable distance; they are rather a series of groups separated by tracts of very inferior elevation forming natural passes across the range, and broken in some places (as is the case in almost all limestone countries) by the waters from the upland valleys turning suddenly at right angles, and breaking through the mountain ranges which bound them. Thus the Gran Sasso and the Maiella are separated by the deep valley of the Aterno, while the Tronto breaks through the range between Monte Vettore and the Pizzo di Sevo. This constitution of the great mass of the central Apennines has in all ages exercised an important influence upon the character of this portion of Italy, which may be considered as divided by nature into two great regions, a cold and barren upland country, bordered on both sides by rich and fertile tracts, enjoying a warm but temperate climate.
The district west of the Apennines, a region of great beauty and fertility, though inferior in productiveness to Northern Italy, coincides in a general way with the countries familiar to all students of ancient history as Etruria and Latium. Until the union of Italy they were comprised in Tuscany and the southern Papal States. The northern part of Tuscany is indeed occupied to a considerable extent by the underfalls and offshoots of the Apennines, which, besides the slopes and spurs of the main range that constitutes its northern frontier towards the plain of the Po, throw off several outlying ranges or groups. Of these the most remarkable is the group between the valleys of the Serchio and the Magra, commonly known as the mountains of Carrara, from the celebrated marble quarries in the vicinity of that city. Two of the summits of this group, the Pizzo d'Uccello and the Pania della Croce, attain 6155 and 6100 ft. Another lateral rsnge, the Prato Magno, which branches off from the central chain at the Monte Falterona, and separates the upper valley of the Arno from its second basin, rises to 5188 ft.; while a similar branch, called the Alpe di Catenaja, of inferior elevation, divides the upper course of the Arno from that of the Tiber.
The rest of this tract is for the most part a hilly, broken country, of moderate elevation, but Monte Amiata, near Radicofani, an isolated mass of volcanic origin, attains a height of 5650 ft. South of this the country between the frontier of Tuscany and the Tiber is in great part of volcanic origin, forming hills with distinct crater-shaped basins, in several instances occupied by small lakes (the Lake of Bolsena, Lake of Vico and Lake of Bracciano). This volcanic tract extends across the Campagna of Rome, till it rises again in the lofty group of the Alban hills, the highest summit of which, the Monte Cavo, is 3160 ft. above the sea. In this part the Apennines are separated from the sea, distant about 30 m. by the undulating volcanic plain of the Roman Campagna, from which the mountains rise in a wall-like barrier, of which the highest point, the Monte Gennaro, attains 4165 ft. South of Palestrina again, the main mass of the Apennines throws off another lateral mass, known in ancient times as the Volscian mountains (now called the Monti Lepini), separated from the central ranges by the broad valley of the Sacco, a tributary of the Liri (Liris) or Garigliano, and forming a large and rugged mountain mass, nearly 5000 ft. in height, which descends to the sea at Terracina, and between that point and the mouth of the Liri throws out several rugged mountain headlands, which may be considered as constituting the natural boundary between Latium and Campania, and consequently the natural limit of Central Italy. Besides these offshoots of the Apennines there are in this part of Central Italy several detached mountains, rising almost like islands on the seashore, of which the two most remarkable are the Monte Argentaro on the coast of Tuscany near Orbetello (2087 ft.) and the Monte Circello (1771 ft.) at the angle of the Pontine Marshes, by the whole breadth of which it is separated from the Volscian Apennines.
The two valleys of the Arno and the Tiber (Ital. Tevere) may be considered as furnishing the key to the geography of all this portion of Italy west of the Apennines. The Arno, which has its source in the Monte Falterona, one of the most elevated summits of the main chain of the Tuscan Apennines, flows nearly south till in the neighborhood of Arezzo it turns abruptly north-west, and pursues that course as far as Pontassieve, where it again makes a sudden bend to the west, and pursues a westerly course thence to the sea, passing through Florence and Pisa. Its principal tributary is the Sieve, which joins it at Pontassieve, bringing down the waters of the Val di Mugello. The Elsa and the Era, which join it on its left bank, descending from the hills near Siena and Volterra, are inconsiderable streams; and the Serchio, which flows from the territory of Lucca and the Alpi Apuani, and formerly joined the Arno a few miles from its mouth, now enters the sea by a separate channel. The most considerable rivers of Tuscany south of the Arno are the Cecina, which flows through the plain below Volterra, and the Ombrone, which rises in the hills near Siena, and enters the sea about 12 m. below Grosseto.
The Tiber, a much more important river than the Arno, and the largest in Italy with the exception of the Po, rises in the Apennines, about 20 m. east of the source of the Arno, and flows nearly south by Borgo S. Sepolcro and Città di Castello, then between Perugia and Todi to Orte, just below which it receives the Nera. The Nera, which rises in the lofty group of the Monte della Sibilla, is a considerable stream, and brings with it the waters of the Velino (with its tributaries the Turano and the Salto), which joins it a few miles below its celebrated waterfall at Terni. The Teverone or Anio, which enters the Tiber a few miles above Rome, is an inferior stream to the Nera, but brings down a considerable body of water from the mountains above Subiaco. It is a singular fact in the geography of Central Italy that the valleys of the Tiber and Arno are in some measure connected by that of the Chiana, a level and marshy tract, the waters from which flow partly into the Arno and partly into the Tiber.
The eastern declivity of the central Apennines towards the Adriatic is far less interesting and varied than the western. The central range here approaches much nearer to the sea, and hence, with few exceptions, the rivers that flow from it have short courses and are of comparatively little importance. They may be enumerated, proceeding from Rimini southwards: (1) the Foglia; (2) the Metauro, of historical celebrity, and affording access to one of the most frequented passes of the Apennines; (3) the Esino; (4) the Potenza; (5) the Chienti; (6) the Aso; (7) the Tronto; (8) the Vomano; (9) the Aterno; (10) the Sangro; (11) the Trigno, which forms the boundary of the southernmost province of the Abruzzi, and may therefore be taken as the limit of Central Italy.
The whole of this portion of Central Italy is a hilly country, much broken and cut up by the torrents from the mountains, but fertile, especially in fruit-trees, olives and vines; and it has been, both in ancient and modern times, a populous district, containing many small towns though no great cities. Its chief disadvantage is the absence of ports, the coast preserving an almost unbroken straight line, with the single exception of Ancona, the only port worthy of the name on the eastern coast of Central Italy.
3. Southern Italy
The great central mass of the Apennines, which has held its course throughout Central Italy, with a general direction from north-west to south-east, may be considered as continued in the same direction for about 100 m. farther, from the basin-shaped group of the Monti del Matese (which rises to 6660 ft.) to the neighbourhood of Potenza, in the heart of the province of Basilicata, corresponding nearly to the ancient Lucania. The whole of the district known in ancient times as Samnium (a part of which retains the name of Sannio, though officially designated the province of Campobasso) is occupied by an irregular mass of mountains, of much inferior height to those of Central Italy, and broken up into a number of groups, intersected by rivers, which have for the most part a very tortuous course. This mountainous tract, which has an average breadth of from 50 to 60 m., is bounded west by the plain of Campania, now called the Terra di Lavoro, and east by the much broader and more extensive tract of Apulia or Puglia, composed partly of level plains, but for the most part of undulating downs, contrasting strongly with the mountain ranges of the Apennines, which rise abruptly above them. The central mass of the mountains, however, throws out two outlying ranges, the one to the west, which separates the Bay of Naples from that of Salerno, and culminates in the Monte S. Angelo above Castellammare (4720 ft.), while the detached volcanic cone of Vesuvius (nearly 4000 ft.) is isolated from the neighboring mountains by an intervening strip of plain. On the east side in like manner the Monte Gargano (3465 ft.), a detached limestone mass which projects in a bold spur-like promontory into the Adriatic, forming the only break in the otherwise uniform coast-line of Italy on that sea, though separated from the great body of the Apennines by a considerable interval of low country, may be considered as merely an outlier from the central mass.
From the neighborhood of Potenza, the main ridge of the Apennines is continued by the Monti della Maddalena in a direction nearly due south, so that it approaches within a short distance of the Gulf of Policastro, whence it is carried on as far as the Monte Pollino, the last of the lofty summits of the Apennine chain, which exceeds 7000 ft. in height. The range is, however, continued through the province now called Calabria, to the southern extremity or toe of Italy, but presents in this part a very much altered character, the broken limestone range which is the true continuation of the chain as far as the neighbourhood of Nicastro and Catanzaro, and keeps close to the west coast, being flanked on the east by a great mass of granitic mountains, rising to about 6000 ft., and covered with vast forests, from which it derives the name of La Sila. A similar mass, separated from the preceding by a low neck of Tertiary hills, fills up the whole of the peninsular extremity of Italy from Squillace to Reggio. Its highest point is called Aspromonte (6420 ft.).
While the rugged and mountainous district of Calabria, extending nearly due south for a distance of more than 150 m., thus derives its character and configuration almost wholly from the range of the Apennines, the long spur-like promontory which projects towards the east to Brindisi and Otranto is merely a continuation of the low tract of Apulia, with a dry calcareous soil of Tertiary origin. The Monte Volture, which rises in the neighborhood of Melfi and Venosa to 4357 ft., is of volcanic origin, and in great measure detached from the adjoining mass of the Apennines. Eastward from this the ranges of low bare hills called the Murgie of Gravina and Altamura gradually sink into the still more moderate level of those which constitute the peninsular tract between Brindisi and Taranto as far as the Cape of Sta Maria di Leuca, the south-east extremity of Italy. This projecting tract, which may be termed the "heel" or "spur" of Southern Italy, in conjunction with the great promontory of Calabria, forms the deep Gulf of Taranto, about 70 m. in width, and somewhat greater depth, which receives a number of streams from the central mass of the Apennines.
None of the rivers of Southern Italy is of any great importance. The Liri (Liris) or Garigliano, which has its source in the central Apennines above Sora, not far from Lake Fucino, and enters the Gulf of Gaeta about 10 m. east of the city of that name, brings down a considerable body of water; as does also the Volturno, which rises in the mountains between Castel di Sangro and Agnone, flows past Isernia, Venafro and Capua, and enters the sea about 15 m. from the mouth of the Garigliano. About 16 m. above Capua it receives the Calore, which flows by Benevento. The Silarus or Sele enters the Gulf of Salerno a few miles below the ruins of Paestum. Below this the watershed of the Apennines is too near to the sea on that side to allow the formation of any large streams. Hence the rivers that flow in the opposite direction into the Adriatic and the Gulf of Taranto have much longer courses, though all partake of the character of mountain torrents, rushing down with great violence in winter and after storms, but dwindling in the summer into scanty streams, which hold a winding and sluggish course through the great plains of Apulia. Proceeding south from the Trigno, already mentioned as constituting the limit of Central Italy, there are (1) the Biferno and (2) the Fortore, both rising in the mountains of Samnium, and flowing into the Adriatic west of Monte Gargano; (3) the Cervaro, south of the great promontory; and (4) the Ofanto, the Aufidus of Horace, whose description of it is characteristic of almost all the rivers of Southern Italy, of which it may be taken as the typical representative. It rises about 15 m. west of Conza, and only about 25 m. from the Gulf of Salerno, so that it is frequently (though erroneously) described as traversing the whole range of the Apennines. In its lower course it flows near Canosa and traverses the celebrated battlefield of Cannae. (5) The Bradano, which rises near Venosa, almost at the foot of Monte Volture, flows towards the south-east into the Gulf of Taranto, as do the Basento, the Agri and the Sinni, all of which descend from the central chain of the Apennines south of Potenza. The Crati, which flows from Cosenza northwards, and then turns abruptly eastward to enter the same gulf, is the only stream worthy of notice in the rugged peninsula of Calabria; while the arid limestone hills projecting eastwards to Capo di Leuca do not give rise to anything more than a mere streamlet, from the mouth of the Ofanto to the south-eastern extremity of Italy.
Lakes
The only important lakes are those on or near the north frontier, formed by the expansion of the tributaries of the Po. They have been already noticed in connection with the rivers by which they are formed, but may be again enumerated in order of succession. They are, proceeding from west to east, (1) the Lago d'Orta, (2) the Lago Maggiore, (3) the Lago di Lugano, (4) the Lago di Como, (5) the Lago d'Iseo, (6) the Lago d'Idro, and (7) the Lago di Garda. Of these the last named is considerably the largest, covering an area of 143 sq. m. It is 32¼ m. long by 10 broad; while the Lago Maggiore, notwithstanding its name, though considerably exceeding it in length (37 m.), falls materially below it in superficial extent. They are all of great depth—the Lago Maggiore having an extreme depth of 1198 ft., while that of Como attains to 1365 ft. Of a wholly different character is the Lago di Varese, between the Lago Maggiore and that of Lugano, which is a mere shallow expanse of water, surrounded by hills of very moderate elevation. Two other small lakes in the same neighbourhood, as well as those of Erba and Pusiano, between Como and Lecco, are of a similar character.
The lakes of Central Italy, which are comparatively of trifling dimensions, belong to a wholly different class. The most important of these, the Lacus Fucinus of the ancients, now called the Lago di Celano, situated almost exactly in the centre of the peninsula, occupies a basin of considerable extent, surrounded by mountains and without any natural outlet, at an elevation of more than 2000 ft. Its waters have been in great part carried off by an artificial channel, and more than half its surface laid bare. Next in size is the Lago Trasimeno, a broad expanse of shallow waters, about 30 m. in circumference, surrounded by low hills. The neighbouring lake of Chiusi is of similar character, but much smaller dimensions. All the other lakes of Central Italy, which are scattered through the volcanic districts west of the Apennines, are of an entirely difierent formation, and occupy deep cup-shaped hollows, which have undoubtedly at one time formed the craters of extinct volcanoes. Such is the Lago di Bolsena, near the city of the same name, which is an extensive sheet of water, as well as the much smaller Lago di Vico (the Ciminian lake of ancient writers) and the Lago di Bracciano, nearer Rome, while to the south of Rome the well known lakes of Albano and Nemi have a similar origin.
The only lake properly so called in southern Italy is the Lago del Matese, in the heart of the mountain group of the same name, of small extent. The so-called lakes on the coast of the Adriatic north and south of the promontory of Gargano are brackish lagoons communicating with the sea.
Islands
The three great islands of Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica are closely connected with Italy, both by geographical position and community of language, but they are considered at length in separate articles. Of the smaller islands that lie near the coasts of Italy, the most considerable is that of Elba, off the west coast of central Italy, about 50 m. S. of Leghorn, and separated from the mainland at Piombino by a strait of only about 6 m. in width. North of this, and about midway between Corsica and Tuscany, is the small island of Capraia, steep and rocky, and only 4½ m. long, but with a secure port; Gorgona, about 25 m. farther north, is still smaller, and is a mere rock, inhabited by a few fishermen. South of Elba are the equally insignificant islets of Pianosa and Montecristo, while the more considerable island of Giglio lies much nearer the mainland, immediately opposite the mountain promontory of Monte Argentaro, itself almost an island. The islands farther south in the Tyrrhenian Sea are of an entirely different character. Of these Ischia and Procida, close to the northern headland of the Bay of Naples, are of volcanic origin, as is the case also with the more distant group of the Ponza Islands. These are three in number Ponza, Palmarola and Zannone; while Ventotene (also of volcanic formation) is about midway between Ponza and Ischia. The island of Capri, on the other hand, opposite the southern promontory of the Bay of Naples, is a precipitous limestone rock. The Aeolian or Lipari Islands, a remarkable volcanic group, belong rather to Sicily than to Italy, though Stromboli, the most easterly of them, is about equidistant from Sicily and from the mainland.
The Italian coast of the Adriatic presents a great contrast to its opposite shores, for while the coast of Dalmatia is bordered by a succession of islands, great and small, the long and uniform coast-line of Italy from Otranto to Rimini presents not a single adjacent island; and the small outlying group of the Tremiti Islands (north of the Monte Gargano and about 15 m. from the mainland) alone breaks the monotony of this part of the Adriatic.
Geology
The geology of Italy is mainly dependent upon that of the Apennines (q.v.). On each side of that great chain are found extensive Tertiary deposits, sometimes, as in Tuscany, the district of Monferrat, &c., forming a broken, hilly country, at others spreading into broad plains or undulating downs, such as the Tavoliere of Puglia, and the tract that forms the spur of Italy from Bari to Otranto.
Besides these, and leaving out of account the islands, the Italian peninsula presents four distinct volcanic districts. In three of them the volcanoes are entirely extinct, while the fourth is still in great activity.
1. The Euganean hills form a small group extending for about 10 m. from the neighborhood of Padua to Este, and separated from the lower offshoots of the Alps by a portion of the wide plain of Padua. Monte Venda, their highest peak, is 1890 ft. high.
2. The Roman district, the largest of the four, extends from the hills of Albano to the frontier of Tuscany, and from the lower slopes of the Apennines to the Tyrrhenian Sea. It may be divided into three groups: the Monti Albani, the second highest1 of which, Monte Cavo (3115 ft.), is the ancient Mons Albanus, on the summit of which stood the temple of Jupiter Latialis, where the assemblies of the cities forming the Latin confederation were held; the Monti Cimini, which extend from the valley of the Tiber to the neighbourhood of Civita Vecchia, and attain at their culminating point an elevation of 3454 ft.; and the mountains of Radicofani and Monte Amiata, the latter of which is 5688 ft. high. The lakes of Bolsena (Vulsiniensis), of Bracciano (Sabatinus), of Vico (Ciminus), of Albano (Albanus), of Nemi (Nemorensis), and other smaller lakes belong to this district; while between its south-west extremity and Monte Circello the Pontine Marshes form a broad strip of alluvial soil infested by malaria.
3. The volcanic region of the Terra di Lavoro is separated by the Volscian mountains from the Roman district. It maybe also divided into three groups. Of Roccamonfina, at the N.N.W. end of the Campanian Plain, the highest cone, called Montagna di Santa Croce, is 3291 ft. The Phlegraean Fields embrace all the country round Baiae and Pozzuoli and the adjoining islands. Monte Barbaro (Gaurus), north-east of the site of Cumae, Monte San Nicola (Epomeus), 2589 ft. in Ischia, and Camaldoli, 1488 ft., west of Naples, are the highest cones. The lakes Averno (Avernus), Lucrino (Lucrinus), Fusaro (Palus Acherusia), and Agnano are within this group, which has shown activity in historical times. A stream of lava issued in 1198 from the crater of the Solfatara, which still continues to exhale steam and noxious gases; the Lava dell' Arso came out of the N.E. flank of Monte Epomeo in 1302; and Monte Nuovo, north-west of Pozzuoli (455 ft.), was thrown up in three days in September 1538. Since its first historical eruption in AD. 79, Vesuvius or Somina, which forms the third group, has been in constant activity. The Punta del Nasone, the highest point of Somma, is 3714 ft. high, while the Punta del Palo, the highest point of the brim of the crater of Vesuvius, varies materially with successive eruptions from 3856 to 4275 ft.
4. The Apulian volcanic formation consists of the great mass of Monte Volture, which rises at the west end of the plains of Apulia, on the frontier of Basilicata, and is surrounded by the Apennines on its south-west and north-west sides. Its highest peak, the Pizzuto di Melfi, attains an elevation of 4365 ft. Within the widest crater there are the two small lakes of Monticchio and San Michele. In connection with the volcanic districts we may mention Le Mofete, the pools of Ampsanctus, in a wooded valley S.E. of Frigento, in the province of Avellino, Campania (Virgil, Aeneid, vii. 563-571). The largest is not more than 160 ft. in circumference, and 7 ft. deep.
The whole of the great plain of Lombardy is covered by Pleistocene and recent deposits. It is a great depression—the continuation of the Adriatic Sea—filled up by deposits brought down by the rivers from the mountains. The depression was probably formed during the later stages of the growth of the Alps.
1The actual highest point is the Maschio delle Faete (3137 ft.). (See Albanus Mons.)
Climate and Vegetation
The geographical position of Italy, extending from about 46° to 38° N., renders it one of the hottest countries in Europe. But the effect of its southern latitude is tempered by its peninsular character, bounded as it is on both sides by seas of considerable extent, as well as by the great range of the Alps with its snows and glaciers to the north. There are thus irregular variations of climate. Great differences also exist with regard to climate between northern and southern Italy, due in great part to other circumstances as well as to differences of latitude. Thus the great plain of northern Italy is chilled by the cold winds from the Alps, while the damp warm winds from the Mediterranean are to a great extent intercepted by the Ligurian Apennines. Hence this part of the country has a cold winter climate, so that while the mean summer temperature of Milan is higher than that of Sassari, and equal to that of Naples, and the extremes reached at Milan and Bologna are a good deal higher than those of Naples, the mean winter temperature of Turin is actually lower than that of Copenhagen. The lowest recorded winter temperature at Turin is 5° Fahr. Throughout the region north of the Apennines no plants will thrive which cannot stand occasional severe frosts in winter, so that not only oranges and lemons but even the olive tree cannot be grown, except in specially favoured situations. But the strip of coast between the Apennines and the sea, known as the Riviera of Genoa, is not only extremely favourable to the growth of olives, but produces oranges and lemons in abundance, while even the aloe, the cactus and the palm flourish in many places.
Central Italy also presents striking differences of climate and temperature according to the greater or less proximity to the mountains. Thus the greater part of Tuscany, and the provinces thence to Rome, enjoy a mild winter climate, and are well adapted to the growth of mulberries and olives as well as vines, but it is not till after passing Terracina, in proceeding along the western coast towards the south, that the vegetation of southern Italy develops in its full luxuriance. Even in the central parts of Tuscany, however, the climate is very much affected by the neighboring mountains, and the increasing elevation of the Apennines as they proceed south produces a corresponding effect upon the temperature. But it is when we reach the central range of the Apennines that we find the coldest districts of Italy. In all the upland valleys of the Abruzzi snow begins to fall early in November, and heavy storms occur often as late as May; whole communities are shut out for months from any intercourse with their neighbours, and some villages are so long buried in snow that regular passages are made between the different houses for the sake of communication among the inhabitants. The district from the south-east of Lake Fucino to the Piano di Cinque Miglia, enclosing the upper basin of the Sangro and the small lake of Scanno, is the coldest and most bleak part of Italy south of the Alps. Heavy falls of snow in June are not uncommon, and only for a short time towards the end of July are the nights totally exempt from light frosts. Yet less than 40 m. E. of this district, and even more to the north, the olive, the fig-tree and the orange thrive luxuriantly on the shores of the Adriatic from Ortona to Vasto. In the same way, whilst in the plains and hills round Naples snow is rarely seen, and never remains long, and the thermometer seldom descends to the freezing-point, 20 m. E. from it in the fertile valley of Avellino, of no great elevation, but encircled by high mountains, light frosts are not uncommon as late as June; and 18 m. farther east, in the elevated region of San Angelo dei Lombardi and Bisaccia, the inhabitants are always warmly clad, and vines grow with difficulty and only in sheltered places. Still farther south-east, Potenza has almost the coldest climate in Italy, and certainly the lowest summer temperatures. But nowhere are these contrasts so striking as in Calabria. The shores, especially on the Tyrthenian Sea, present almost a continued grove of olive, orange, lemon and citron trees, which attain a size unknown in the north of Italy. The sugar-cane flourishes, the cotton-plant ripens to perfection, date-trees are seen in the gardens, the rocks are clothed with the prickly-pear or Indian fig, the enclosures of the fields are formed by aloes and sometimes pomegranates, the liquorice-root grows wild, and the mastic, the myrtle and many varieties of oleander and cistus form the underwood of the natural forests of arbutus and evergreen oak. If we turn inland but 5 or 6 m. from the shore, and often even less, the scene changes. High districts covered with oaks and chestnuts succeed to this almost tropical vegetation; a little higher up and we reach the elevated regions of the Pollino and the Sila, covered with firs and pines, and affording rich pastures even in the midst of summer, when heavy dews and light frosts succeed each other in July and August, and snow begins to appear at the end of September or early in October. Along the shores of the Adriatic, which are exposed to the north-east winds, blowing coldly from over the Albanian mountains, delicate plants do not thrive so well in general as under the same latitude along the shores of the Tyrrhcnian Sea.
Southern Italy indeed has in general a very different climate from the northern portion of the kingdom; and, though large tracts are still occupied by rugged mountains of sufficient elevation to retain the snow for a considerable part of the year, the districts adjoining the sea enjoy a climate similar to that of Greece and the southern provinces of Spain. Unfortunately several of these fertile tracts suffer severely from malaria (q.v.), and especially the great plain adjoining the Gulf of Tarentum, which in the early ages of history was surrounded by a girdle of Greek cities—some of which attained to almost unexampled prosperity—has for centuries past been given up to almost complete desolation.
It is remarkable that, of the vegetable productions of Italy, many which are at the present day among the first to attract the attention of the visitor are of comparatively late introduction, and were unknown in ancient times. The olive indeed in all ages clothed the hills of a large part of the country; but the orange and lemon, are a late importation from the East, while the cactus or Indian fig and the aloe, both of them so conspicuous on the shores of southern Italy, as well as of the Riviera of Genoa, are of Mexican origin, and consequently could not have been introduced earlier than the 16th century. The same remark applies to the maize or Indian corn. Many botanists are even of opinion that the sweet chestnut, which now constitutes so large a part of the forests that clothe the sides both of the Alps and the Apennines, and in some districts supplies the chief food of the inhabitants, is not originally of Italian growth; it is certain that it had not attained in ancient times to anything like the extension and importance which it now possesses. The eucalyptus is of quite modern introduction; it has been extensively planted in malarious districts. The characteristic cypress, ilex and stone-pine, however, are native trees, the last-named flourishing especially near the coast. The proportion of evergreens is large, and has a marked effect on the landscape in winter.
Fauna
The chamois, bouquetin and marmot are found only in the Alps, not at all in the Apennines. In the latter the bear was found in Roman times, and there are said to be still a few remaining. Wolves are more numerous, though only in the mountainous districts; the flocks are protected against them by large white sheep-dogs, who have some wolf blood in them. Wild boars are also found in mountainous and forest districts. Foxes are common in the neighborhood of Rome. The sea mammals include the common dolphin (Delphinus delphis). The birds are similar to those of central Europe; in the mountains vultures, eagles, buzzards, kites, falcons and hawks are found. Partridges, woodcock, snipe, &c., are among the game-birds; but all kinds of small birds are also shot for food, and their number is thus kept down, while many members of the migratory species are caught by traps in the foothills on the south side of the Alps, especially near the Lake of Como, on their passage. Large numbers of quails are shot in the spring. Among reptiles the various kinds of lizard are noticeable. There are several varieties of snakes, of which three species (all vipers) are poisonous. Of sea-fish there are many varieties, the tunny, the sardine and the anchovy being commercially the most important. Some of the other edible fish, such as the palombo, are not found in northern waters. Small cuttlefish are in common use as an article of diet. Tortoiseshell, an important article of commerce, is derived from the Thalassochelys caretta, a sea turtle. Of freshwater fish the trout of the mountain streams and the eels of the coast lagoons may be mentioned. The tarantula spider and the scorpion are found in the south of Italy. The aquarium of the zoological station at Naples contains the finest collection in the world of marine animals, showing the wonderful variety of the different species of fish, molluscs, crustacea, &c., found in the Mediterranean.
(E. H. B.; T. As.)
Population
The following table indicates the areas of the several provinces (sixty-nine in number), and the population of each according to the censuses of the 31st of December 1881 and the 9th of February 1901. (The larger divisions or compartments in which the provinces are grouped are not officially recognized.)
Population.
| Provinces and Compartments | Area in sq. m. | Population | |
| 1881. | 1901. | ||
| Alessandria | 1950 | 729,710 | 825,745 |
| Cuneo | 2882 | 635,400 | 670,504 |
| Novara | 2553 | 675,926 | 763,830 |
| Turin | 3955 | 1,029,214 | 1,147,414 |
| Piedmont | 11,340 | 3,070,250 | 3,407,493 |
| Genoa | 1582 | 760,122 | 931,156 |
| Porto Maurizio | 455 | 132,251 | 144,604 |
| Liguria | 2037 | 892,373 | 1,075,760 |
| Bergamo | 1098 | 390,775 | 467,549 |
| Brescia | 1845 | 471,568 | 541,765 |
| Como | 1091 | 515,050 | 594,304 |
| Cremona | 695 | 302,097 | 329,471 |
| Mantua | 912 | 295,728 | 315,448 |
| Milan | 1223 | 1,114,991 | 1,450,214 |
| Pavia | 1290 | 469,831 | 504,382 |
| Sondrio | 1232 | 120,534 | 130,966 |
| Lombardy | 9386 | 3,680,574 | 4,334,099 |
| Belluno | 1293 | 174,140 | 214,803 |
| Padua | 823 | 397,762 | 444,360 |
| Rovigo | 685 | 217,700 | 222,057 |
| Treviso | 90 | 375,704 | 416,945 |
| Udine | 2541 | 501,745 | 614,720 |
| Venice | 934 | 356,708 | 399,823 |
| Verona | 1188 | 394,065 | 427,018 |
| Vicenza | 1052 | 396,349 | 453,621 |
| Venetia | 9476 | 2,814,173 | 3,193,347 |
| Bologna | 1448 | 464,879 | 529,619 |
| Ferrara | 1012 | 230,807 | 270,558 |
| Forlì | 725 | 251,110 | 283,996 |
| Modena | 987 | 279,254 | 323,598 |
| Parma | 1250 | 267,306 | 303,694 |
| Piacenza | 954 | 226,758 | 250,491 |
| Ravenna | 715 | 218,359 | 234,656 |
| Reggio (Emilia) | 876 | 244,959 | 281,085 |
| Emilia | 7967 | 2,183,432 | 2,477,697 |
| Arezzo | 1273 | 238,744 | 275,588 |
| Florence | 2265 | 790,776 | 945,324 |
| Grosseto | 1738 | 114,295 | 137,795 |
| Leghorn | 133 | 121,612 | 121,137 |
| Lucca | 558 | 284,484 | 329,986 |
| Massa and Carrara | 687 | 169,469 | 202,749 |
| Pisa | 1179 | 283,563 | 319,854 |
| Siena | 1471 | 205,926 | 233,874 |
| Tuscany | 9304 | 2,208,869 | 2,566,307 |
| Ancona | 762 | 267,338 | 308,346 |
| Ascoli Piceno | 796 | 209,185 | 251,829 |
| Macerata | 1087 | 239,713 | 269,505 |
| Pesaro and Urbino | 1118 | 223,043 | 259,083 |
| Marches | 3763 | 939,279 | 1,088,763 |
| Perugia—Umbria | 3748 | 572,060 | 675,352 |
| Rome—Lazio | 4663 | 903,472 | 1,142,526 |
| Aquila degli Abruzzi (Abruzzo Ulteriore II.) | 2484 | 353,027 | 436,367 |
| Campobasso (Molise) | 1691 | 365,434 | 389,976 |
| Chieti (Abruzzo Citeriore) | 1138 | 343,948 | 387,604 |
| Teramo (Abruzzo Ulteriore I.) | 1067 | 254,806 | 312,188 |
| Abruzzi and Molise | 6380 | 1,317,215 | 1,526,135 |
| Avellino (Principato Ulteriore) | 1172 | 392,619 | 421,766 |
| Benevento | 818 | 238,425 | 265,460 |
| Caserta (Terra di Lavoro) | 2033 | 714,131 | 805,345 |
| Naples | 350 | 1,001,245 | 1,141,788 |
| Salerno (Principato Citeriore) | 1916 | 550,157 | 585,132 |
| Campania | 6289 | 2,896,577 | 3,219,491 |
| Bari delle Puglie (Terra di Bari) | 2065 | 679,499 | 837,683 |
| Foggia (Capitanata) | 2688 | 356,267 | 421,115 |
| Lecce (Terra di Otranto) | 2623 | 553,298 | 705,382 |
| Apulia | 7376 | 1,589,064 | 1,964,180 |
| Potenza (Basilicata) | 3845 | 524,504 | 491,558 |
| Catanzaro (Calabria Ulteriore II.) | 2030 | 433,975 | 498,791 |
| Cosenza (Calabria Citeriore) | 2568 | 451,185 | 503,329 |
| Reggio di Calabria (Calabria Ulteriore I.) | 1221 | 372,723 | 437,209 |
| Calabria | 5819 | 1,257,883 | 1,439,329 |
| Caltanisetta | 1263 | 266,379 | 329,449 |
| Catania | 1917 | 563,457 | 705,598 |
| Girgenti | 1172 | 312,487 | 380,666 |
| Messina | 1246 | 460,924 | 550,895 |
| Palermo | 1948 | 699,151 | 796,151 |
| Syracuse | 1442 | 341,526 | 433,796 |
| Trapani | 948 | 283,977 | 373,569 |
| Sicily | 9936 | 2,927,901 | 3,568,124 |
| Cagliari | 5204 | 420,635 | 486,767 |
| Sassari | 4090 | 261,367 | 309,026 |
| Sardinia | 9294 | 682,002 | 795,793 |
| Kingdom of Italy | 110,623 | 28,459,628 | 32,965,504 |
The number of foreigners in Italy in 1901 was 61,606, of whom 37,762 were domiciled within the kingdom.
The population given in the foregoing table is the resident or "legal" population, which is also given for the individual towns. This is 490,251 higher than the actual population, 32,475,253, ascertained by the census of the 10th of February 1901; the difference is due to temporary absences from their residences of certain individuals on military service, &c., who probably were counted twice, and also to the fact that 469,020 individuals were returned as absent from Italy, while only 61,606 foreigners were in Italy at the date of the census. The kingdom is divided into 69 provinces, 284 regions, of which 197 are classed as circondarii and 87 as districts (the latter belonging to the province of Mantua and the 8 provinces of Venetia), 1806 administrative divisions (mandamenti) and 8262 communes. These were the figures at the date of the census. In 1906 there were 1805 mandamenti and 8290 communes, and 4 boroughs in Sardinia not connected with communes. The mandamenti or administrative divisions no longer correspond to the judicial divisions (mandamenti giudiziarii) which in November 1891 were reduced from 1806 to 1535 by a law which provided that judicial reform should not modify existing administrative and electoral divisions. The principal elective local administrative bodies are the provincial and the communal councils. The franchise is somewhat wider than the parliamentary. Both bodies are elected for six years, one-half being renewed every three years. The provincial council elects a provincial commission and the communal council a municipal council from among its own members; these smaller bodies carry on the business of the larger while they are not sitting. The syndic of each commune is elected by ballot by the communal council from among its own members.
The actual (not the resident or "legal") population of Italy since 1770 is approximately given in the following table (the first census of the kingdom as a whole was taken in 1871):—
| 1770 | 14,689,317 | 1861 | 25,016,801 |
| 1800 | 17,237,421 | 1871 | 26,801,154 |
| 1825 | 19,726,977 | 1881 | 28,459,628 |
| 1848 | 23,617,153 | 1901 | 32,475,253 |
The average density increased from 257.21 per sq. m. in 1881 to 293.28 in 1901. in Venetia, Emilia, the Marches, Umbria and Tuscany the proportion of concentrated population is only from 40 to 55%; in Piedmont, Liguria and Lombardy the proportion rises to from 70 to 76%; in southern Italy, Sicily and Sardinia it attains a maximum of from 76 to 93%.
The population of towns over 100,000 is given in the following table according to the estimates for 1906. The population of the town itself is distinguished from that of its commune, which often includes a considerable portion of the surrounding country.
| Town. | Commune.! | |
|---|---|---|
| Bologna | 105,153 | 160,423 |
| Catania | 135,548 | 159,210 |
| Florence | 201,183 | 226,559 |
| Genoa | 255,294 | 267,248 |
| Messina | 108,514 | 165,007 |
| Milan | 560,613 | .. |
| Naples | 491,614 | 585,289 |
| Palermo | 264,036 | 323,747 |
| Rome | 403,282 | 516,580 |
| Turin | 277,121 | 361,720 |
| Venice | 146,940 | 169,563 |
The population of the different parts of Italy differs in character and dialect; and there is little community of sentiment between them. The modes of life and standards of comfort and morality in north Italy and in Calabria are widely different; the former being far in front of the latter. Much, however, is effected towards unification, by compulsory military service, it being the principle that no man shall serve within the military district to which he belongs. In almost all parts the idea of personal loyalty (e.g. between master and servant) retains an almost feudal strength. The inhabitants of the north—the Piedmontese, Lombards and Genoese especially—have suffered less than those of the rest of the peninsula from foreign domination and from the admixture of inferior racial elements, and the cold winter climate prevents the heat of summer from being enervating. They, and also the inhabitants of central Italy, are more industrious than the inhabitants of the southern provinces, who have by no means recovered from centuries of misgovernment and oppression, and are naturally more hot-blooded and excitable, but less stable, capable of organization or trustworthy. The southerners are apathetic except when roused, and socialist doctrines find their chief adherents in the north. The Sicilians and Sardinians have something of Spanish dignity, but the former are one of the most mixed and the latter probably one of the purest races of the Italian kingdom. Physical characteristics differ widely; but as a whole the Italian is somewhat short of stature, with dark or black hair and eyes, often good looking. Both sexes reach maturity early. Mortality is decreasing, but if we may judge from the physical conditions of the recruits the physique of the nation shows little or no improvement. Much of this lack of progress is attributed to the heavy manual (especially agricultural) work undertaken by women and children. The women especially age rapidly, largely owing to this cause (E. Nathan, Vent' anni di vita italiana attraverso all' annuario, 169 sqq.).
Births, Marriages, Deaths
Birth and marriage rates vary considerably, being highest in the centre and south (Umbnia, the Marches, Apulia, Abruzzi and Molise, and Calabria) and lowest in the north (Piedmont, Liguria and Venetia), and in Sardinia. The death-rate is highest in Apulia, in the Abruzzi and Molise, and in Sardinia, and lowest in the north, especially in Venetia and Piedmont.
Taking the statistics for the whole kingdom, the annual marriagerate for the years 1876-1880 was 7.53 per 100o; in 1881-1885 it rose to 8o6; in 1886-1890 it was 777; in 1891-1895 it was 7.41, and in 1896-1900 it had gone down to 7.14 (a figure largely produced by the abnormally low rate of 6.88 in 1898), and in 1902 was 7.23. Divorce is forbidden by the Roman Catholic Church, and only 839 judicial separations were obtained from the courts in 1902, more than half of the demands made having been abandoned. Of the whole population in 1901, 575% were unmarried, 36.0% married, and 6.5% widowers or widows. The illegitimate births show a decrease, having been 6.95 per 100 births in 1872 and 5.72 in 1902 with a rise, however, in the intermediate period as high as 7.76 ir 1883. The birth-rate shows a corresponding decrease from 38~I(per 1000 in 1881 to 33.29 in 1902. The male births have since 1871 been about 3% (3.1410 1872-1875 and 2.72 in 1896-1900) 10 excen of the female births, which is rather more than compensated for b) the greater male mortality, the excess being 264 in 1872-1875 anc having increased to 4.08 in I 896-1900. (The calculations are mad in both cases on the total of births and deaths of both sexes.) The result is that, while in 1871 there was an excess of 143,370 males over females in the total population, in 188f the excess was only 71,138, and in I90f there were 169,684 more females than males. The death-rate (excluding still-born children) was, in 1872, 30.78 per boo, and has since steadily decreasedless rapidly between 1886-1890 than during other years; in 5902 it was only 22.15 and in 1899 was as low as 2189. The excess of births over deaths shows considerable variationsowing to a very low birth-rate, it was only 3.12 per 1000 in 1880, but has averaged 11.05 per 1000 from 1896 to 1900, reaching 11.98 in 1899 and 11.14 in 1902. For the four years 1899-1902 2466% died under the age of one year, 9.41 between one and two years. The average expectation of life at birth for the same period was 52 years and II months, 62 years and 2 months at the age of three years, 52 years at the age of fifteen, 44 years at the age of twenty-four, 30 years at the age of forty; while the average period of life, which was 35 years 3 months per individual in 1882, was 43 yearf per individual in 1901. This shows a considerable improvement, largely, but not entirely, in the diminution of infant mortality; the expectation of life at birth in 1882, it is true, was only 33 years and 6 months, and at three years of age 56 years I month; but the increase, both in the expectation of life and in its average duration, goes all through the different ages.
Occupations
In the census of 1901 the population over nine years of age (both male and female) was divided as follows as regards the main professions:
Total. Males. Females.
Agricultural (including hunt ing and fishing) - - 9,666,467 6,466,165 3,200,302
Industrial 4,505,736 3,017,393 1,488,343
Commerce and transport (public and private services) 1,003,888 885,070 118,818
Domestic service, &c. - 574,855 171,875 402,980
Professional classes, admini stration, &c 1,304,347 855,217 449,130
Defence 204,012 204,012
Religion 129,893 89,329 40,564
Emigration
The movement of emigration may be divided into two currents, temporary and permanentthe former going chiefly towards neighboring European countries and to North Africa, and consisting of manual laborers, the latter towards trans-oceanic countries, principally Brazil, Argentina and the United States. These emigrants remain abroad for several years, even when they do not definitively establish themselves there. They are composed principally of peasants, unskilled workmen and other manual laborers. There was a tendency towards increased emigration during ,the last quarter of the 19th century. The principal causes are the growth of population, and the over-supply of and low rates of remuneration for manual labor in various Italian provinces. Emigration has, however, recently assumed such proportions as to lead to scarcity of labor and rise of wages in Italy itself. Italians form about half of the total emigrants to America.
Temporary Emigration. Permanent Emigration.
Year. TotalNo.of Total No. of Emigrants. Population. Emigrants. Population.
1881 94,225 333 41,607 147
1891 118,111 389 175,520 578
1901 281,668 865 251,577 772
The increased figures may, to a minor extent, be due to better registration, in consequence of the law of 1901.
From the next table will be seen the direction of emigration in the years specified :
1900.1901.1902.19C
Europe 181,047 244,298 236,066 215,
N. Africa 5,417 9,499 11,771 9,
U.S. and Canada - - 89,400 124,636 I96,723 200,
Mexico (Central America) 2,069 997 766 I,
South America - - - 74,168 152,543 85,097 78,
AsiaandOceania. - 691 1,272 1,086 2,
Total - - - - 352,792 533,245 531,509 507,
The figures for 1905 show that the total of 718,221 emigrants was made up, as regards numbers, mainly by individuals from Venetia, Sicily, Campania, Piedmont, Calabria and the Abruzzi; while the percentage was highest in Calabria (4.44), the Abruzzi, Venetia, Ba-~ilicata, the Marches, Sicily (2.86), Campania, Piedmont (2.02). Tuscany gives I20, Latium 1.14%, Apulia only I~02, while Sardinia with 0.34% occupies an exceptional position. The figure for Sicily, which was 106,000 in 1905, reached 127,000 in 1906 (~.5%), and of these about three-fotrrths would be adults; in the meantime, how ever, the population increases so fast that even in 1905 there was a net increase in Sicily of 20,000 souls; sO that in three years 220,000 workers were replaced by 320,000 infants.
The phenomenon of emigration in Sicily cannot altogether be explained by low wages, which have risen, though prices have done the same. It has been defined as apparently a kind of collective madness.
Agriculture
Accurate statistics with regard to the area occupied in different forms of cultivation are difficult to obtain, both on account of their varied and piecemeal character and from the lack of a complete cadastral survey. A complete survey was ordered by the law of the 1st of March 1886,but many years must elapse before its completion. The law, however, enabled provinces most heavily burdened by land tax to accelerate their portion of the survey, and to profit by the reassessment of the tax on the new basis. An idea of the effects of the survey may be gathered from the fact that the assessments in the four provinces of Mantua, Ancona, Cremona and Milan, which formerly amounted to a total of I,454,696~ are now 2,788,080, an increase of 91%. Of the total area of Italy, 70,793,000 acres, 71% are classed as productive. The unproductive area comprises 16% of the total area (this includes 4% occupied by lagoons or marshes, and I75% of the total area susceptible of bonificazione or improvement by drainage. Between 1882 and 1902 over 4,000,000was spent on this by the government). The uncultivated area is 13%. This includes 3.50% of the total susceptible of cultivation.
The cultivated area may be divided into five agrarian regions or zones, named after the variety of tree culture which flourishes in them. (1) Proceeding from south to north, the first zone is that of the agrumi (oranges, lemons and similar fruits). It comprises a great part of Sicily. In Sardinia it extends along the southern and western coasts. It predominates along the Ligurian Riviera from Bordighera to Spezia, and on the Adriatic, near San Benedetto del Tronto and Gargano, and, crossing the Italian shore of the Ioian Sea, prevails in some regions of Calabria, and terminates around the gulfs of Salerno, Sorrento and Naples. (2) The region of olives comprises the internal Sicilian valleys and part of the mountain slopes; in Sardinia, the valleys near the coast on the S.E., S.W. and N.W.; on the mainland it extends from Liguria and from the southern extremities of the Romagna to Cape Santa Maria di Leuca in Apulia, and to Cape Spartivento in Calabria. Some districts of the olive region ara near the lakes of upper Italy and in Venetia, and the territories of Verona, Vicenza, Treviso and Friuli. (~) The vine region begins on the sunny slopes of the Alpine spurs and in those Alpine valleys open towards the south, extending over the plains of Lombardy and Emilia. In Sardinia it covers the mountain slopes to a considerable height, and in Sicily covers the sides of the Madonie range, reaching a level above 3000 ft. on the southern slope of Etna. The Calabrian Alps, the less rocky sides of the Apulian Murgie and the whole length of the Apennines are covered at different heights, according to their situation. The hills of Tuscany, and of Monferrato in Piedmont, produce the most celebrated Italian vintages. (4) The region of chestnuts extends from the valleys to the high plateaus of the Alps, along the northern slopes of the Apennines in Liguria, Modena, Tuscany, Romagna, Umbria, the Marches and along the southern Apennines to the Calabrian and Sicilian ranges, as well as to the mountains of Sardinia. (5) The wooded region covers the Alps and Apennines above the chestnut level. The woods consist chiefly of pine and hazel upon theApennines, and upon the Calabrian, Sicilian and Sardinian mountains of oak, ilex, hornbeam and similar trees.
Between these regions of tree culture lie zones of different her- __________ _______ baceous culture, cereals, vegetables 3.1904.1905. and textile plants. The style of cultivation vanes according to the)43 209,942 266,982 nature of the ground, terraces sup ~52 14,709 11,910 ported by stone walls being much;83 173,537 322,627 used in mountainous districts. Cereal If 1,828 2,044 cultivation occupies the foremost 599 74,209 111,943 place in area and quantity though i68 2,966 2,715 it has been on the decline since f903, still representing, however, an)56 477,191 718,221 advance on previous years. Wheat is the most important crop and is widely distributed. In 1905 12,734,491 acres, or about 18%
of the total area, produced 151,696,571 bushels of wheat, a yield of only 12 bushels per acre. The, importation has, however, enormously increased since 1882from 164,600 to 1,126,368 tons; while the extent of land devoted to corn cultivation has slightly decreased. Next in importance to wheat comes maize, occupying about 7% of the total area of the country, and cultivated almost everywhere as an alternative crop. The production of maize in 1905
reached about 96,250,000 bushels, a slight increase on the average. The production of maize is, however, insufficient, and 208,719 tons were imported in 1902about double the amount imported in 1882.
Rice is cultivated in low-lying, moist lands, where spring and summer temperatures are high. The P0 valley and the valleys of Emilia and the Romagna are best adapted for rice, but the area is diminishing on account of the competition of foreign rice and of the impoverishment of the soil by too intense cultivation. The area is about 0.5% of the total of Italy. The area under rye is about 0.5% of the total, of which about two-thirds lie in the Alpine and about one-third in the Apennine zone. The barley zone is geographicall xtensive but embraces not more than 1% of the total area, of whic raif is situated in Sardinia and Sicily. Oats, cultivated in the Roman and Tuscan maremma and in Apulia, are used almost exclusively for horses and cattle. The area of oats cultivation is 1.5% of the total area. The other cereals, millet and panico sorgo (Panicum italicum), have lost much of their importance in consequence of the introduction of maize and rice. Millet, however, is still cultivated in the north of Italy, and is used as bread for agricultural laborers, and as forage when mixed with buckwheat (Sorghum saccaratum). The manufacture of macaroni and similar foodstuff is a characteristic Italian industry. It is extensively distributed, but especially flourishes in the Neapolitan provinces. The exportation of cornflour pastes sank, however, from 7100 tons to 350 between 1882 and 1902.
The cultivation of green forage is extensive and is divided into the categories of temporary and perennial. The temporary includes vetches, pulse, lupine, clover and trifolium; and the perennial, meadow-trefoil, lupinella, sulla (fledysarum coronarium), lucerne and darnel. The natural grass meadows are extensive, and hay is grown all over the country, but especially in the P0 valley. Pasture occupies about 30% of the total area of the country, of which Alpine pastures occupy I ~25%. Seed-bearing vegetables are comparatively scarce. The principal are: white beans, largely consumed by the working classes; lentils, much less cultivated than beans; and green peas, largely consumed in Italy, and exported as a spring vegetable. Chick-pease are extensively cultivated in the southern provinces. Horse beans are grown, especially in the south and in the larger islands; lupines are also grown for fodder.
Among tuberous vegetables the potato comes first. The area occupied is abotit 0.7% of the whole of the country. Turnips are grown principally in the central provinces as an alternative crop to wheat. They yield as much as 12 tons per acre. Beetroot (Beta vulgaris) is used as fodder, and yields about 10 tons per acre. Sugar beet is extensively grown to supply the sugar factories. In 1898f 899 there were only four sugar factories, with an output of 5972 tons; In 1905 there were thirty-three, with an output of 93,916 tons.
Market gardening is carried on both near towns and villages, where products find ready sale, and along the great railways, on account of transport facilities. Rome is an exception to the former rule and imports garden produce largely from the neighborhood of Naples and from Sardinia.
Among the chief industrial plants is tobacco, which grows wherever suitable soil exists. Since tobacco is a government monopoly, its cultivation is subject to official concessions and prescriptions. Experiments hitherto made show that the cultivation of Oriental tobacco may. profitably be extended in Italy. The yield for 1901 was 5528 tons, but a large increase took place subsequently, eleven million new plants having been added in southern Italy in 1905.
Tile chief textile plants are hemp, flax and cotton. Hemp is largely cultivated in the provinces of Turin, Ferrara, Bologna, Foril, Ascoli Piceno and Caserta. Bologna hemp is specially valued. Flax covers about 160,000 acres, with a product, in fibre, amounting to about 20,000 tons. Cotton (Gossypium herbaceum), which at the beginning of the 19th century, at the time of the Continental blockade, and again during the American War of Secession, was largely cultivated, is now grown only in parts of Sicily and in a few southern provinces. Sumach, liquorice and madder are also grown in the south.
The vine is cultivated throughout the length and breadth of Italy, but while in some of the districts of the south and centre it occupies from 10 to 20% of the cultivated area, in some of the northern provinces, such as Sondrio, Belluno, Grosseto, &c., the average is only about I or 2% The methods of cultivation are varied; but the planting of the vines by themselves in long rows of insignificant bushes is the exception. In Lombardy, Emilia, Romagna, Tuscany, the Marches, Umbria and the southern provinces, they are trained to trees which are either left in their natural state or subjected to pruning and pollarding. In Campania the vines are allowed to climb freely to the tops of the poplars. In the rest of Italy the elm and the maple are the trees mainly employed as supports. Artificial props of several kindswires, cane work, trellis work, &c.are also in use in many districts (in the neighborhood of Rome canes are almost exclusively employed), and in some the plant is permitted to trail along the ground. The vintage takes place, according to locality and climate, from the beginding of September to the beginning of November. The vine has been attacked by the Oidium Tuckeri, the Phylloxera vastatrix and the Peronospora viticola, which in rapid succession wrought great havoc in Italian vineyards. American vines, are. however, immune and have been laraelv adonted. The production of wine in the vintage of 1907, which was extraordinarily abundant all over the country, was estimated at 1232 million gallons (56 million hectolitres), the average for 1901f 903 being some 352 million gallons less; of this the probable home consumption was estimated at rather over half, while a considerable amount remained over from 1906. The exportation in I902 only reached about 45 million gallons (and even that is double the average), while an equally abundant vintage in France and Spain rendered the exportation of the balance of 1907 impossible, and fiscal regulations rendered the distillation of the superfluous amount difficult. The quality, too, owing to bad weather at the time of vintage, was not good; Italian wine, indeed, never is sufficiently good to compete with the best wines of other countries, especially France (thotigh there is more opening for Italian wines of the Bordeaux and,Burgundy type); nor will many kinds of it stand keeping, partly owing to their natural qualities and partly to the insufficient care devoted to their preparation. There has been some improvement, however, while some of the heavier white wines, noticeably the Marsala of Sicily, have excellent keeping qualities. The area cultivated as vineyards has increased enormously, from about 4,940,000 acres to 9,880,000 acres, or about 14% of the total area of the country. Over-production seems thus to be a considerable danger, and improvement of quality is rather to be sought after. This has been encouraged by government prizes since 1904. -
Next to cereals and the vine the most important object of cultivation is the olive. In Sicily and the provinces of Reggio, Catanzaro, Cosenza and Lecce this tree flourishes without shelter; as far north as Rome, Aquila and Teramo it reqtiires only the slightest protection; in the rest of the peninsula itruns the risk of damage by frost every ten years or so. The proportion of ground under olives is from 20 to 36% at Porto Maurizio, and in Reggio, Lecce, Ban, Chieti and Leghorn it averages from 10 to 19%. Throughout Piedniont, Lombardy, Venetia and the greater part of Einilia, the tree is of little importance. In the olive there is great variety of kinds, and the methods of cultivation differ greatly in different districts; in Ban, Chieti and Lecce, for instance, there are regular woods of nothing but olive-trees, while in middle Italy there are olive-orchards with the interspaces occupied by crops of variotis kinds. The Tuscan oils from Lucca, Calci and Buti are considered the best in the world; those of Ban, Umbria and western Liguria rank next. The wood of the olive is also used for the manufacture of small articles. The olive-growing area occupies about 3.5% of the total area of the country, and the crop in 1905 produced about 75,000,000 gallons of oil. The falling off of the crop, especially in 1899, was due to bad seasons and to insects, notably the Cycloconium oleog-inum, and the Dacus oleae, or oil-fly, which have ravaged the olive-yards, and it is noticeable that lately good and bad seasons see1n to alternate; between 1900 and 1905 the crops were alternately one half of, and equal to, that of the latter year. With the development of agricultural knowledge, notable improvements have been effected in the manufacture of oil. Tile steam mills give the best results. The export trade, however, is decreasing considerably, while the home consumption is increasing. In 1901, 1985 imperial tuns of oil were shipped from Gallipoli for abroadtwo-thirds to the United Kingdom, one-third to Russiaand 666 to Italian ports; while in 1904 the figures were reversed, 1633 tuns going to Italian ports, and only 945 tuns to foreign ports. The other principal port of shipping is Gioia Tauro, 30 m. N.N.E. of Reggio Calabria. A certain amount of linseed-oil is made in Lombardy, Sicily, Apulia and Calabria; colza in Piedmont, Lombardy, Venetia and Emilia; and castor-oil in Venetia and Sicily. The product is principally used for industrial purposes, and partly in the preparation of food, but the amount is decreasing.
The cultivation of oranges, lemons and their congeners (collectively designated in Italian by the term agrumi) is of comparatively modern date, the introduction of the Citrus Bigarcidia being probably due to the Arabs. Sicily is the chief centre of cultivationthe area occupied by lemon and orange orchards in the province of Palermo alone having increased from ff525 acres in 1854 to 54,340 in 1874. Reggio Calabria, Catanzaro, Cosenza, Lecce, Salerno, Naples and Caserta are the continental provinces which come next after Sicily. In Sardinia the cultivation is extensive, but receives little attention. Both crude and concentrated lime-juice is exported, and essential oils are extracted from the rind of the agrumi, more particularly from that of tile lemon and the berganlot. In northern and central Italy, except in the province of Brescia, the agrumi are almost non-existent. The trees are planted on irrigated soil and the fruit gathered between November and August. Considerable trade is done in agro di limone or lemon extract, which forms the basis of citric acid. Extraction is extensively carried on in the provinces of Messina and Palermo.
Among other fruit trees, apple-trees have special importance. Almonds are widely cultivated in Sicily, Sardinia and the sor~ithern provinces; walnut trees throughout the peninsula, their wood being more important than their fruit; hazel nuts, figs, prickly pears (used in the south and the islands for hedges, their fruit being a minor consideration), peaches, pears, locust beans and pistachio nuts are among the other fruits. The mulberry-tree (Morus alba), whose leaves serve as food for silkworms, is cultivated in every region,, considerable progress having been made in its cultivation and in the rearine of silkworms since 18co. Silkworm-rearinr establishments of importance now exist in the Marches, Umbria, in the Abruzzi, Tuscany, Piedmont and Venetia. The chief silk-producing provinces arc Lombardy, Venetia and Piedmont. During the period 1900190 the average annual production of silk cocoons was 53,500 tons, an of silk 5200 tons.
The great variety in physical and social conditions throughout the peninsula gives corresponding variety to the methods of agriculture. In the rotation of crops there is an amazing diversityshifts of two years, three years, four years, six years, and in many cases whatever order strikes the fancy of the farmer. The fields of Tuscany for the most part bear wheat one year and maize the next, in perpetual interchanges, relieved to some extent by green crops. A similar method prevails in the Abruzzi, and in the provinces of Salerno, Benevento and Avellino. In Lombardy a six-year shift is common: either wheat, clover, maize, rice, rice, rice (the last year manured with lupines) or maize, wheat followed by clover, clover, clover ploughed in, and rice, rice and rice manured with lupines. The Emilian region is one where regular rotations are best observeda common shift being grain, maize, clover, beans and vetches, &c., grain, which has the disadvantage of the grain crops succeeding, each other. In the province of Naples, Caserta, &c., the method of fallows is widely adopted, the ground often being left in this state for fifteen or twenty years; and in some parts of Sicily there is a regular interchange of fallow and crop year by year. The following scheme indicates a common Sicilian method of a type which has many varieties: fallow, grain, grain, pasture, pastureother two divisions of the area following the same order, but beginning respectively with the two years of grain and the two of pasture.
Woods and forests play an important part, especially in regard to the consistency of the soil and to the character of the water~ courses. The chestnut is of great value for its wood and ~ is furnished by the oak and beech, and pine and fir forests ~ S~ of the Alps and Apennines. Notwithstanding the efforts of the government to unify and co-ordinate the forest laws previously existing in the various states, deforestation has continued in many regions. This has been due to speculation, to the unrestricted pasturage of goats, to the rights which many communes have over the forests, and to some extent to excessive taxation, which led the proprietors to cut and sell the trees and then abandon the ground to the Treasury. The results areaa lack of water-supply and of water-power, the streams becoming mere torrents for a short period and perfectly dry for the rest of the year; lack of a sufficient supply of timber; the denudation of the soil on the hills, and, where the valleys below have insufficient drainage, the formation of swamps. If the available water-power of Italy, already very considerable, be harnessed, converted into electric power (which is already being done in some districts), and further increased by reafforestation, the effect upon the industries of Italy will be incalculable, and the importation of coal will be very materially diminished. The area of forest is about 14.3% of the total, and of the chestnut-woods 1.5 more; and its products in 1886 were valued at 3~,520,0o0 (not including chestnuts). A quantity of it is really brushwood, used for the manufacture of charcoal and for fuel, coal being little used except for manufacturing purposes. Forest nurseries have also been founded.
According to an approximate calculation the number of head of Live live stock in Italy in 1890 was 16,620,000, thus divided: k horses, 720,000; asses, 1,000,000; mules, 300,000
S oc cattle, 5,000,000; sheep, 6,000,ooo; goats, 1,800,000; swine, 1,8oo,ooo.
The breed of cattle most widely distributed is that known as the Podolian, usually with white or grey coat and enormous horns. Of the numerous sub-varieties, the finest is said to be that of the Val di Chiana, where the animals are stall-fed all the year round; next is ranked the so-called Valle Tiberina type. Wilder varieties roam in vast herds over the Tuscan and Roman maremmas, and the corresponding districts in Apulia and other regions. In the Alpine districts there is a stock distinct from the Podolian, generally called razza montanina. These animals are much smaller in stature and more regular in form than the Podolians; they are mainly kept for dairy purposes. Another stock, with no close allies nearer than the south of France, is found in the plain of Racconigi and Carmagnola; the mouse-colored Swiss breed occurs in the neighborhood of Milan; the Tirolese breed stretches south to Padua and Modena; and a red-coated breed named of Reggio or Friuli is familiar both in what were the duchies of Parma and Modena, and in the provinces of lJdine and Treviso. In Sicily the so-called Modica race is of note; and in Sardinia there is a distinct stock which seldom exceeds the weight of 700 lb. Buffaloes are kept in several districts, more particularly of southern Italy.
Enormous flocks are possessed by professional sheep-farmers, who pasture them in the mountains in the summer, and bring them down to the plains in the winter. At Saluzzo in Piedmont there is a stock with hanging ears, arched face and tall stature, kept for its dairy qualities; and in the Biellese the merino breed is maintained by some of the larger proprietors. In the upper valleys of the Alps there are many local varieties, one of which at Ossola is like the Scottish blacklace. Liguria is not much adapted for sheep-farming on a large scale; but a number of small flocks come down to thc plain of Tuscany in the winter. With the exception of a few subAlpine districts near Bergamo and Brescia, the great Lombard plain is decidedly unpastoral. The Bergamo sheep is the largest breed in the country; that of Cadore and Belluno approaches it in size. In the Venetian districts the farmers often have small stationary flocks. Throughout the Roman province, and IJmbria, Apulia, the Abruzzi, Basilicata and Calabria, is found in its full development a remarkable system of pastoral migration with the change of seasons which has been in existence from the most ancient times, and has attracted attention as much by its picturesqueness as by its industrial importance (see APULIA). Merino sheep have been acclimatized in the Abruzzi, Capitanata and Basilicata. The number of sheep, however, is on the decrease. Similarly, the number of goats, which are reared only in hilly regions, is decreasing, especially on account of the existing forest laws, as they are the chief enemies of young plantations. Horse-breeding is on the increase. The state helps to improve the breeds by placing choice stallions at the disposal of private breeders at a low tariff. The exportation is, however, unimportant, while the importation is largely on the increase, 46,463 horses having been imported in 1902. Cattle-breeding varies with the different regions. In upper Italy cattle are principally reared in pens and stalls; in central Italy cattle are allowed to run half wild, the stall system being little practised; in the south and in the islands cattle are kept in the open air, few shelters being provided. The erection of shelters, however, is encouraged by the state. Swine are extensively reared in many provinces. Fowls are kept on all farms and, though methods are still antiquated, trade in fowls and eggs is rapidly increasing.
In 1905 Italy exported 32,786 and imported 17,766 head of cattle; exported 33,574 and imported 6551 sheep; exported 95,995 and imported 1604 swine. The former two show a very large decrease and the latter a large increase on the export figures for 1882. The export of agricultural products shows a large increase.
The north of Italy has long been known for its great dairy districts. Parmesan cheese, otherwise called Lodigiano (from Lodi) or grana, was presented to King Louis XII. as early as 1509. Parmesan is not confined to the province from which it derives its name; it is manufactured in all that part of Emilia in the neighborhood of the P0, and in the provinces of Brescia, Bergamo, Pavia, Novara and Alessandria. Gorgonzola, which takes its name from a town in the province, has become general throughout the whole of Lombardy, in the eastern parts of the ancient provinces, and in the province of Cuneo. The cheese known as the cacio-cavallo is produced in regions extending from 370 to 430 N. lat. Gruyre, extensively manufactured in Switzerland and France, is also produced in Italy in the Alpine regions and in Sicily. With the exception of Parmesan, Gorgonzola, La Fontina and Gruyre, most of the Italian cheese is consumed in the locality of its production. Co-operative dairy farms are numerous in north Italy, and though only about half as many as in 1889 (114 in 1902) are better organized. Modern methods have been introduced.
The drainage of marshes and marshy lands has considerably extended. A law passed on the 22nd of March 1900 gave a B a, special impulse to this form of enterprise by fixing the ratio r naze. of expenditure incumbent respectively upon the State, ~ the provinces, the communes, and the owners or other private individuals directly interested.
The Italian Federation of Agrarian Unions has greatly contributed to agricultural progress. Government travelling teachers aria of agriculture, and fixed schools of viticulture, also do good A2~~ work. Some unions annually purchase large quantities ~cono of merchandise for their members, especially chemical mica. manures. The importation of machinery amounted to over 5000 tons in 1901.
Income from land has diminished on the whole. The chief diminution has taken place in the south in regard to oranges and lemons, cereals and (for some provinces) vines. Since 1895, however, the heavy import corn duty has caused a slight rise in the income from corn lands. The principal reasons for the general decrease are the fall in prices through foreign competition and the closing of certain markets, the diseases of plants and the increased outlay required to combat them, and the growth of State and local taxation. One of the great evils of Italian agricultural taxation is its lack of elasticity and of adaptation to local conditions. Taxes are not sufficiently proportioned to what the land may reasonably be expected to produce, nor sufficient allowance made for the exceptional conditions of a southern climate, in which a few hours bad weather may destroy a whole crop. The Italian agriculturist has come to look (and often in vain) for action on a large scale from the state, for irrigation, drainage of uncultivated low-lying land, which may be made fertile, river regulation, &c.; while to the small proprietor the state often appears only as a hard and inconsiderate tax-gatherer.
The relations between owners and tillers of the soil are still regulated by the ancient forms of agrarian contract, which have remained almost untouched by social and political changes. The possibility of reforming these contracts in some parts of the kingdom has been studied, in the hope of bringing them into closer harmony with the needs of rational cultivation and the exigencies of social justice.
Peasant proprietorship is most common in Lombardy and Piedmont, but it is also found elsewhere. Large farms are f&und in certain of the more open districts; but in Italy generally, and especially in Sardinia, the land is very much subdivided. The followfng forms of contract are most usual in the several regions: In Piedmont the mezzadria (mttayage), the terzieria, the colonia parziaria, the boarla, the schiavenza and the affitto, or lease, are most usual. Under mezzadria the contract generally lasts three years. Products are usually divided in equal proportions between the owner and the tiller. The owner pays the taxes, defrays the cost of preparing the ground, and provides the necessary implements. Stock usually belongs to the owner, and, even if kept on the half-and-half system, is usually bought by him. The peasant, or mezzadro, provides labor. Under terzieria the owner furnishes stock, implements and seed, and the tiller retains only one-third of the principal products. In the colonia parziaria the peasant executes all the agricultural work, in return for which he is housed rent-free, and receives onesixth of the corn, one-third of the maize and has a small money wage. This contract is usually renewed from year to year. The boaria is widely diffused in its two forms of cascinafatta and paghe. In the former case a peasant family undertakes all the necessary work in return for payment in money or kind, which varies according to the crop; in the latter the money wages and the payment in kind are fixed beforehand. Schiavanza, either simple or with a share in the crops, is a form of contract similar to the boaria, but applied principally to large holdings. The wages are lower than under the boaria. In the affitto, or lease, the proprietor furnishes seed and the implements. Rent varies according to the quality of the soil.
In Lombardy, besides the mezzadria, the lease is common, but the ierzieria is rare. The lessee, or farmer, tills the soil at his own risk; usually he provides live stock, implements and capital, and has no right to compensation for ordinary improvements, nor for extraordinary improvements effected without the landlords consent. He is obliged to give a guarantee for the fulfilment of his engagements. In some places he pays an annual tribute in grapes, corn and other produce. In some of the Lombard mezzadria contracts taxes are paid by the cultivator.
In Venetia it is more common than elsewhere in Italy for owners to till their own soil. The prevalent forms of contract are the mezzadria and the lease. In Liguria, also, mezzo4,ia and lease are the chief forms of contract.
In Emilia both mezzadria and lease tenure are widely diffused in the provinces of Ferrara, Reggio and Parma; but other special forms of contract exist, known as the famiglio da spesa, boaria, braccianti obbligati and braccianti disobbligati. In the famiglio da spesa the tiller receives a small wage and a proportion of certain products. The boaria is of two kinds. If the tiller receives as much as 45 lire per month, supplemented by other wages in kind, it is said to be boaria a salario; if the principal part of his remuneration is in kind, his contract is called boaria a spesa.
In the Marches, Umbria and Tuscany, mezzadria prevails in its purest form. Profits and losses, both in regard to produce and stock, are equally divided. In some places, however, the landlord takes two-thirds of the olives and the whole of the grapes and the mulberry leaves. Leasehold exists in the province of Grosseto alone. In Latium leasehold and farming by landlords prevail, but cases of ,nezzadria and of improvement farms exist. In the agro Romano, or zone immediately around Rome, land is as a rule left for pasturage. It needs, therefore, merely supervision by guardians and mounted overseers, or butteri, who are housed and receive wages. Large landlords are usually represented by ministri, or factors, who direct agricultural operations and manage the estates, but the estate is often let to a middleman, or mercante di campagna. Wherever corn is cultivated, leasehold predominates. Much of the work is done by companies of peasants, who come down from the mountainous districts when required, permanent residence not being possible owing to the malaria. Near Velletri and Frosinone improvement farms prevail. A piece of uncultivated land is made over to a peasant for from 20 to 29 years. Vines and olives are usually planted, the landlord paying the taxes and receiving one-third of the produce. At the end of the contract the landlord either cultivates his land himself or leases it, repaying to the improver part of the expenditure incurred by him. This repayment sometimes consists of half the estimated value of the standing crops.
In the Abruzzi and in Apulia leasehold is predominant. Usually leases last from three to six years. In the provinces of Foggia and Lecce long leases (up to twenty-nine years) are granted, but in them it is explicitly declared that they do not imply enfiteusi (perpetual leasehold), nor any other form of contract equivalent to co-proprietorship. Mezzadria is rarely resorted to. On some small holdings, however, it exists with contracts lasting from two to six years. Special contracts, known as colonie immovibili and colonie tern poranee are applied to the latifondi or huge estates, the owners of which receive half the produce, except that of the vines, olive-trees and woods, which he leases separately. Improvement contracts also exist. They consist of long leases, under which the landlord shares the costs of improvements and builds farm-houses; also leases of orange and lemon gardens, two-thirds of the prot~uce of which go to the landlord, while the farmer contributes half the cost of farming besides the labor. Leasehold, varying from four to six years for arable land and from six to eighteen years for forest-land, prevails also in Campania, Basilicata and Calabria. The estaglio, or rent, is often paid in kind, and is equivalent to half the produce of good land and one-third of the produce of bad land. Improvement contracts are granted for uncultivated bush districts, where one fourth of the produce goes to the landlord, and for plantations of fig-trees, olive-trees and vines, half of the produce of which belongs to the landlord, who at the end of ten years reimburses the tenant for a part of the improvements effected. Other forms of contract are the piccola mezzadria, or sub-letting by tenants to under-tenants, on the half-and-half system; enfiteusi, or perpetual leases at low rentsa form which has almost died out; and mezzadria (in the provinces of Caserta and Benevento).
In Sicily leasehold prevails under special conditions. In pure leasehold the landlord demands at least six months rent as guarantee, and the forfeiture of any fortuitous advantages. Under the gabella lease the contract lasts twenty-nine years, the lessee being obliged to make improvements, but being sometimes exempted from rent during the first years. Inquilinaggio is a form of lease by which the landlord, and sometimes the tenant, makes over to tenant or subtenant the sowing of corn. There are various categories of inquilinaggio, according as rent is paid in money or in kind. Under mezzadria or metateria the landlord divides the produce with the farmer in various proportions. The farmer provides all labor. Latifondi farms are very numerous in Sicily. The landlord lets his land to two or more persons jointly, who undertake to restore it to him in good condition with one-third of it interrozzito, that is, fallow, so as to be cultivated the following year according to triennial rotation. These lessees are usually speculators, who divide and sub-let the estate. The sub-tenants in their turn let a part of their land to peasants in mezzadria, thus creating a system disastrous both for agriculture and the peasants. At harvest-time the produce is placed in the barns of the lessor, who first deducts 25% as premium, then 16% for battiteria (the difference between corn before and after winnowing), then deducts a proportion for rent and subsidies, so that the portion retained by the actual tiller of the soil is extremely meagre. In bad years the tiller, moreover, gives up seed corn befote beginning harvest.
In Sardinia landlord-farming and leasehold prevail. In the fe~ cases of mezzadria the Tuscan system is followed.
Mines
The number of mines increased from 589 in 1881 to 1580 in 1902. The output in 1881 was worth about 1/22,800,000, but by 1895 had decreased to 1,800,000, chiefly on account of the fall in the price of sulphur. It afterwards rose, and was worth more than 3,640,000 in 1899, falling again to 1/23,118,600 in 1902 owing to severe American competition in sulphur (see SIcILY). The chief minerals are sulphur, in the production of which Italy holds one of the first places, iron, zinc, lead; these, and, to a smaller extent, copper of an inferior quality, manganese and antimony, are successfully mined. The bulk of the sulphur mines are in Sicily, while the majority of the lead and zinc mines are in Sardinia; much of the lead smelting is done at Pertusola, near Genoa, the company formed for this purpose having acquired many of the Sardinian mines. Iron is mainly mined in Elba. Quicksilver and tin are found (the latter in small quantities) in Tuscany. Boracic acid is chiefly found near Volterra, where there is also a little rock salt, but the main supply is obtained by evaporation. The output nf stone from quarries is greatly diminished (from 12,500,000 tons, worth 1/21,920,000, in 1890, to 8,000,000 tons, worth 1/2f 400,000, in 1899), a circumstance probably attributable to the slackening of building enterprise in many cities, and to the decrease in the demand for stone for railway, maritime and river embankment works. The value of the output had, however, by 1902 risen to 1,600,000, representing a tonnage of about 10,000,000. There is good travertine below Tivolj and elsewhere in Italy; the finest granite is found at Baveno. Lava is much used for paving-stones in the neighborhood of volcanic districts, where pozzolana (for cement) and pumice stone are also important. Mtich of Italy contains Pliocene clay, which is good for pottery and brickmaking. Mineral springs are very numerous, and of great variety.
Fisheries
The number of boats and smacks engaged in the fisheries has considerably increased. In 1881 the total number was 15,914, with a tonnage of 49,103. In 1902 there were 23,098 boats, manned by 101,720 men, and the total catch was valued at just over half a million sterlingaccording to the government figures, which are certainly below the truth. The value has, however, undoubtedly diminished, though the number of boats and crews increases. Most of the fishing boats, properly so called, start from the Adriatic coast, the coral boats from the western Mediterranean coast, and the sponge boats from the western Mediterranean and Sicilian coasts. Fishing and trawling are carried on chiefly off the Italian (especially Ligurian, Austrian and Tunisian coasts; coral is found principally near Sardinia and Sicily, and sponges almost exclusively off Sicily arid Tunisia in tile neighborhood of Sfax. For sponge fishing no accurate statistics are available before 1896; in that year 75 tons of sponges were secured, but there has been considerable diminution since, only 31 tons being obtained in 1902. A considerable proportion was obtained by foreign boats. The island of Lampedusa may be considered its centre. Coral fishing, which fell off between 1889 and 1892 on account of the temporary closing of the Sciacca coral reefs has greatly decreased since 1884, when the fisheries produced 643 tons,-whereas in 1902 they only produced 225 tons. The value of the product has, however, proportionately increased, so that the sum realized was little less, while less than half the number of men was employed. Sardinian coral commands from 3 to 4 per kilogramme (2.204 Ib), and is much more valuable than the Sicilian coral. The Sciacca reefs were again closed for three winters by a decree of 1904. The fishing is largely carried on by boats from Tone del Greco, in the Gulf of Naples, where the best coral beds are now exhausted. In i879 4000 men were employed; in 1902 only just over 1oo0. In 1902 there were 48 tunny fisheries, employjng 3006 men, and 5116 tons of fish worth 80,000 were caught. Ihe main fisheries are in Sardinia, Sicily and Elba. Anchovy and sardine fishing (the products of which are reckoned among the general total) are also of considerable importance, especially along the Ligurian and Tuscan coasts. The lagoon fisheries are also of great importance, more especially those of Comacchio, the lagoon of Orbetello and the Mare Piccolo at Taranto &c The deep-sea fishing boats in 1902 numbered 1368, with a total tonnage of 16,149; 100 of these were coral-fishing boats and 111 sponge-fishing boats.
Industrial Progress
The industrial progress of Italy has been great since 1880. Many articles formerly imported are now made at home, and some Italian manufactures have begun to compete in foreign markets. Italy has only unimportant lignite and anthracite mines, but water power is abundant and has been largely applied to industry, especially in generating electricity. The electric power required fcir the tramways and the illuminatiQn of Rome is entirely supplied by turbines situated at Tivoli, and this is the case elsewhere, and the harnessing of this waterpower is capable of very considerable extension. A sign of industrial development is to be found in the growing number of manufacturing companies, both Italian and foreign.
The chief development has taken place in mechanical industries, though it has also been marked in metallurgy. Sulphur mining M h 1 supplies large industries of sulphur-refining and grinding, - in spite of American competition. Very little pig iron is tries US made, most of the iron ore being exported, and iron manufactured consists of old iron resmelted. For steelmaking foreign pig iron is chiefly used. The manufacture of steel rails, carried on first at Terni and afterwards at Savona, began in Italy in 1886. Tin has been manufactured since 1892. Lead, antimony, mercury and copper are also produced. The total salt production in 1902 was 458,497 tons, of which 248,2i5 were produced in the government salt factories and the rest in the free salt-works of Sicily. Great progress has been made in the manufacture of machinery; locomotives, railway carriages, electric tram-cars, &c., and machinery of all kinds, are now largely made in Italy itself, especially in the north and in the neighborhood of Naples. At Turin the manufacture of motor-cars has attained great importance and the F.I.A.T. (Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino) factory employs 2000 workmen, while eight others employ 2780 dmongst them.
The textile industries, some of which are of ancient date, are among those that have most rapidly developed. Handlooms and small spinTextiles ning establishments have, in the silk industry, given place to large establishments with steam looms. The production of raw silk at least tripled itself between 1875 and 1900, and the value of the silks woven in Italy, estimated in 1890 to be 2,200,000, is now, on account of the development of the export trade calculated to be almost 4,000,000. Lombardy (especially Como, Milan and Bergamo), Piedmont and Venetia are the chief silk-producing regions. There are several public assay offices in Italy for silk; the first in the world was established in Turin in 1750. The cotton industry has also rapidly developed. Home products not only supply the Italian market in increasing degree, but find their way into foreign markets. While importation of raw cotton increases importations of cotton thread and of cotton stuffs have rapidly decreased. The value of the annual produce of the various branches of the cotton industry, which in 1885 was calculated to he 7,200,000, was in 1900, notwithstanding the fall in prices, about 12,000,000. The industry is chiefly developed in Lombardy, Piedmont and Liguria; to some extent also in Campania, Venetia and Tuscany, and to a less extent in Lazio (Rome), Apulia, Emilia, the Marches, Umbria, the Abruzzi and Sicily. A government weaving school was established in Naples in r9o6. As in the case of cotton, Italian woollen fabrics are conquering the home market in increasing degree. The industry centres chiefly in Piedmont (province of Novara), Venetia (province of Vicenza), Tuscany (Florence), Lombardy (Brescia), Campania (Caserta), Genoa, Umbria, the Marches and Rome. To some extent the industry also exists in Emilia, Calabria, Basilicata, the Abruzzi, Sardinia and Sicily. It has, however, a comparatively small export trade.
The other textile industries (flax, jute, &c.) have made notable progress. The jute industry is concentrated in a few large factories, which from 1887 onwards have more than supplied the home market, and have begun considerably to export.
Chemical industries show an output worth 2,640,000 in 1902 al against 1,040,000 in 1893. The chief products are sulphuric acid:
Chemicals sulphate of copper, employed chiefly as a preventive 01 certain maladies of the vine; carbonate of lead, hyper.
phosphates and chemical manures; calcitim carbide; explosivi powder; dynamite and other explosives. Pharmaceutical industries as distinguished from those above mentioned, have kept pace with the general development of Italian activity. The principal product is quinine, the manufacture of which has acq~iired great importance, owing to its use as a specific against malaria. Milan and Genoa are the principal centres, and also the government military pharmaceutical factory at Turin. Other industries of a semi-chemical character are candle-, soap-, glue-, and perfume-making, and the preparation of india-rubber. The last named has succeeded, by means of the large establishments at Milan in supplying not only the whole Italian market but an export trade.
The match-making industry is subject to special fiscal conditions. In 1902-1903 there were 219 match factories scattered throughout Italy, but especially in Piedmont, Lombardy and Venetia. The number has been reduced to less than half since 1897 by the suppression of smaller factories, while the production has increased from 47,690 millions to 59,741 millions.
The beetroot-sugar industry has attained considerable proportions in Umbria, the Marches, Lazio, Venetia and Piedmont since 1890. In 1898-1899, 5972 tons were produced, while in 1905 the figure, had risen to 93,916. The rise of the industry has been favored by protective tariffs and by a system of excise which allows a considerable premium to manufacturers.
Alcohol has undergone various oscillations, according to the legislation governing distilleries. In 1871 o~ily 20 hectolitres were produced, but in 1881 the output was 318,000 hectolitres, the maximum hitherto attained. Since then special laws have hampered development, some provinces, as for instance Sardinia, being allowed to manufacture for their own consumption but not for export. In other parts the industry is subjected to an almost prohibitive exciseduty. The average production is about i8o,ooo hectolitres per annum. The greatest quantity is produced in Lombardy, Piedmont, Venetia and Tuscany. The quantity of beer is about the same, the greater part of the beer drunk being imported from Germany, while the production of artificial mineral waters has somewhat decreased. There is a considerable trade (not very large for export, however) in natural mineral Waters, which are often excellent.
Paper-making is highly developed in the provinces of Novara, Caserta, Milan, Vicenza, Turin, Como, Lucca, Ancona, Genoa, Brescia, Cuneo, Macerata and Salerno. The hand-made paper of Fabriano is especially good.
Furniture-making in different styles is carried on all over Italy, especially as a result of the establishment of industrial schools. Each region produces a special type, Venetia turning out imitations of 16th- and I 7th-century styles, Tuscany the 15th-century or cinquecento style, and the Neapolitan provinces the Pompeian style. Furniture and cabinet-making in great factories are carried on particularly in Lombardy and Piedmont. Bent-wood factories have been established in Venetia and Liguria.
A characteristic Italian industry is that of straw-plaiting for hat-making, which is carried on principally in Tuscany, in the district of Fermo, in the Alpine villages of the province of Vicenza, and in some communes of the province of Messina. The plaiting is done by country women, while the hats are made up in factories. Both plaits and hats are largely exported.
Tobacco is entirely a government monopoly; the total amount manufactured in 1902-1903 was 16,599 tonsa fairly constant figure.
The finest glass is made in Tuscany and Venetia; Venetian glass is often colored and of artistic form.
In the various ceramic arts Italy was once unrivalled, but the ancient tradition for a long time lost its primeval impulse. The works at Vinovo, which had fame in the f 8th century,, came to an untimely end in 1820; those of Castelli (in ,Ares the Abruzzi), which have been revived, were supplanted f~t by Charles III.s establishment at Capodimonte, I7~ which after producing articles of surprising execution was closed before the end of the century. The first place now belongs to the Della Doccia works at Florence. Founded in 1735 by the marquis Carlo Ginori, they maintained a reputation of the very highest kind down to about 1860; but since then they have not kept pace with their younger rivals in other lands. They still, however, are commercially successful. Other cities where the ceramic industries keep their ground are Pesaro, Gubbio, Faenza (whose name long ago became the distinctive term for the finer kind of potters work in France, falence), Savona and Albissola, Turin, Mondovi, Cuneo, Castellamonte, Milan, Brescia, Sassuolo, Imola, Rimini, Perugia, Castelli, &c. In all these the older styles, by which these places became famous in the IthI8th centuries, have been revived. It is estimated that the total production of the finer wares amounts on the average to 400,000 per annum. The ruder branches of the artthe making of tiles and common waresare pretty generally diffused.
The jewellers art received large encouragement in a country which had so many independent courts; but nowhere has it attained a fuller development than at Rome. A vast variety of trinketsin coral, glass, lava, &c.is exported from Italy, or carried away by the annual host of tourists. The copying of the paintings of the o~ld masters is becoming an art industry of no small mercantile import. ance in some of the larger cities.
The production of mosaics is an industry still carried on with much success in Italy, which indeed ranks exceedingly high in th department. ihe great works of the Vatican are especially famous (more than 17,000 distinct tints are employed in their productions), and there are many other establishments in Rome. The Florentine mosaics are perhaps better known abroad; they are composed of larger pieces than the Roman. Those of the Venetian artists are remarkable for the boldness of their coloring. There is a tendency towards the fostering of feminine home industrieslace-making, linen-weaving, &c.
Condition of the Working Classes
The condition of the numerous agricultural laborers (who constitute one-third of the population) is, except in some regions, hard, and in places absolutely miserable. Much light was thrown upon their position by the agricultural inquiry (inchiesta agraria) completed in 1884. The large numbers of emigrants, who are drawn chiefly from the rural classes, furnish another proof of poverty. The terms of agrarian contracts and leases (except in districts where mezzadria prevails in its essential form), are in many regions disadvantageous to the laborers, who suffer from the obligation to provide guarantees for payment of rent, for repayment of seed corn and for the division of products.
It was only at the close of the 19th century that the true cause of malariathe conveyance of the infection by the bite of the Malaria.. Anopheles clavigerwas discovered. This mosquito does not as a rule enter the large towns; but low-lying coast districts and ill-drained plains are especially subject to it. Much has been done in keeping out the insects by fine wire netting placed on the windows and the doors of houses, especially in the railwaymens cottages. In 1902 the state took up the sale of quinine at a low price, manufacturing it at the central military pharmaceutical laboratory at Turin. Statistics show the difference produced by this measure.
1 Pounds of Deaths by r inancia z ear. quinine sold. Malaria.
1901-1902 -. 13,358
1902-1903 4,932 9,908
1903-1904 15,915 8,513
1904-1905 30,956 8,501
1905-1906 41,166 7,838
1906-1907 45,591 4,875
The profit made by the state, which is entirely devoted to a special fund for means against malaria, amounted in these five years to 41 ~759 It has been established that two 3-grain pastilles a day are a sufficient prophylactic; and the proprietors of malarious estates and contractors for public works in malarious districts are bound by law to provide sufficient quinine for their workmen, death for want of this precaution coming under the provisions of the workmens compensation act. Much has also been, though much remains to be, done in the way of bonificamento, i.e. proper drainage and improvement of the (generally fertile) low-lying and hitherto malarious plains.
In Venetia the lives of the small proprietors and of the salaried peasants are often extremely miserable. There and in Lombardy the disease known as pellagra is most widely diffused. The disease is due to poisoning by micro-organisms produced by deteriorated maize, and can be combated by care in ripening, drying and storing the maize. The most recent statistics show the disease to be diminishing. Whereas in 1881 there were 104,067 (16.29 per I 000) peasants afflicted by the disease, in 1899 there were only 72,603 (10.30 per 1000) peasants, with a maximum of 39,882 (34.32 per 1000) peasants in Venetia. and 19,557 (12.90 per 1000) peasants in Lombardy. The decrease of the disease is a direct result of the efforts made to combat it, in the form of special hospitals or pellagrosarf, economic kitchens, rural bakeries and maize-drying establishments. A bill for the better prevention of pellagra was introduced in the spring of 1902. The deaths from it dropped in that year to 2376, from 3054 in the previous year and 3788 in 1900.
In Liguria, on account of the comparative rarity of large estates, agricultural laborers are in a better condition. Men earn between Is. 3d. and 2s. Id. a day, and women from 5d. to 8d. In Emilia the day laborers, known as disobbligati, earn, on the contrary, low wages, out of which they have to provide for shelter and to lay by something against unemployment. Their condition is miserable. In Tuscany, however, the prevalence of mezzadria, properly so called, has raised the laborers position. Yet in some Tusban provinces, as, for instance, that of Grosseto, where malaria rages, laborers are organized in gangs under corporals, who undertake harvest work. They are poverty-stricken, and easily fall victims to fever. In the Abruzzi and in Apulia both regular and irregular workmen are engaged by the year. The cura tori or curatoli (factors) receive 40 a year, with a slight interest in the profits; the stockmen hardly earn in money and kind 13; the muleteers and underworkmen get between 5 to 8, plus firewood, bread and oil; irregular workmen have even lower wages, with a daily distribution of bread, salt and oil. In Campania and Calabria the curatoli and massari earn, in money and kind, about 12 a year; cowmen, shepherds and multeers about 10; irregular workmen are paid from 8~d. to Is. 8d. per day, but only find employment, on an average, 230 days in the year. The condition of Sicilian laborers is also miserable. The huge extent of the latzfondi, or large estates, often results in their being left in the hands of speculators, who exploit both workmen and farmers with such usury that the latter are often compelled, at the end of a scanty year, to hand over their crops to the usurers before harvest. In Sardinia wage-earners are paid lod. a day, with free shelter and an allotment for private cultivation. Irregular adult workmen earn between lod. and Is. 3d., and boys from 6d. to iod. a day. Woodcutters and vine-waterers, however, sometimes earn as much as 3s. a day.
The peasants somewhat rarely use animal foodthis is most largely used in Sardinia and least in Sicilybread and polenta or macaroni and vegetables being the staple diet. Wine is the prevailing drink, The condition of the workmen employed in manufactures has improved during recent years. Wages are higher, the cost of the prime necessaries of life is, as a rule, lower, though taxation on some of them is still enormous; so that the remuneration of work has improved. Taking into account the variations in wages and in the price of wheat, it may be calculated that the number of hours of work requisite to earn a sum equal to the price of a cwt. of wheat fell from 183 in 1871 to 73 in 1894. In 1898 it was 105, on account of the rise In the price of wheat, and since then up till 19o2 it oscillated between 105 and 95.
Wages have risen from 22~6 centimes per hour (on an average) to 26.3 centimes, but not in all industries. In the mining and woollen industries they have fallen, but have increased in mechanical, chemical, silk and cotton industries. Wages vary greatly in different parts of Italy, according to the cost of the necessaries of life, the degree of development of working-class needs and the state of working-class organization, which in some places has succeeded in increasing the rates of pay. Women are, as a rule, paid less than men, and though their wages have also increased, the rise has been slighter than in the case of men. In some trades, for instance the silk trade, women earn little more than lod. a day, and, for some classes of work, as little as 7d. and 41/2d. The general improvement in sanitation has led to a corresponding improvement in the condition of the working classes, though much still remains to be done, especially in the south. On the other hand, it is generally the case that even in the most unpromising inn the bedding is clean.
The number of industrial strikes has risen from year to year, although, on account of the large number of persons involved in some of them, the rise in the number of strikers has not sUlk always corresponded to the number of strikes, During, es. the years 1900 and 1901 strikes were increasingly numerous, chiefly on account of the growth of Socialist and working-class organizations.
The greatest proportion of strikes takes place in northern Italy, especially Lombardy and Piedmont, where manufacturing industries are most developed. Textile, building and mining industries show the highest percentage of strikes, since they give employment to large numbers of men concentrated in single localities. Agricultural strikes, though less frequent than those in manufacturing industries, have special importance in Italy. They are most common in the north and centre, a circumstance which shows them to be promoted less by the more backward and more ignorant peasants than by the better-educated laborers of Lombardy and Emilia, among whom, Socialist organizations are widespread. Since 1901 there have been, more than once, general strikes at Milan and elsewhere, and one in the autumn of 1905 caused great inconvenience throughout the country, and led to no effective result.
Although in some industrial centres the working-class movement has assumed an importance equal to that of other countries, there is no general working-class organization comparable to the English trade unions. Mutual benefit and co-operative societies serve the purpose of working-class defence or offence against the employers. In 1893, after many vicissitudes, the Italian Socialist Labor Party was founded, and has now become the Italian Socialist Party, in which the majority of Italian workmen enrol themselves. Printers and hat-makers, however, possess trade societies. In 189? an agitation began for the organization of Chambers of Labor, intended to look after the technical education of workmen and to form commissions of arbitration in case of strikes. They act also as employment burcaux, and are often centres of political propaganda. At present such chambers exist in many Italian cities, while leagues of improvement,, or of resistance, are rapidly spreading in the country districts. In many cases the action of these organizations has proved, at least temporarily, advantageous to the working classes.
Labor legislation is backward in Italy, on account of the late development of manufacturing industry and of working-class organization. On the 17th of April 1898 a species of Employers Liability Act compelled employers of more than five workmen in certain industries to insure their employees against accidents.
On the i7th of July 1898 a national fund for the insurance of workmen against illness and old age was founded by law on the principle of optional registration. In addition to an initial endowment by the state, part of the annual income of the fund is furnished in various forms by the state (principally by making over a proportion of the profits of the Post Office Savings Bank), and part by the premiums of the workmen. The minimum annual premium is six lire for an annuity of one lira per day at the age of sixty, and insurance against sickness. The low level of wages in many trades and the jealousies of the Chambers of Labor and other working-class organizations impede rapid development.
A law came into operation in February 1908, according to which a weekly day of rest (with few exceptions)was established on Sunday in every case in which it was possible, and otherwise upon some other day of the week.
The French institution of Prudhommes was introduced into Italy in 1893, under the name of Coltegi di Probiviri. The institution has not attained great vogue. Most of the colleges deal with matters affecting textile and mechanical industries. Each college is founded by royal decree, and consists of a president, with not fewer than ten and not more than twenty members. A conciliation bureau and a jury are elected to deal with disputes concerning wages, hours of work, labor contracts, &c., and have power to settle the disputes, without appeal, whenever the amounts involved do not exceed 1/28.
Provident institutions have considerably developed in Italy under the forms of savings banks, assurance companies Provident and mutual benefit societies. Besides the Post Office ~ions. Savings Bank and the ordinary savings banks, many co-operative credit societies and ordinary credit banks receive deposits of savings.
The greatest number of savings banks exists in Lombardy; Piedmont and Venetia come next. Campania holds the first place in the south, most of the savings of that region being deposited in the provident institutions of Naples. In Liguria and Sardinia the habit of thrift is less developed. Assurance societies in Italy are subject to the general dispositions of the commercial code regarding commercial companies. Mutual benefit societies have increased rapidly, both because their advantages have been appreciated, and because, until recently, the state had taken no steps directly to insure workmen against illness. The present Italian mutual benefit societies resemble the ancient beneficent corporations, of which in some respects they may be considered a continuation. The societies require government recognition if they wish to enjoy legal rights. The state (law of the 15th of April 1896) imposed this condition in order to determine exactly the aims of the societies, and, while allowing them to give help to their sick, old or feeble members, or aid the families of deceased members, to forbid them to pay old-age pensions, lest they assumed burdens beyond their financial strength. Nevertheless, the majority of societies have not sought recognition, being suspicious of fiscal state intervention.
Co-operation, for the various purposes of credit, distribution, production and labor, has attained great development in Italy.
Co-o ra- Credit co-operation is represented by a special type of association known as Peoples Banks (Banche Popolari). They are not, as a rule, supported by workmen or peasants, but rather by small tradespeople, manufacturers and farmers. They perform a useful function in protecting their clients from the cruel usury which prevails, especially in the south. A recent form of co-operative credit banks are the Casse Rurali or rural banks, on the Raffeisen system, which lend money to peasants and small proprietors out of capital obtained on credit or by gift. These loans are made on personal security, but the members of the bank do not contribute any quota of the capital, though their liability is unlimited in case of loss. They are especially widespread in Lombardy and Venetia.
Distributive co-operation is confined almost entirely to Piedmont, Liguria, Lombardy, Venetia, Emilia and Tuscany, and is practically unknown in Basilicata, the Abruzzi and Sardinia.
Co-operative dairies are numerous. They have, however, much decreased in number since 1889. More numerous are the agricultural and viticultural co-operative societies, which have largely increased in number. They are to be found mainly in the fertile plains of north Italy, where they enjoy considerable success, removing the cause of labor troubles and strikes, and providing for cultivation on a sufficiently large scale. The richest, however, of the co-operative societies, though few in number, are those for the production of electricity, for textile industries and for ceramic and glass manufactures.
Co-operation in general is most widely diffused, in proportion to population, in central Italy; less so in northern Italy, and much less so in the south and the islands. It thus appears that co-operation flourishes most in the districts in which the mezzadria system has been prevalent.
Railways
The first railway in Italy, a line I6 m. long from Naples to Casteilammare, was opened in 1840. By i881 there were some 5500 m. open, in 1891 some 8000 rn. while in 1901 the total length was 9317 rn. In July 1905 all the principal lines, which had been constructed by the state, but had been since 1885 let out to three companies (Mediterranean, Adriatic, Sicilian), were taken over by the state; their length amounted in 1901 to 6147 m., and in f 907 to 8422 m. The minor lines (many of them narrow gauge) remain in the hands of private companies. The total length, including the Sardinian railways, was 10,368 m. in 1907. The state, in taking over the Failways, did not exercise sufficient care to see that the lines and the rolling stock were kept up to a proper state of efficiency and adequacy for the work they had t,o perform; while the step itself was taken somewhat hastily. The result was that for the first two years of state administration the service was distinctly bad, and the lack of goods trucks at the ports was especially felt. A capital expenditure of 1/24,000,000 annually was decided on to bring the lines up to the necessary state of efficiency to be able to cope with the rapidly increasing traffic. It was estimated in 1906 that this would have to be maintained for a period of ten years, with a further total expenditure of 1/21 4,000,000 on new lines.
Comparing the state of things in 1901 with that of 1881, for the whole country, we find the passenger and goods traffic almost doubled (except the cattle traffic), the capital expenditure almost doubled, the working expenses per mile almost imperceptibly increased, and tI~ gross receipts per mile slightly lower. The personnel had increased from 70,568 to 108,690. The construction of numerous unremunerative lines, and the free granting of concessions to government and other employees (and also of cheap tickets on special occasions for congresses, &c., in various towns, without strict inquiry into the qualifications of the claimants) will account for the failure to realize a higher profit. The fares (in slow trains, with the addition of 10 ~/ for expenses) are: 1st class, I ~85d.; 2nd, I3d.; 3rd, o725d. per mile. There are, however, considerable reductions for distances over 93 m., on a scale increasing in proportion to the distance.
The taking over of the main lines by the state has of course produced a considerable change in the financial situation of the railways. The state incurred in this connection a liability of some 1/22o,ooo,000, of which about 1/2I6,00o,000 represented the rolling stock. The state has considerably improved the engines and passenger carriages. The capital value of the whole of the lines, rolling stock, &c., for 1 9081909 was calculated approximately at 1/2244,f 61,400, and the profits at 1/25,295,019, or 22%.
Milan 4s the most important railway centre in the country, and is followed by Turin, Genoa, Verona, Bologna, Rome, Naples. Lombardy and Piedmont are much better provided with railways in proportion to their area than any other parts of Italy; next come Venetia, Emilia and the immediate environs of Naples.
The northern frontier is crossed by the railway from Turin to Ventimiglia by the Col di Tenda, the Mont Cenis line from Turin to Modane (the tunnel is 7 m. in length), the Simplon line (tunnel II m. in length) from Domodossola to Brigue, the St Gotthard from Milan to Chiasso (the tunnel is entirely in Swiss territory), the Brenner from Verona to Trent, the line from Udine to Tarvis and the line from Venice to Triest by the Adriatic coast. Besides these international lines the most important are those from Milan to Turin (via Vercelli and via Alessandria), to Genoa via Tortona, to Bologna via Parma and Modena, to V~rona, and the shorter lines to the district of the lakes of Lombardy; from Turin to Genoa via Savona and via Alessandria; from Genoa to Savona and Ventimiglia along the Riviera, and along the south-west coast of Italy, via Sarzana (whence a line runs to Parma) to Pisa (whence lines run to Pistoia and Florence) and Rome; from Verona to Modena, and to Venice via Padua; from Bologna to Padtia, to Rimini (and thence along the north-east coast via Ancona, Castellammare Adriatico and Foggia to Brindisi and Otranto), and to Florence and Rome; from Rome to Ancona, to Castellammare Adriatico and to Naples; from Naples to Foggia, via Metaponto (with a junction for Reggio di Calabria), to Brindisi and to Reggio di Calabria. (For the Sicilian and Sardinian lines, see SICILY and SARDINIA.) The speed of the trains is not high, nor are the runs without stoppage long as a rule. One of the fastest runs is from Rome to Orte, 52-40 m. in 69 mm., or 454o m. per hour, but this is a double line with little traffic. The low speed reduces the potentiality of the lines. The insufficiency of rolling stock, and especially of goods wagons, is mainly caused by delays in handling traffic consequent on this or other causes, among which may be mentioned the great length ofthe single lines south of Rome. It is thus a matter of difficulty to provide trucki for a stidden emergency, e.g. the vintage season; and in 1905-1907 complaints were rnany,~ while the seaports were continually short o~ trucks. This led to deficiencies in the supply of coal to the manufacturing centres, and to some diversion elsewhere of shipping.
Steam and Electric Tramways
Tramways with mechanical traction have developed rapidly. Between 1875, when the first lila was opened, and 1901, the length of the lines grew to 1890 m. 0~ steam and 270 rn. of electric tramways. These lines exist principally in Lombardy (especially in the province of Milan), in Piedmont, especially in the province of Turin, and in other regions of northern and central Italy. In the south they are rare, on account partly of the mountainous character of the country, and partly of the scarcity of traffic. All the important towns of Italy are provided with internal electric tramways, mostly with overhead wires.
Carriage-roads have been greatly extended in modern times, although their ratio to area varies in different localities. In north Italy there are 1480 yds. of road per sq. m.; in central Italy 993; in southern Italy 405; in Sardinia 596, and in Sicily only 244. They are as a rule well kept up in north and central Italy, less so in the south, where, especially in Calabria, many villages are inaccessible by road and have only footpaths leading to them. By the act of 1903 the state contributes half and the province a quarter of the cost of roads connecting communes with the nearest railway stations or landing places.
Inland Navigation
Navigable canals had in 1886 a total length of abput 655 m.; they are principally situated in Piedmont, Lombardy and Venetia, and are thus practically confined to the P0 basin. Canals lead from Milan to the Ticino, Adda and P0. The P0 is itself navigable from Turin downwards, but through its delta it is so sandy that canals are preferred, the P0 di Volano ~.nd the P0 di Primaro on the right, and the Canale Bianco on the left. The total length of navigable rivers is 967 m.
Posts, Telegraphs and Telephones
The number of post offices (including collettorie, or collecting offices, which are rapidly being eliminated) increased from 2200 in 1862 to 4823 in 1881, 6700 in I891 and 8817 in 1904. In spite of a large increase in the number of letters and post cards (i.e. nearly 10 per inhabitant per annum in 1904, as against 5-65 in 1888) the average is considerably below that of,most other European countries. The number of state telegraph offices was 4603, of other offices (railway and tramway stations, which accept private telegrams for transmission) 1930. The telephone system is considerably developed; in 1904, 92 urban and 66 inter - urban systems existed. They were installed by private companies, but have been taken over by the state. International communication between Rome and Paris, and Italy and Switzerland also exists. The parcel post and money order services have largely increased since 1887--1888, the number of parcels having almost doubled (those for abroad are more than trebled), while the number of money orders issued is trebled and their value doubled (about 40,000,000). The value of the foreign orders paid in Italy increased from 1,280,000 to ~2,356,oo0owing to the increase of emigration and of the savings sent home by emigrants.
At the end of 1907 Italy was among the few Countries that had not adopted the reduction of postage sanctioned at the Postal Union congress, held in Rome in 1906, by which the rates became 23/4d. for the first oz., and i3/4d. per oz. afterwards. The internal rate is 15c. (i3/4d.) per 3/4 oz.; post-cards foe. (1d.), reply I5c. On the other hand, letters within the postal district are only 5c. (id.) per 3/4 oz. Printed matter is 2c. (Id.) per 50 grammes (s3/4 oz.). The regulations provide that if there is a greater weight of correspondence (including bookpackets) than 13/4 lb for any individual by any one delivery, notice shall be given him that it is lying at the post office, he being then obliged to arrange for fetching it. Letters insured for a fixed sum are not delivered under any circumstances.
Money order cards are very convenient and cheap (up to 10 lire for bc. short private message can be written on them. Owing to the comnaratively small amount of letters, it is found possible to have a travelling post office on all principal trains (while almost every train has a travelling sorter, for whom a compartment is reserved) without a late fee being exacted in either case. In the principal towns letters may be posted in special boxes at the head office just before the departure of any given mail train, and are conveyed direct to the travelling post office. Another convenient arrangement is the provision of letter-boxes on electric tramcars in some cities.
Mercantile Marine
Between the years i88i and 1905 the number of ships entered and cleared at Italian ports decreased slightly (219,598 in 1881 and 208,737 in 1905), while their aggregate tonnage increased (32,070,704 in 1881 and 80,782,030 in 1905). In the movement of shipping, trade with foreign countries prevails (especially as regards arrivals) over trade between Italian ports. Must of the merchandise and passengers bound for and hailing from foreign ports sail under foreign flags. Similarly, foreign vessels prevail over Italian vessels in regard to goods embarked. European countries absorb the greater part of Italian sea-borne trade, whereas most of the passenger traffic goes to North and South America. The substitution of steamships for sailing vessels has brought about a diminution in the number of vessels belonging to the Italian mercantile marine, whether employed in the coasting trade, the fisheries or in traffic on the high seas. Thus:
Total Steamships. Sailing Vessels.
Year. No: of Number. Tonnage Number. Tonnage Ships. (Net). (Net)._
i881 7815 176 93,698 7,639 895,359
1905 5596 513 462,259 5,083 570,355
Among the steamers the increase has chiefly taken plac in vessels of more than 1000 tons displacement, but the number of large sailing vessels has also increased. The most important Italian ports are (in order): Genoa, Naples, Palermo, Leghorn, Messina, Venice, Catania.. .
Foreign Trade
Italian trade with foreign countries (imports and exports) during the quinquennium 1872-1876 averaged 94,000,000 a year; in the quinquennium 1893f 897 it fell to 88,960,000 a year. In 1898, however, the total rose to 104,680,000, but the increase was principally due to the extra importation of corn in that year. In 1899 it was nearly 120,000,000. Since 1899 there has been a steady increase both in imports and exports. Thus: Trade with Foreign Countries in 1000
(exclusive of Precious Metals).i Year.
Excess of Totals. Imports. Exports. Imports over Exports.
1871 81,966 38,548 43,418 4,870
1881 96,208 49,587 46,621 2,966
1891 80,135 45,063 35,072 9,991
1900 121,538 68,009 53.529 14,480
1904 140,437 76,549 63,888 12,661
1 No account has here been taken of fluctuations of exchange.
The great extension of Italian coast-line is thought by some to be not really a source of strength to the Italian mercantile marine, as few of the ports have a large enough hinterland to provide them with traffic, and in this hinterland (except in the basin of the Po) there are no canals or navigable rivers. Another source of weakness is the fact that Italy is a country of transit and the Italian mercantile marine has to enter into competition with the ships of other countries, which call there in passing. A third difficulty is the comparatively small tonnage and volume of Italian exports relatively to the imports, the former in 1907 being about one-fourth of the latter, and greatl out of proportion to the relative value; while a fourth is the lac of facilities for handling goods, especially in the smaller ports.
The total imports for the first six months of 1907 amounted to 57,840,000, an increase of 7,520,000 as compared with the corresponding period of 1906. The exports for the corresponding period amounted to 35,840,000, a diminution of 1,520,000 as compared with the corresponding period of 1906. The diminution was due to a smaller exportation of raw silk and oil. The countries with which this trade is mainly carried on are: (imports) United Kingdom, Germany, United States, France, Russia and India; (exports) Switzerland, United States, Germany, France, United Kingdom and Argentina.
The most important imports are minerals, including coal and metals (both in pig and wrought); silks, raw, spun and woven; stone, potters earths, earthenware and glass; corn, flour and farinaceous products; cotton, raw, spun and woven; and live stock. The principal exports are silk and cotton tissues, live stock, wines, spirits and oils; corn, flour, macaroni and similar products; and minerals, chiefly sulphur. Before the tariff reform of 1887 manufactured articles, alimentary products and raw materials for manufacture held the principal places in the imports. In the exports, alimentary products came first, while raw materials for manufacture and manufactured articles were of little account. The transformation of Italy from a purely agricultural into a largely industrial country is shown by the circumstance that trade in raw stuffs, semimanufactured and manufactured materials, now preponderates over that in alimentary products and wholly-manufactured articles, both the importation of raw materials and the exportation of manufactured articles having increased. The balance of Italian trade has undergone frequent fluctuations. The large predominance of imports over exports after 1884 was a result of the falling off of the export trade in live stock, olive oil and wine, on account of the closing of the French market, while the importation of corn from Russia and the Balkan States increased considerably. In 1894 the excess of imports over exports fell to 2,720,000, but by 1898 it had grown to 8,391,000, in consequence chiefly of the increased importation of coal, raw cotton and cotton thread, pig and cast iron, old iron, grease and oil-seeds for use in Italian industries. In 1899 the excess of imports over exports fell to 3,006,000; but since then it has never been less than 12,000,000,
Education
Public instruction in Italy is regulated by the state, which maintains public schools of every grade, and requires that other public schools shall conform to the rules of the state schools. No private person may open a school without state authorization. Schools may be classed thus:
I. Elementary, of two grades, of the lower of which there must legally be at least one for boys and one for girls in each commune; while the upper grade elementary school is required in communes having normal and secondary schools or over 4000 inhabitants. In both the instruction is free They are maintained by the communes, sometimes with state help.
The age limit is six to nine years for the lower grade, and up to twelve for the higher grade, attendance being obligatory at the latter also where it exists. 2. Secondary instruction (i.) classical in the ginnasi and licei, the latter leading to the universities; (ii.) technical. 3. Higher educationuniversities, higher institutes and special schools.
Of the secondary and higher educatory methods, in the normal schools and licei the state provides for the payment of the staff and for scientific material, and often largely supports the ginnasi and technical schools, which should by law be supported by the communes. The universities are maintained by the state and by their own ancient resources; while the higher special schools are maintained conjointly by the state, the province, the commune and (sometimes) the local chamber of commerce.
The number of persons unable to read and write has gradually decreased, both absolutely and in proportion to the number of inhabitants. The census of 1871 gave 73% of illiterates, that of 1881, 67%, and that of 1901, 56%, i.e. 5r8 for males and 60.8 for females. In Piedmont there were 17.7% of illiterates above six years (the lowest) and in Calabria 78.7% (the highest), the figures for the whole country being 48~5. As might be expected, progress has been most rapid wherever education, at the moment of national unification, was most widely diffused. For instance, the number of bridegrooms unable to write their names in 1872 was in the province of Turin 26%, and in the Calabrian province of Cosenza 90%; in 1899 the percentage in the province of Turin had fallen to 5%, while in that of Cosenza it was still 76%. Infant asylums (where the first rudiments of instruction are imparted to children between two and a half and six years of age) and elementary schools have increased in number. There has been a corr~2sponding increase in the number of scholars. Thus: Infant Asylums Daily Elementary Schools (Public and Private). (Public and Private).
Year.
Number of Number of Number of Number of Asylums. Scholars. Schoolrooms. Scholars.
188586 2083 240,365 53,628 2,252,898
189o91 2296 278,204 57,077 2,418,692
19o102 3314 355,594 61,777 2,733,349
The teachers in 1901-1902 numbered 65,739 (exclusive of 576 non-teaching directors and 322 teachers of special subjects) or about 415 scholars per teacher.
The rate of increase in the public state-supported schools has been much greater than in the private schools. School buildings have been improved and the qualifications of teachers raised. Nevertheless, many schools are still defective, both from a hygienic and a teaching point of view; while the economic position of the elementary teachers, who in Italy depend upon the communal administrations and not upon the state, is still in many parts of the country extremely low.
The law of 1877 rendering education compulsory for children between six and nine years of age has been the principal cause of the spread of elementary education. The law is, however, imperfectly enforced for financial reasons. In 1901-1902 only 65% out of the whole number of children between six and nine years of age were registered in the lower standards of the elementary and private schools. The evening schools have to some extent helped to spread education. Their number and that of their scholars have, however, decreased since the withdrawal of state subsidies. In 1871-1872 there were 375,947 scholars at the evening schools and 154,585 at the holiday schools, while in 1900-1901 these numbers had fallen to 94,510 and 35,460 respectively. rhese are, however, the only institutions in which a decrease is shown, and by the law of 1906 5000 of these institutions are to be provided in the communes where the proportion of illiterates is highest. In 1895 they numbered 4245, with 138,181 scholars. Regimental schools impart elementary education to illiterate soldiers. Whereas the levy of 1894 showed 40% of the recruits to be completely illiterate, only 27% were illiterate when the levy was discharged in 1897. Private institutions and working-class associations have striven to improve the intellectual conditions of the working classes. Popular universities have lately attained considerable development. The number of institutes devoted to secondary education remained almost unchanged between 1880-1881 and 1895-1896. In some places the number has even been diminished by the suppression of private educational institutes. But the number of scholars has considerably increased, and shows a ratio superior to the general increase of the population. The greatest increase has taken place in technical educarion, where it has been much more rapid than in classical education. There are three higher commercial schools, with academic rank, at Venice, Genoa and Ban, and eleven secondary commercial schools; and technical and commercial schools for women at Florence and Milan. The number of agricultural schools has also grown, although the total is relatively small when compared with population. The attendance at the various classes of secondary schools in 1882 and 1902 is shown by the following table:
1882.1902. No. of Schools.
Ginnasi Government 13,875 24,081 192
On an equal footing with govern ment schools 6,417 7,208 76&
Not on such a footing - - - 22,609 24,85oi 442
Total. - - 42,811 56,139 710
Technical schools Government 7,510 30,411 188
Onanequalfooting - - - - 8,653 12,055 101
Not on such a footing. - 8,670 3,623i 106
Total. .. 24,833 46,089 395
Licei Government 6,623 10,983 121
On an equal footing -.. 1,167 1,955 33
Notonsuchafooting. .. 4,600 4,9621 187
Total. .. 12,390 17,900 341
Technical institutes Government 5,555 9,654 54
On an equal footing. .. i,684 1,898 18
Not on such a footing... 619 378i 7
Total. .. 7,858 11,930 79
Na,ptical institutes Uovernment 758 1,878 18
On an equal footing - -. 69 38 I
Notonsuchafooting. - - - 13 29i I
Total.. - 816, 1,945 20
i 1896.
The schools which do not obtain equality with government schools are either some of those conducted by religious orders, or else those in which a sufficient standard is not reached. The total number of such schools was, in 1896, 742 with 33,813 pupils.
The pupils of the secondary schools reach a maximum of 6~6o per 1000 in Liguria and 5~92 in Latium, and a minimum of 2.30 in the Abruzzi, 227 in Calabria and 1.65 in Basilicata.
For the boarding schools, or convilli, there are only incomplete reports except f or the institutions directly dependent on the ministry of public instruction, which are comparatively few. The rest are largely directed by religious institutions. In 1895-1896 there were 919 convitti for boys, with 59,066 pupils, of which 40, with 3814 pupils, were dependent on the ministry (in 1901f 902 there were 43 of these with 4036 pupils); and 1456 for girls, with 49,367 pupils, of which only 8, with about 6oo pupils, were dependent on the ministry.
The scuole normali or training schools (117 in number, of which 75 were government institutions) for teachers had 1329 male students in I 9011902, showing hardly any increase, while the female students increased from 8oo~ in 1882-1883 to 22,316 in 1895-1896, but decreased to 19,044 ifl 1901-1902, owing to the admission of women to telegraph and telephone work. The female secondary schools in 1881-1882 numbered 77, of which 7 were government institutions, with 3569 pupils; in 1901f 902 there were 233 schools (9 governmental) with 9347 pupils.
The total attendance of students in the various faculties at the different universities and higher institutes is as follows:
1882.1902.
Law 4,801 8,385
Philosophy and letters - - -, 419 1,703
Medicine and surgery - - - 4,428 9,055
Professional diploma, pharmacy 798 3,290
Mathematics and natural science - 1,364 3,500
Engineering 982 1,293
Agriculture 45 507
Commerce - - 128 167
Total - 13,065 27,900
Thus a large all-round increase in secondary and higher education is shownsatisfactory in many respects, but showing that more young men devote themselves to the learned professions (especially to the law) than the economic condition of the country will justify. There are 21 universitiesBologna, Cagliari, Camerino, Catania, Ferrara,Genoa,Macerata, Messina, Modena, Naples, Padua, Palermo, Parma, Pavia, Perugia, Pisa, Rome, Sassari, Siena, Turin, Urbino, of which Camerino, Ferrara, Perugia and Urbino are not state institutions; university courses are also given at Aquila, Ban and Catanzaro. Of these the most frequented in 1904-1905 were: Naples (4745), Turin (3451), Rome (2630), Bologna (1711), Pavia (1559), Padua (1364), Genoa (1276), and the least frequented, Cagliari (254), Siena (235) and Sassari (200). The professors are ordinary and extraordinary, and free professors (liberi docenti), corresponding to the German Privatdozenten, are also allowed to be attached to the universities.
The institutions which co-operate with the universities are the special schools for engineers at Turin, Naples, Rome and Bologna (and others attached to some of the universities), the higher technical institute at Milan, the higher veterinary schools of Milan, Naples and Turin, the institute for higher studies at Florence (Istituto di studi superiori, pratici e di perfezionamento), the literary and scientific academy of Milan, the higher institutes for the training of female teachers at Florence and Rome, the Institute of Social Studies at Florence, the higher commercial schools at Venice, Ban and Genoa, the commercial university founded by L. Bocconi at Milan in 1902, the higher naval school at Genoa, the higher schools of agriculture at Milan and Portici, the experimental institute at Perugia, the school of forestry at Vallambrosa, the industrial museum at Turin. The special secondary institutions, distinct from those already reckoned under the universities and allied schools, include an Oriental institute at Naples with 243 pupils; 34 schools of agriculture with (1904-1905) 1925 students; 2 schools of mining (at Caltanisetta and Iglesias) with (1904-1905) 83 students; 308 industrial and commercial schools with (1903-1904) 46,411 students; 174 schools of design and moulding with (1898) 12,556 students; 13 government fine art institutes (1904-1905) with 2778 students and 13 nongovernment with 1662 students; 5 government institutes of music with 1026 students, and 51 non-government with 4109 pupils (1904-1905). Almost all of these show a considerable increase.
Libraries are numerous in Italy, those even of small cities being often rich in manuscripts and valuable works. Statistics collected in 1893-1894 and 1896 revealed the existence of 1831 libraries, either private (but open to the public) or completely public. The public libraries have been enormously increased since 1870 by the incorporation of the treasures of suppressed monastic institutions. The richest in manuscripts is that of the Vatican, especially since the purchase of the Barberini Library in 1902; it now contains over 34,000 MSS. The Vatican archives are also of great importance. Most large towns contain important state or communal archives, iii which a considerable amount of research is being done by local investigators; the various societies for local history (Societd di Storia Patria) do very good work and issue valuable publications; the treasures which the archives contain are by no means exhausted. Libraries and archives are under the superintendence of the Ministry of Public Instruction. A separate department of this ministry under a director-general has the charge of antiquities and fine arts, making archaeological excavations and supervising those undertaken by private persons (permission to foreigners, even to foreign schools, to excavate in Italy is rarely granted), and maintaining the numerous state museums and picture galleries. The exportation of works of art and antiquities from Italy without leave of the ministry is forbidden (though it has in the past been sometimes evaded). An inventory of those subjects, the exportation of which can in no case be permitted, has been prepared; and the ministry has at its disposal a fund of 200,000 for the purchase of important works of art of al] kinds.
Charities
In Italy there is no legal right in the poor to be supported by the parish or commune, nor any obligation on the commune to relieve the poorexcept in the case of forsaken children and the sick poor. Public charity is exercised through the permanent charitable foundations (opere pie), which are, however, very unequally distributed in the different provinces. The districts of Italy which show between 1881 and 1903 the greatest increase of new institutions, or of gifts to old ones, are Lombardy, Piedmont, Liguria, while Sardinia, Calabria and Basilicata stand lowest, Latium standing comparatively low.
The patrimony of Italian charitable institutions is considerable and is constantly increasing. In 188o the number of charitable institutions (exclusive of public pawnshops, or Monti di Piet, and other institutions which combine operations of credit with charity) was approximately 22,000, with an aggregate patrimony of nearly 80,000,000. The revenue was about 3,600,000; after deduction of taxes, interest on debts, expenses of management, &c., 2,080,000. Adding to this 1,240,000 of communal and provincial subsidies, the product of the labor of inmates, temporary subscriptions, &c., the net revenue available for charity was, during i88o, 3,860,000. Of this sum 260,000 was spent for religious purposes. Between 1881 and 1905 the bequests to existing institutions and sums left for the endowment of new institutions amounted to about 16,604,600.
Charitable institutions take, as a rule, the two forms of outdoor and indoor relief and attendance. The indoor institutions are the more important in regard to endowment, and consist of hospitals for the infirm (a number of these are situated at the seaside); of hospitals for chronic and incurable diseases; of orphan asylums; of poorhouses and shelters for beggars; of infant asylums or institutes for the first education of children under six years of age; of lunatic asylums; of homes for the deaf and dumb; and of institutes for the blind. The outdoor charitable institutions include those which distribute help in money or food; those which supply medicine and medical help; those which aid mothers unable to rear their own children; those which subsidize orphans and foundlings; those which subsidize educational institutes; and those which supply marriage portions. Between 1881 and 1898 the chief increases took place in the endowments of hospitals; orphan asylums; infant asylums; poorhouses; almshouses; voluntary workhouses; and institutes for the blind. The least creditably administered of these are the asylums for abandoned infants; in I887, of a total of 23,913, 53.77% died; while during the years 1893-1896 (no later statistics are available) of 117,970 51.72% died. The average mortality under one year for the whole of Italy in 1893I 896 was only 16-66%.
Italian charity legislation was reformed by the laws of 1862 and 1890, which attempted to provide efficacious protection for endowments, and to ensure the application of the ir.come to the purposes for which it was intended. The law considers as charitable institutions (opere pie) all poorhouses, almshouses and institutes which partly or wholly give help to able-bodied or infirm paupers, or seek to improve their moral and economic condition; and also the Congregazioni di caritd (municipal charity boards existing in every commune, and composed of ~embers elected by the municipal council), which administer funds destined for the poor in general. All charitable institutions were under the protection of provincial administrative junta, existing in every province, and empowered to control the management of charitable endowments. The supreme control was vested in the minister of the Interior. The law of 1890 also empowers every citizen to appeal to the tribunals on behalf of the poor, for whose benefit a given charitable institution may have been intended. A more recent law provides for the formation of a central body, with provincial commissions under it. Its effect, however, has been comparatively small.
Public pawnshops or Monti di piet numbered 555 in 1896, with a net patrimony of 2,879,625. In that year their income, including revenue from capital, was 416,385, and their expenditure 300,232. The amount lent on security was 4,153,229.
The Monti frumentarii or co-operative corn deposits, which lend seed corn to farmers, and are repaid after harvest with interest in kind, numbered f615 in 1894, and possessed apatrimonyof~24o,ooo.
In addition to the regular charitable institutions, the communal and provincial authorities exercise charity, the former (in 1899) to the extent of 1,827,166 and the latter to the extent of 919,832 per annum. Part of these sums is given to hospitals, and part spent directly by the communal and provincial authorities. Of the sum spent by the communes, about 1/2 goes for the sanitary service (doctors, midwives, vaccination), 3/4 for the maintenance of foundlings, i11 for the support of the sick in hospitals, and I~1 for sheltering the aged and needy. Of the sum spent by the provincial authorities, over half goes to lunatic asylums and over a quarter to the maintenance of foundling hospitals. -
Religion
The great majority of Italians97 ~I2%are Roman Catholics. Besides the ordinary Latin rite, several others are recognized. The Armenians of Venice maintain their traditional characteristics. The Albanians of the southern provinces still employ the Greek rite and the Greek language in their public worship, and their priests, like those of the Greek Church, are allowed to marry. Certain peculiarities introduced by St Ambrose distinguish the ritual of Milan from that of the general church. Up to 1871 the island of Sicily was, according to the bull of Urban II., ecclesiastically dependent on the king, and exempt from the canonical power of the pope.
Though the territorial authority of the papal see was practically abolished in 1870, the fact that Rome is the seat of the administrative centre of the vast organization of the church is not without significance to the nation. In the same city in which the administrative functions of the body politic are centralized there stifi exists the court of the spiritual potentate which in 1879 consisted of 1821 persons. Protestants number some 65,000, of whom half are Italian and half foreign. Of the former 22,500 are Waldensians. The number of Jews was returned as 36,000, but is certainly higher. There are, besides, in Italy some 2500 members of the Greek Orthodox Church. There were in 1901 20,707 parishes in Italy, 68,444 secular clergy and 48,043 regulars (monks, lay brothers and nuns). The size of parishes varies from province to province, Sicily having larger parishes in virtue of the old Sicilian church laws, and Naples, and some parts of central Italy, having the smallest. The Italian parishes had in 1901 a total gross revenue, including assignments from the public worship endowment fund, of 1,280,000 or an average of 63 per parish; 51% of this gross sum consists of revenue from glebe lands.
The kingdom is divided into 264 sees and ten abbeys, or prelatures ni4lius dioceseos. The dioceses are as follows:
A. 6 suburbicarian seesOstia and Velletri, Porto and Sta Rufina, Albano, Frascati, Palestrina, Sabinaall held by cardinal bishops.
B. 74 sees immediately subject to the Holy See, of which 12 are archiepiscopal and 61 episcopal.
C. 37 ecclesiastical provinces, each under a metropolitan, cornposed of 148 suifragan dioceses. Their position is indicated in the following table:
Metro politans. Suifragans.
Acerenza-Matera -. Anglona-Tursi, Tricarico, Venosa.
Ban Conversano, Ruvo-Bitonto.
Benevento. ... S. Agata de Goti, Alife, Ariano, Ascoli Satriano Cerignola, Avellino, Bojano, Bovino, Larino, Lucera, S. Severo, Telese (Cerreto), Termoli.
Bologna Faenza, Imola. Brindisi and Ostuni.. No suifragan.
Cagliani Galtelli-Nuoro, Iglesias, Ogliastra.
Capua Caiazzo, Calvi-Teano, Caserta, IserniaVenafro, Sessa.
Chieti and Vasto. .. No suffragan.
Conza and Campagna. S. Angelo de Lombardi-Bisaccia, Lacedonia, Muro Lucano.
Fermo Macerata-Tolentino, Montalto, Ripatransone, S. Severino.
Florence Borgo S. Sepoicro, Colle di Val dElsa, Fiesole, S. Miniato, Modigliana, PistoiaPrato.
Genoa Albenga, Bobbio, Chiavari, Savona-Noli, Tortona, Ventimiglia.
Lanciano and Ortona. No suifragan. Manfredonia and Viesti. No suifragan.
Messina Lipari; Nicosia, Patti.
~Iilan Bergamo, Brescia, Como, Crema, Cremona, Lodi, Mantua, Pavia.
Modena Carpi, Guastalla, Massa-Carrara, Reggio.
Monreale Caltanisetta, Girgenti.
Naples Acerra, Ischia, Nola, Pozzuoli.
Otranto Gallipoli, Lecce, Ugento.
Palerrno Cefal, Mazzara, Trapani.
Pisa Leghorn, Pescia, Pontremoli, Volterra.
Ravenna Bertinoro, Cervia, Cesena, Comacchio, Foril, Rirnini, Sarsina.
Reggio Calabria. .. Bova, Cassano, Catanzaro, Cotrone, Gerace, Nicastro, Oppido, NicoteraTropea, Squillace.
Salerno Acerno, Capaccio-Vallo, Diano, MarsicoNuovo and Potenza, Nocera dci Pagani, Nusco, Policastro.
Sassari Alghero, Ampurias and Tempio, Bisarhio, Boss.
S. Sevenino. ... Cariati.
Siena Chiusi-Pienza,Grosseto,MassaMai-ittima,, Sovana-Pitigliano.
Syracuse Caltagirone, Noto, Piazza-Armerina.
Sorrento Castellammare.
Taranto Castellaneta, Onia.
Trani-Nazareth-Barletta, Bisceglie. ... Andria.
Turin Acqul, Alba, Aosta, Asti, Cuneo, Fossano, Ivrea, Mondovi,Pinerolo, Saluzzo,Susa.
Urbino S. Angelo in Vado-Urbania, Cagli-Pergola, Fossombrone, Montefeltro, Pesaro, Sinigaglia.
Venice (patriarch) -. Adria, Belluno-Feltre, Ceneda (Vittorio), Chioggia, Concordia-Portogruaro.
- Padua, Treviso, Verona, Vicenza.
Vercelli Alessandria della Paglia, Biella, Casale, Mnnfprr,itn, Nnvsrs Vow~,~n Twelve archbishops and sixty-one bishops are independent of all metropolitan supervision, and hold directly of the Holy See. The archbishops are those of Amalfi, Aquila, Camerino and Treia, Catania, Cosenza, Ferrara, Gaeta, Lucca, Perugia, Rossano, Spoleto, and Udine, and the bishops those of Acireale, Acquapendente, Alatri, Amelia, Anagni, Ancona-Umana, Aquino-Sora-Pontecorvo, Arezzo, Ascoli, Assisi, Aversa, Bagnorea, Borgo San Donnino, Cava-Sarno, Citt di Castello, Citt della Pieve, Civit Castellana-Orte-Gallese, Corneto-Civita Vecchia~ Cortona, Fabriano-Matelica, Fano,Ferentino Foggia, Foligno, Gravina-Montepeloso, Gubbio, Jesi, Luni-Sarzana and Bragnato, S. Marco-Bisignano, Marsi (Pescina), Melfi-Rapolla Mileto, MoIf etta-Terlizzi-Giovennazzo,Monopoli,Montalcino,M ontefiascone, Montepulciano, Nardo, Narni, Nocera in Umbria, Norcia, Orvieto, Osimo-Cingoli, Parma, Penne-Atri, Piacenza, Poggio Mirteto, Recanati-Loreto, Rieti, Segni, Sutri-Nepi, Teramo, Terni, Terracina-Piperno-Sezze, Tjvoli, Todi, Tnivento, Troia, ValvaSulmona, Veroli, Viterbo-Toscanella. Excluding the diocese of Rome and suburbicarian sees, each see has an average area of 430 sq. m. and a population of f2f 285 souls. The largest sees exist in Venetia and Lombardy, and the smallest in the provinces of Naples, Leghorn, Forli, Ancona, Pesaro, Urbino, Caserta, Avellino and Ascoli. The Italian sees (exclusive of Rome and of the suburbicarian sees) have a total annual revenue of 206,000 equal to an average of 800 per see. The richest is that of Girgenti, with 6304, and the poorest that of Porto Maurizio, with only 246. In each diocese is a seminary or diocesan school.
In 1855 an act was passed in the Sardinian states for the disestablishment of all houses of the religious orders not engaged in preaching, teaching or the care of the sick, of all chapters of collegiate churches not having a cure of souls or existing ~ in towns of less than 20,000 inhabitants, and of all private ~ a benefices for which no service was paid by the holders. OIlS.
The property and money thus obtained were used to form an ecclesiastical fund (Cassa Ecclesiastica) distinct from the finances of the state. This act resulted in the suppression of 274 monasteries with 3733 friars, of 61 nunneries with 1756 nuns and of 2722 chapters and benefices. In 1860 and 1861 the royal commissioners (even before the constitution of the new kingdom of Italy had been formally declared) issued decrees by which there were abolished(f) in Umbria, 197 monasteries and 102 convents with 1809 male and 2393 female associates, and 836 chapters or benefices; (2) in the Marches, 292 monasteries and 127 convents with 2950 male and 2728 female associates; (3) in the Neapolitan provinces, 747 monasteries and 275 convents with 8787 male and 7493 female associates. There were thus disestablished in seven or eight years 2075 houses of the regular clergy occupied by 3I,649persons;andtheconfiscated property yielded a revenue of 398,298. And at the same time there had been suppressed 11,889 chapters and benefices of the secular clergy, which yielded an annual income of 109,149. The value of the capital thus potentially freed was estimated at 12,000,000; though hitherto the ecclesiastical possessions in Lombardy, Emilia. Tuscany and Sicily had been untouched. As yet the Cassa Ecclesiastica had no right to dispose of the property thus entrusted to it; but in 1862 an act was passed by which it transferred all its real property to the national domain, and was credited with a corresponding amount by the exchequer. The property could now be disposed of like the other property of the domain; and except in Sicily, where the system of emphyteusis was adopted, the church lands began to be sold by auction. To encourage the poorer classes of the people to become landholders, it was decided that the lots offered for sale should be small, and that the purchaser should be allowed to pay by five or ten yearly instalments. By a new act in 1866 the process of secularization was extended to the whole kingdom. All the members of the suppressed communities received full exercise of all the ordinary political and civil rights of laymen; and annuities were granted to all those who had taken permanent religious vows prior to the 18th of January 1864. To priests and choristers, for example, of the proprietary or endowed orders were assigned 24 per annum if they were upwards of sixty years of age, 16 if upwards of 40, and 14, 8s. if younger. The Cassa Ecclesiastica was abolished, and in its stead was instituted a Fondo pet Culto, or public worship fund. From the general confiscation were exempted the buildings actually used for public worship, as episcopal residences or seminaries, &c., or which had been appropriated to the use of schools, poorhouses, hospitals, &c.; as well as the buildings, appurtenances, and movable property of the abbeys of Monte Casino, Della Cava dci Tirreni, San Martino della Scala, Monneale, Certosa near Pavia, and other establishments of the same kind of importance as architectural or historical monuments. An annuity equal to the ascertained revenue of the suppressed institutions was placed to the credit of the fund in the government 5% consols. A fourth of this sum was to be handed to the communes to be employed on works of beneficence or education as soon as a surplus was obtained from that part of the annuity assigned for the payment of monastic pensions; and in Sicily, 209 communes entered on their privileges as soon as the patrimony was liquidated. Another act in 1867 decreed the suppression of certain foundations which had escaped the action of prev1ou~ measures, put an extraordinary tax of 30% on the whole of the patrimony of the church, and granted the government the right of z OL ~ ,,,,ftidpnf to hrim~ into th~ treasury i6oonooo.
which were to be accepted at their nominal value as purchase money for the alienated property. The public worship endowment fund has relieved the state exchequer of the cost of public worship; has gradually furnished to the poorer parish priests an addition to their stipends, raising them to 32 per annum, with the prospect of further raising them to 40; and has contributed to the outlay incurred by the communes for religious purposes. The monastic buildings required for public purposes have been made over to the communal and provincial authorities, while the same authorities have been entrusted with the administration of the ecclesiastical revenues previously set apart for charity and education, and objects of art and historical interest have been consigned to public libraries and museums. By these laws the reception of novices was forbidden in the existing conventual establishments the extinction of which had been decreed, and all new foundations were forbidden, except those engaged in instruction and the care of the sick. But the laws have not been rigorously enforced of late years; and the ecclesiastical possessions seized by the state were thrown on the market simultaneously, and so realized very low prices, being often bought up by wealthy religious institutions. The large number of these institutions was increased when these bodies were expelled from France.
On the 30th of June 1903 the patrimony of the endowment fund amounted to 17,339,040, of which only 264,289 were represented by buildings still occupied by monks or nuns. The rest was made up of capital and interest. The liabilities of the fund (capitalized) amounted to 10,668,105, of which monastic pensions represented a rapidly diminishing sum of 2,564,930. The chief items of annual expenditure drawn from the fund are the supplementary stipends to priests and the pensions to members of suppressed religious houses. The number of persons in receipt of monastic pensions on the 30th of June 1899 was 13,255; but while this item of expenditure will disappear by the deaths of those entitled to pensions, the supplementary stipends and contributions are gradually increasing. The following table shows the course of the two main categories of the fund from 1876 to 1902-1903:
1876.1885-1886.
Monastic pensions, liquidation of religious property and provision of shelter for nuns 749,172 491,339
Supplementary stipends to bishops and parochial clergy, assignments to Sardinian clergy and expenditure for education and charitable purposes - - 142,912 f28,52f Roman Charitable and Religious Fund.The law of the 19th of June 1873 contained special provisions, in conformity with the character of Rome as the seat of the papacy, and with the situation created by the Law of Guarantees. According to the census of 1871 there were in the city and province of Rome 474 monastic establishments (311 for monks, 163 for nuns), occupied by 4326 monks and 3825 nuns, and possessing a gross revenue of 4,780,89i lire. Of these, 126 monasteries and 90 convents were situated in the city, 51 monasteries and 22 convents in the suburbicariates. The law of 1873 created a special charitable and religious fund of the city, while it left untouched 23 monasteries and 49 convents which had either the character of private institutions or were supported by foreign funds. New parishes were created, old parishes were improved, the property of the suppressed religious corporations was assigned to charitable and educational institutions and to hospitals, while property having no special application was used to form a charitable and religious fund. On the 30th of June 1903 the balance-sheet of this fund showed a credit amounting to 1,796,120 and a debit of 460,819. Expenditure for the year 1902-1903 was 889,858 and revenue 818,674.
Constitution and Government .T he - Vatican palace itself twith St Peters), the Lateran palace, and the papal villa at Castel Gandolfo have secured to them the privilege of extraterritoriality by the law of 1871. The small republic of San Marino is the only other enclave in Italian territory. Italy is a constitutional monarchy, in which the executive power belongs exclusively to the sovereign, while the legislative power is shared by him with the parliament. He holds supreme command by land and sea, appoints ministers and officials, promulgates the laws, coins money, bestows honors, has the right of pardoning, and summons and dissolves the parliament. Treaties with foreign powers, however, must have the consent of parliament. The sovereign is irresponsible, the ministers, the signature of one of whom is required to give validity to royal decrees, being responsible. Parliament consists of two chambers, the senate and the Chamber of Deputies, which are nominally on an equal footing, though practically the elective chamber ~s the more important. The senate consists of princes of the blood who have attained their majority, and of an unlimited number of senators above forty years of age, who are qualified under any one of twenty-one specified categoriesby having either held high office, or attained celebrity in science, literature, &c. In 1908 there were 318 senators exclusive of five members of the royal family. Nomination is by the king for life. Besides its legislative functions, the senate is the highest court of justice in the case of political offences or the impeachment of ministers. The deputies to the lower house are 508 ih number, i.e. one to every 64,893 of the population, and all the constituencies are single-member constituencies. The party system is not really strong. The suffrage is extended to all citizens over twenty-one years of age who can read and write and have either attained a certain standard of elementary education or are qualified by paying a rent which varies from 6 in communes of 2500 inhabitants to 16 in communes of 15p,ooo inhabitants, or, if peasant farmers, I6s. of rent; or by being sharers in the profits of farms on which not less than 3, 4s. of direct (including provincial) taxation is paid; or by paying not less than 16 in direct (including provincial) taxation. Others, e.g. members of the professional classes, are qualified to vote by their position. The number of electors (2,541,327) at the general election in 1904 was 29% of the male population over twenty-one years of age, and 7~6% of the total population exclusive of those temporarily disfranchised on account of military service; and of these 627% voted. No candidate can be returned unless he obtains more than half the votes given and more than one-sixth of the total number on the register; otherwise a second ballot must be 1898-1899.19021903. held. Nor can he be returned under the age of thirty, and he must be qualified as an elector. All salaried 220,479 165,144 government officials (except minis ters, under-secretaries of state and other high functionaries, and officers 210,020 347,940 in the army or navy), and ecclesiastics, -, are disqualified for election. Senators and deputies receive no salary but have free passes on railways throughout Italy and on certain lines of steamers. Parliaments are quinquennial, but the king may dissolve the Chamber of Deputies at any time, being bound, however, to convoke a new chamber within four months. The executive must call parliament together annually. Each of the chambers has the right of introducing new bills, as has also the government; but all money bills must originate in the Chamber of Deputies. The consent of both chambers and the assent of the king is necessary to their being passed. Ministers may attend the debates of either house but can only vote in that of which they are members. The sittings of both houses are public, and an absolute majority of the members must be present to make a sitting valid. The ministers are eleven in number and have salaries of about Iooo each; the presidency of the council of ministers (created in 1889) may be held by itself or (as is usual) in conjunction with any other portfolio. The ministries are:
interior (under whom are the prefects of the several provinces), foreign affairs, treasury (separated from finance in 1889), finance, public works, justice and ecclesiastical affairs, war, marine, public instruction, commerce, industry and agriculture, posts and telegraphs (separated from public works in 1889). Each minister is aided by an under-secretary of state at a salary of 500. There is a council of state with advisory functions, which can also decide certain questions of administration, especially applications from local authorities and conflicts between ministries, and a court of accounts, which has the right of examining all details of state expenditure. In every country the bureaucracy is abused, with more or less reason, for Unprogressiveness, timidity and red-tape, and Italy is no exception to the rule. The officials are not well paid, and are certainly numerous; while the manifold checks and counterchecks have by no means always been sufficient to prevent dishonesty. -
Titles of Honor
The former existence of so many separate sovereignties and fountains of honor gave nse to a great many hereditary titles of nobility. Besides many hundreds of princes, dukes, marquesses, counts, barons and viscounts, there are a large number of persons of patrician rank, persons with a right to the designation nobile or signor-i, and certain hereditary knights or cavalieri. In the Golden Book of the Capitol (Li bro dOro del Cam fsidoglio) are inscribed 321 patrician families, and of these 28 have the title of prince and 8 that of duke, while the others are marquesses, counts or simply patricians. For the Italian orders of knighthood see KNIGHTHOOD AND CHIVALRY: Orders of Knighthood. The kings uncle is duke of Aosta, his son is prince of Piedmont and his cousin is duke of Genoa.
Justice
The judiciary system of Italy is mainly framed on the French model. Italy has courts of cassation at Rome, Naples, Palermo, Ttirin, Florence, 20 appeal court districts, I62 tribunal districts and 1535 mandamenti, each with its own magistracy (pretura). In 13 of the principal towns there are also pretori who have exclusively penal jurisdiction. For minor civil cases involving sums up to 100 lire (~4), giudici conciliator-i have also jurisdiction, while they may act as arbitrators up to any amount by request. The Roman court of cassation is the highest, and in both penal and civil matters has a right to decide questions of law and disputes between the lower judicial authorities, and is the only one which has jurisdiction in penal cases, while sharing with the others the right to revise civil cases.
The pretori have penal jurisdiction concerning all misdemeanours (contravvenzioni) or offences (delitti) punishable by imprisonment not exceeding three months or by fine not exceeding 1000 lire (~4o). The penal tribunals have jurisdiction in cases involving imprisonment up to ten years, or a fine exceeding 40, while the assize courts, with a jury, deal with offences involving imprisonment for life or over ten years, and have exclusive jurisdiction (except that the senate is on occasion a high court of justice) over all political offences. Appeal may be made from the sentences of the pretori to the tribunals, and from the tribunals to the courts of appeal; from the assize courts there is no appeal except on a point of form, which appeal goes to the court of cassation at Rome. This court has the supreme power in all questions of legality of a sentence, jurisdiction or competency.
The penal code was unified and reformed in 1890. A reform of late years is the cond~anna condizionale, equivalent to the English being bound over to appear for judgment if called upon, applied in 94,489 cases in 1907. In civil matters there is appeal from the giadice conciliatore to the pretore (who has jurisdiction up to a sum of 1500 lire =~6o), from the pretore to the civil tribunal, from the civil tribunal to the court of appeal, and from the court of appeal to the court of cassation.
The judges of all kinds are very poorly paid. Even the first president of the Rome court of cassation only receives f6o0 a year.
The statistics of civil proceedings vary considerably from province to province. Lombardy, with 25 lawsuits per 1000 inhabitants, holds the lowest place; Emilia comes next with 3! per 1000; Tuscany has 39; Venetia, 42; Calabria, 144; Rome, 146; Apulia, 153; and Sardinia, 360 per 1000. The high average in Sardinia is chiefly due to cases within the competence of the conciliation offices. The number of penal proceedings, especially those within the competence of praetors, has also increased,, chiefly on account of the frequency of minor contraventions of the law referred to in the section Crime. The ratio of criminal proceedings to population is, as a rule, much higher in the south than in the north.
A royal decree, dated February 1891, established three classes of prisons: judiciary prisons, for persons awaiting examination or persons sentenced to arrest, detention or seclusion for less than six months; penitentiaries of various kinds (ergastoli, case di reclusione, detenzione or custodia), for criminals condemned to long terms of imprisonment; and reformatories, for criminals under age and vagabonds. Capital punishment was abolished in 1877, penal servitude for life being substituted. This generally involves solitary confinement of the most rigorous nature, and, as little is done to occupy the mind, the criminal not infrequently becomes insane. Certain types of dangerous individuals are relegated after serving a sentence in the ordinary convict prisons, and by administrative, not by judicial process, to special penal colonies known as domicilii coatti or forced residences. These establishments are, however, unsatisfactory, being mostly situated on small islands, where it is often difficult to find work for the coatti, who are free by day, being only confined at night. They receive a small and hardly sufficient, allowance for food of 50 centesimi a day, which they are at liberty to supplement by work if they can find it or care to do it.
Notwithstanding the construction of new prisons and the transformation of old ones, the number of cells for solitary confinement is still insufficient for a complete application of the penal system established by the code of 1890, and the moral effect of the association of the prisoners is not good, though the system of solitary confinement as practised in Italy is little better. The total number of prisoners, including minors and inhabitants of enforced residences, which from 76,066 (284 per 1000 inhabitants) on the 31st of December 1871 rose to a maximum of 80,792 on the 31st of December 1879 (287 Der boo), decreased to a minimum of 60.621 in 1806 (T.on flPr 1000), and on the 31st of December 1898 rose again to 75,470 (2.38 per 1000), of whom 7038, less than one-tenth, were women. The lowness of the figures regarding women is to be noticed throughout. On the 31st of December 1903 it had decreased to 65,819, of which 6044 were women. Of these, 31,219 were in lockups, 25,145 in penal establishments, 1837 minors in government, and 4547 in private reformatories, and 307! (males) were inmates of forced residences.
Crime
Statistics of offences, including contravvenzioni or breaches of by-laws and regulations, exhibit a considerable increase per 100,000 inhabitants since 1887, and only a slight diminution on the figures of 1897. The figure was 1783.45 per 100,000 in 1887, 2I6446 in I892, 2546.49 in 1897, 2497.90 in 1902. The increase is partly covered by contravvenzioni, but almost every class of penal offence shows a rise except homicide, and even in that the diminution is slow, 5418 in 1880, 3966 in 1887, 4408 in 1892, 4005 in 1897, 3202 in 1902; and Italy remains, owing to the frequent use of the knife, the European country lit which it is most frequent. Libels, insults, &c., resistance to public authority, offences against good customs, thefts and frauds, have increased; assaults are nearly stationary. There is also an increase in juvenile delinquency. From 1890 to 1900 the actual number rose by one-third (from 30,108 to 43,684), the proportion to the rest of those sentenced from one-fifth to one-fourth; while in 1905 the actual number rose to 67,944, being a considerable proportionate rise also. In Naples, the Camorra and in Sicily, the Mafia are secret societies whose power of resistance to authority is still not inconsiderable.
- Procedure, both civil and criminal, is somewhat slow, and the preliminary proceedings before the juge dinstruction occupy much time; and recent murder trials, by the large number of witnesses called (including experts) and the lengthy speeches of counsel, have been dragged out to an unconscionable length. In this, as in the intervention of the presiding judge, the French system has been adopted; and it is said (e.g. by Nathan, Vent ann-i di vita -italiana, p. 241) thatthe efforts of the juge dinstruction are, as a rule, in fact, though not in law, largely directed to prove that the accused is guilty. In 1902 of 884,612 persons accused of penal offencs, 13.12% were acquitted during the period of the instruction, 30.31 by the courts, 46.32 condemned and the rest acquitted in some other way. This shows that charges, often involving preliminary imprisonment, are brought against an excessive proportion of persons who either are not or cannot be proved to be guilty. The courts of appeal and cassation, too, often have more than they can do; in the year 1907 the court of cassation at Rome decided 948 appeals on points of law in civil cases, while no fewer than 460 remained to be decided.
As in most civilized countries, the number of suicides in Italy has increased from year to year.
The Italian suicide rate of 63.6 per 1,000,000 is, however, lower than those of Denmark, Switzerland, Germany and France, while it approximates to that of England. The Italian rate is highest in the more enlightened and industrial north, and lowest in the south. Emilia gives a maximum rate of 10.48 per ioo,ooo, while that of Liguria and Lazio is little lower. The minimum of 1.27 is found in the Basilicata, though Calabria gives only 2.13. About 20% of the total are women, and there is an increase of nearly 3% since 1882 in the proportion of suicides qader twenty years of age.
Army
The Italian army grew o~it of the old Piedmontese army with which in the main the unification of Italy was brought about. This unification meant for the army the absorption of contingents from all parts of Italy and presenting serious differences in physical and moral aptitudes, political opinions and education. Moreover the strategic geography of the country required the greater part of the army to be stationed permanently within reach of the north-eastern and north-western frontiers. These conditions made a territorial system of recruiting or organization, as understood in Germany, practically impossible. To secure fairly uniform efficiency in the various corps, and also as a means of unifying Italy, Piedmontese, Umbrians and Neapolitans are mixed in the same corps and sleep in the same barrack room. But on leaving the colors the men disperse to their homes, and thus a regiment has, on mobilization, to draw largely on the nearest reservists, irrespective of the corps to which they belong. The remedy for this condition of affairs is sought in a most elaborate and artificial system, of transferring officers and men from one unit to another at stated intervals in peace-time, but this is no more than a palliative, and there are other difficulties of almost equal importance to be surmounted. Thus in Italy the universal service system, though probably the best organization both for the army and the nation, works with a maximum of friction. Army Reform, therefore, has been very much in the forefront of late years owing to the estrangement of Austria (whith power can mobilize much more ranidlv) himt finsy,cisl difficulties have hitherto stood in the way of any radical and far-reaching reforms, and even the proposals of the Commission of 1907, referred to below, have only been partially accepted.
The law of f875 therefore still regulates the principles of military service in Italy, though an important modification was made in 190719o8. By this law, every man liable and accepted for service served for eight or nine years on the Active Army and its Reserve (of which three to five were spent with the colors), four or, five in the Mobile Militia, and the rest of the service period of nineteen years in the Territorial Militia. Under present regulations the term of liability is divided into nine years in the Active Army and Reserve (three or two years with the colors) four in the Mobile MilitIa and six in the Territorial Militia. But these figures do not represent the actual service of every able-bodied Italian. Like almost all Universal Service countries, Italy only drafts a small proportion of the available recruits into the army.
The following table shows the operation of the law of 1875, with the figures of 1871 f or comparison:
30th Sept. 3oth June.
1871.1881.1891.1901
Officers 14,070 22,482 36,739 36,718
Men 521,969 1,833,554 2,821,367 3,330,202
ActingArmy & Reserve 536,039 731,149 843,160 734,401
Mobile ]\Iilitia 294,714 445,315 320,170
Territorial Militia.. - 823,970 1,553,784 2,275,631
Including officers on special service or in the reserve.
Thus, on the 30th of September 1871 the various categories of the army included only 2% of the population, but on the 30th of June 1898 they included 10%. But in 1901 the strength of the active army and reserve shows a marked diminution, which became accentuated in the year following. The table below indicates that up to 1907 the army, though always below its nominal strength, never absorbed more than a quarter of the available contingent.
1902.1903.1904.1906.
Liable 441,171 453,640 469,860 475,737
Physically unfit... 91,176 98,065 119,070 122,559
Struck off. ... 12,270 13,139 13,130 18,222
Failed to appear. 33,634 34,711 39,219 40,226
Put back for re-examina tion 108,835 108,618 107,173 122,205
Assigned to Territorial Militia and excused peace service.. - 92,952 96,916 94,136 87,032
Assigned to active army 102,204 102,141 97,132 87,493
Joined active army. - 88,666j 86,448 81,581 66,836
The serious condition of recruiting was quickly noticed, and the tabulation of each years results was followed by a new draft law, but no solution was achieved until a special commission assembled. The inquiries made by this body revealed an unsatisfactory condition in tile national defences, traceable in the main to financial exigencies, and as regards recruiting a new law was brought into force in 1 9071908.
One specially difficult point concerned the effectives of the peacestrength army. 1-litherto the actual time of training had been less than the nominal. The recruits due to join in November were not incorporated till the following March, and thus in the winter months Italy was defenceless. The army is always maintained at a low peace effective (about one-quarter of war establishment) and even this was reduced, by the absence of the recruits, until there were often only i~ rank and file with a company, whose war strength is about 230. Even in the summer and autumn a large proportion of the army consisted of men with but a few months servicea highly dangerous state of things considering the peculiar mobilization conditioss of the country. Furtherand this case no legislation can coverthe contingent, and (what is more serious) the reserves, are being steadily weakened by emigration. The increase in the numbers rejected as unfit is accounted for by the fact that if only a small proportion of the contingent can be taken for service, the medical standard of acceptance is high.
The new recriuting scheme of I907 re-established three categories of recruits, the 2nd category corresponding practically to the German Ersatz-Reserve. The men classed in it have to train for six months, and they are called up in the late summer to bridge the The 2nd category of the 1875 law had practically ceased to exist.
gap above mentioned. The new terms of service for the other categories have been already stated. In consequence, in 1908, of 490,000 liable, some I 10,000 actually joined for full training and 24,000 of the new 2nd category for short training, which contrasts very forcibly with the feeble embodiments of i906 and 1907. These changes threw a considerable strain on the finances, but the imminence of the danger caused their acceptance.
The peace strength under the new scheme is nominally 300,000, but actually (average throughout the year) about 240,000. The army is organized in 12 army corps (each of 2 divisions), 6 of which are quartered on the plain of Lombardy and Venetia and on the frontiers, and 2 more in northern Central Italy. Their headquarters are: I. Turin, II. Alessandria, III. Milan, IV. Genoa, V. Verona, VI. Bologna, VII. Ancona, VIII. Florence, IX. Rome, X. Naples, XI. Ban, XII. Palermo, Sardinian division Cagliari. In addition there are 22 Alpini battalions and 15 mountain batteries stationed on the Alpine frontiers.
The war strength was estimated in 1901 as, Active Army (md. Reserve) 750,000, Mobile Militia 320,000, Territorial Militia 2,300,000 (more than half of the last-named untrained). These figures are, with a fractional increase in the Regular Army, applicable to-day. When the 1907 scheme takes full effect, however, the Active Army and the Mobile Militia will each be augmented by about one-third. In 1915 the field army should, including officers and permanent cadres, be about 1,012,000 strong. The Mobile Militia will not, however, at that date have felt the effects of the scheme, and the Territonial Militia (setting the drain of emigration against the increased population) will probably remain at about the same figure as in 1901.
The army consists of 96 three-battalion regiments of infantry of the line and 12 of bersaglieri (riflemen), each of the latter having a cyclist company (Bersaglieri cyclist battalions are being (1909) provisionally formed); 26 regiments of cavalry, of which 10 are lancers, each of 6 squadrons; 24 regiments of artillery, each of 8 batteries; I I regiment of horse artillery of 6 batteries; I of mountain artillery of 12 batteries, and 3 independent mountain batteries. The armament of the infantry is the Mnnnlicher-Carcano magazine rifle of I891. The field and horse artillery was in I 909 in process of rearmament with a Krupp quick-firer. The garrison artillery consists of 3 coast and 3 fortress regiments, with a total of 72 companies. There are 4 regiments (if battalions) of engineers. The carabinieri or gendarmerie, some 26,500 in number, are part of the standing army; they are recruited from selected volunteers from the army. In 1902 the special corps in Eritrea numbered about 4700 of all ranks, including nearly 4000 natives.
Ordinary and extraordinary military expenditure for the financial year 1898-1899 amounted to nearly 1/210,000,000, an increase of 1/24,000,000 as compared with 1871. The Italian Chamber decided that from the 1st of July 1901 until the 30th of June 1907 Italian military expenditure proper should not exceed the maximum of 1/29,560,000 per annum fixed by the Army Bill of May 1897, and that, military pensions should not exceed 1/21,440,000. Italian military expenditure was thus until f907 1/2ff,000,000 per annum. In 1908 the ordinary and extraordinary expenditure was 1/210,000,000. The demands of the Commission were only partly complied with, but a large special grant was voted amounting to at least 1/2I,ooo,000 per annum for the next seven years. The amount.spent is slight compared with the military expenditure of other countries.
The Alpine frontier is fortified strongly, although the condition of the works was in many cases considered unsatisfactory by the 1907 Commission. The fortresses in the basin of the Po chiefly belong to the era of divided Italy and are now out of date; the chief coast fortresses are Vado, Genoa, Spezia, Monte Argentaro, Gacta, Straits of Messina, Taranto, Maddalena. Rome is plotected by a circle of forts from a coup de main from the sea, the coast, only 12 m. off, being flat and deserted.
Navy
For purposes of naval organization the Italian coast is divided into three maritime departments, with headquarters at Spezia, Naples and Venice; and into two comandi militari, with headquarters at Taranto and at the island of Maddalena. The personnel of the navy consists of the following corps: (I) General staff; (2) naval engineers, chiefly employed in building and repairing war vessels; (3) sanitary corps; (4) commissariat corps, for supplies and account-keeping; (5) crews.
The materiel of the Italian navy has been completely transformed, especially in Virtue of the bill of the 31st of March 1875. Old types of vessels have been sold or demolished, and replaced by newer types.
2 This may be reduced, in consequence of the adoption of the new Q.F. gun, I to 6.
In March 1907 the Italian navy contained, excluding ships of no fighting value: Effective. Completing. Projected.
Modern battleships - 4 4 3
Old battleships -. 10
Armoured cruisers. 6 2
Protected cruisers - - 14
Torpedo gunboats - 13 - -
Destroyers - - - - 13 4 10
Modern torpedo boats 34 - 15
Submarines - -- I 4 2
The four modern shipsthe Vittorio Emanuele class, laid down in 1897have a tonnage of 12,625, two 12-in, and twelve 8-in. guns, an I.H.P. of 19,000, and a designed speed of 22 knots, being intended to avoid any battleship and to carry enough guns to destroy any cruiser.
The personnel on active service consisted of 1799 officers and 25,000 men, the former being doubled and the latter trebled since 1882.
Naval expenditure has enormously increased since 1871, the total for 1871 having been about 900,000, and the total for 1905-1906 over 5~ 100,000. Violent fluctuations have, however, taken place from year to year, according to the state of Italian finances. To permit the steady execution of a normal programme of shipbuilding, the Italian Chamber, in May 1901, adopted a resolution limiting naval expenditure, inclusive of naval pensions and of premiums on mercantile shipbuilding, to the sum of 4,840,000 for the following six years, i.e. from 1st July 1901 until 30th June 1907. This sum consists of 4,240,000 of naval expenditure proper, 220,000 for naval pensions and 380,000 for premiums upon mercantile shipbuilding. During the financial year ending on the 30th of June 1901 these figures were slightly exceeded.
Finance
The volume of the Italian budget has considerably increased as regards both income and expenditure. The income of 60,741,418 in 1881 rose in 1899-1900 to 69,917,126; while the expenditure increased from 58,705,929 in 1881 to 69,708,706 in 1899-1900, an increase of 9,175,708 in income and 11,002,777 in expenditure, while there has been a still further increase since, the figures for 1905-1906 showing (excluding items which figure on both sides of the account) an increase of 8,766,995 in income and 5,434,560 in expenditure over 1899-1900. These figures include not only the categories of income and expenditure proper, but also those known as movement of capital, railway constructions and part ite di giro, which do not constitute real income and expenditure.i Considering only income and expenditure proper, the approximate totals are:
Financial Year. Revenue. Expenditure. Surp uses or 1882 52,064,800 51,904,800 + io,00o 1885-1886 56,364,000 57,304,400 940,400
1890-1891 61,600,000 64,601,600 3,001,600
1895-1896 65,344,000 67,962,800 2,618,800
1898-1899 66,352,800 65,046,400 + 1,306,400
1899-1900 66,86o,8oo 65,323,600 + 1,537,200
1900-1901 68,829,200 66,094,400 +2,734,800
1905-1906 77,684,100 75,143,300 +2,540,900
The financial year 1862 closed with a deficit of more thai 16,000,000, which increased in 1866 to 28,840,000 on account 0 the preparations for the war against Austria. Excepting the in creases of deficit in 1868 and 1870, the annual deficits tended thence forward to decrease, until in 1875 equilibrium between expendituri and revenue was attained, and was maintained until 1881. Ad vantage was taken of the equilibrium to abolish certain imposts amongst them the grist tax, which prior to its gradual repeal pro duced more than 3,200,000 a year. From 1885-1886 onwards, outlay on public works, military and colonial expenditure, and especially the commercial and financial crises, contributed to produce annual deficits; but owing to drastic reforms introduced in 1894-1895 and to careful management the year 1898-1899 marked a return of surpluses (nearly 1,306,400).
The revenue in the Italian financial year 1905-1906 (July I, 1905 to June 30, 1906) was 102,486,108, and the expenditure 99,945,253, or, subtracting the partite di giro, 99,684,121 and 97,143,266, leaving a surplus of 2,54o,855.f The surplus was made up by contributions from every branch of the effective revenue, except the contributions and repayments from local authorities. The railways showed an increase of 351,685; registration transfer and succession, 295,560; direct taxation, 42,136 (mainly from income tax, which more than made up for the remission of the house tax in the districts of Calabria visited by the earthquake of 1906); customs and excise, 1,036,742; government monopolies, 291,027; posts, 4I,3fo; telegraphs, 23,364; telephones, 65,771. Of the surplus 1,000,000 was allocated to the improvement of posts, telegraphs and telephones; 1,000,000 to public works (~72o,ooo for harbour improvement and 280,000 for internal navigation); 200,000 to the navy (~I32,ooo for a second dry dock at Taranto and 68,000 for coal purchase); and 200,000 as a nucleus of a fund for the purchase of valuable works of art which are in danger of exportation.
The state therefore draws its principal revenues from the imposts, the taxes and the monopolies. According to the Italian tributary system, imposts, properly so called are those upon land, T~aUon buildings and personal estate. The impost upon land is based upon the cadastral survey independently of the vicissitudes of harvests. In 1869 the main quota to the impost was increased by one-tenth, in addition to the extra two-tenths previously imposed in 1866. Subsequently, it was decided to repeal these additional tenths, the first being abolished in 1886 and the rest in 1887. On account of the inequalities still existing in the cadastral survey, in spite of the law of 1886 (see Agriculture, above), great differences are found in the land tax assessments in various parts of Italy. Land is not so heavily burdened by the government quota as by the additional centimes imposed by the provincial and communal authorities. On an average Italian landowners pay nearly 25% of their revenues from land in government and local land tax. The buildings impost has been assessed since 1866 upon the basis of 12.50% of taxable revenue. Taxable revenue corresponds to two-thirds of actual income from factories and to three-fourths of actual income from houses; it is ascertained by the agents of the financial administration. In 1869, however, a third additional tenth was added to the previously existing additional two-tenths, and, unlike the tenths of the land tax, they have not been abolished. At present the main quota with the additional three-tenths amounts to 16.25% of taxable income. The imports op incomes from personal estate (ricchezza mobile) were introduced in 1866; it applies to incomes derived from investments, industry or personal enterprise, but not to landed revenues. It is proportional, and is collected by deduction from salaries and pensions paid to servants of the state, where it is assessed on three-eighths of the income, and from interest on consolidated stock, where it is assessed on the whole amount; and by register in the cases of private individuals, who pay on three-fourths of their income, professional men, capitalists or manufacturers, who pay on one-half or nine-twentieths of their income. From 1871 to 1894 it was assessed at 13.20% of taxable income, this quota being formed of 12% main quota and 1.20% as an additional tenth. In 1894 the quota, including the additional tenth, was raised to the uniform level of 20%. One-tenth of the tax is paid to the communes as compensation for revenues made over to the state.
Taxes proper are divided into (a) taxes on business transactions and (b) taxes on articles of consumption. The former apply principally to successions, stamps, registrations, mortgages, &c.; the latter to distilleries, breweries, explosives, native sugar and matches, though the customs revenue and octrois upon articles of general consumption, such as corn, wine, spirits, meat, flour, petroleum butter, tea, coffee and sugar, may be considered as belonging to thu class. The monopolies are those of salt, tobacco and the lottery.
Since 1880, while income from the salt and lotto monopolies hai remained almost stationary, and that from land tax and octroi har - diminished, revenue derived from all other sources has notabl)
- increased, especially that from the income tax on personal estate and the Customs, the yield from which has been nearly doubled.
It will be seen that the revenue is swollen by a large number o taxes which can only be justified by necessity; the reduction and still more, the readjustment of taxation (which now largely falls or articles of primary necessity) is urgently needed. The governmen - in presenting the estimates for 1907-1908 proposed to set aside - sum of nearly 800,000 every year for this express purpose. I must be remembered that the sums realized by the octroi go in th main to the various communes. It is only in Rome and Naples tha S the octroi is collected directly by the government, which pays over~
~ certain proportion to the respective communes.
e The external taxation is not only strongly protectionist, but i applied to goods which cannot be made in Italy; hardly anything comes in duty free, even such articles as second-hand furniture paying duty, unless within six months of the date at which the importer has declared domicile in Italy. The application too, is somewhat rigorous, e.g. the tax on electric light is applied to foreign ships generating their own electricity while lying in Italian ports.
The annual consumption per inhabitant of certain kinds of food and drink has considerably increased, e.g. grain from 270 lb per head in 1884-1885 to 321 lb in 1901-1902 (maize reman~s almost stationary at 158 II,); wine from 73 to 125 litres per head; oil from 12 to 13 lb per head (sugar is almost stationary at 73/4 lb per head, and coffee at about I Ib); salt from 14 to 16 lb per head. Tobacco slightly diminished in weight at a little over I lb per head, while the gross receipts are considerably increasedby over 23/4 millions sterling since 1884-1885---showing that the quality consumed is much better. The annual expenditure on tobacco was 5s. per inhabitant in 1902 1903, and is increasing.
The annual surpluses are largely accounted for by the heavy taxation on almost everything imported into the country, i and by the monopolies on tobacco and on salt; and are as a rule spent, and well spent, in other ways. Thus, that of 1907-1908 was devoted mainly to raising the salaries of government officials and university professors; even then the maximum for both (in the former class, for an under-secretary of state) was only 500 per annum. The case is frequent, too, in which a project is sanctioned by law, but is then not carried into execution, or only partly so, owing to the lack of funds. Additional stamp duties and taxes were imposed in 1909 to meet the expenditure necessitated by the disastrous earthquake at the end of 1908.
The way in which the taxes press on the poor may be shown by the number of small proprietors sold up owing to inability to pay the,. land and other taxes. In 1882 the number of landed proprietors was 14.52% of the population, in 1902 only 1266, with an actual diminution of some 30,000. Had the percentage of 1882 been kept up there would have been in 1902 600,000 more proprietors than there were. Between 1884 and 1902 no fewer than 220,61 6 sales were effected for failure to pay taxes, while, from 1886 to 1902, 79,208 expropriations were effected for other debts not due to the state. In 1884 there were 20,422 sales, of which 35.28% were for debts of 4s. or less, and 5195 for debts between 4s. and 2; in 1902 there were 4857 sales, hut only 11~o1% for debts under 4s. (the treasury having given up proceeding in cases where the property is a tiny piece of ground, sometimes hardly capable of cultivation), and 55.69% for debts between 4s. and 2. The expropriations deal as a rule with properties of higher value; of these there were 3217 in 1886, 5~13 in 1892 (a period of agricultural depression), 3910 in 1902. About 22% of them are for debts under 40, about 49%
from 40 to 200, about 26% from 200 to 2000.
Of the expenditure a large amount is absorbed by interest on debt. Debt has continually increased with the development of the state.
~x ndl- The sum paid in interest on debt amounted to 17,640,000
~e in 1871, 19,440,000 in 1881, 25,600,000 in 1891-1892
and 27,560,000 in 1899-1900; but had been reduced to ~23,I00,409 by the 30th of June 1906. The public debt at that date was composed as follows: Part 1.Funded Debt.
Grand Livre Amount.
Consolidated 5% 316,141,802
,, 3% 6,404,335
,, 43/4% net 28,872,511
,, 4% ,, 7,875,592
,, 34% ,, 37,689,880
Total. .. 3~6,~384,i2o Debts to be transferred to the Grand Livre. 60,868
Perpetual annuity to the Holy See. .. 2,580,000
Perpetual debts (Modena, Sicily, Naples). 2,591,807
Total. .. 402,216,795
Part 11.Unfunded Debt.
Debts separately inscribed in the Grand Livre 10,042,027
Various railway obligations, redeemable, &c. 56,375,351
Sicilian indemnities 195,348
Capital value of annual payment to South Austrian Company 37,102,908
Long date Treasury warrants, law of July 7, 1901 1,416,200
Railway certificates (3-65% net), Art. 6 of law, June 25, 1905, No. 261 14,220,000
Total. 119,351,834
Part I 402,216,795
Grand Total. 521,568,629
I For example, wheat, the price of which was in 1902 26 lire pe cwt., pays a tax of 74 lire; sugar pays four times its wholesale val,ii in tax; coffee twice its wholesale value.
The debt per head of population was, in 1905, 14, lbs. 3d., and the interest 13S. 5d.
In July 1906 the 5% gross (4% net), and 4% net rente were successfully converted into 33/4% stock (to be reduced to 33/4% after five years), to a total amount of 324,017,393. The demands for reimbursement at par represented a sum of only 187,588 and the market value of the stock was hardly affected; while the saving to the Treasury was to be 800,000 per annum for the first five years and about double the amount afterwards.
Currency.The lira (plural lire) of 100 centesimi (centimes) is equal in value to the French franc. The total coinage (exclusive of Eritrean currency) from the 1st of January 1862 to the end of 1907 was 1,104,667,116 lire (exclusive of recoinage), divided as follows: gold, 427,516,970 lire; silver, 570,097,025 lire; nickel, 23,417,000 lire; bronze, 83,636,121 lire. The forced paper currency, instituted in 1866, was abolished in 1881, in which year were dissolved the Union of Banks of Issue created in 1874 to furnish to the state treasury a milliard of lire in notes, guaranteed collectively by the banks. Part of the Union notes were redeemed, part replaced by 10 lire and 5 lire state notes, payable at sight in metallic legal tender by certain state banks. Nevertheless the law of 1881 did not succeed in maintaining the value of the state notes at a par with the metallic currency, and from 1885 onwards there reappeared a gold premium, which during 1899 and 1900 remained at about 7%, but subsequently fell to about Direct Liability of State.) Notes issued Aggregate Date. j by State Paper State Notes. Sons de c~e,1 Banks. Currency.
Lire. Lire. Lire. Lire.
sxst December iSSi 940,oO,000 -. 735,579,f97 1,675,579,197
i886 446,665,535 ,. 1,031,869,712 0,478,535,247
,, isgi 340,949,237, - 1,121,601,079 1,463,550,316
i8g6 400,000,oO 110,000,000 0,069,233,376 f,579,233,376
0899 451,431,780 42,138,152 I,ifo,II,33o 2,673,680,262
0905 441,304,780 1,874,184 1,406,474,800 0,848,657,764
1 These ceased to have legal currency at the end of igoi; they were notes of x and 2 lire.
Banks
Until 1893 the juridical status of the Banks of Issue was regulated by the laws of the 3oth of April 1874 on paper currency and of the 7th of April 1881 on the abolition of forced currency. At that time four limited companies were authorized to issue bank notes, namely, the National Bank, the National Bank of Tuscany, the Roman Bank and the Tuscan Credit Bank; and two banking corporations, the Bank of Naples and the Bank of Sicily. In 1893 the Roman Bank was put into liquidation, and the other three limited companies were fused, so as to create the Bank of Italy, the privilege of issuing bank notes being thenceforward confined to the Bank of Italy, the Bank of Naples and the Bank of Sicily. The gold reserve in the possession of the Banca dItalia on September 30th 1907 amounted to 32,240,984, and the silver reserve to 4,767,861; the foreign treasury bonds, &c. amounted to 3,324,074, making the total reserve 40,332,919; while the circulation amounted to 54,612,234. The figures were on the 31st of December 1906:
Paper Circulation. Reserve.
Banca dItalia. 47,504,352 36,979,235
Banca di Napoli. 13,893,152 9,756,284
Banca di Sicilia. 2,813,692 2,060,488
Total -. 64,211,196 48,796,000
This is considerably in excess of the circulation, 40,404,000, fixed by royal decree of 1900; but the issue of additional notes was allowed, provided they were entirely covered by a metallic reserve, whereas up to the fixed limit a 40% reserve only was necessary.
These notes are of 50, 100, 500 and 1000 lire; while the state issues notes for 5, 10 and 25 lire, the currency of these at the end of October 1906 being 17,546,967; with a total guaraotee of 15,636,000 held against them. They were in January 1908 equal in value to the metallic currency of gold and silver.
The price of Italian consolidated 5% (gross, 4% net, allowing for the 20% income tax) stock, which is the security most largely negotiated abroad, and used in settling differences between large financial institutions, has steadily risen during recent years. After being depressed between 5885 and 1894, the prices in Italy and abroad reached, in 1899, on the Rome Stock Exchange, the average 01 100.83 and of 94.8 on the Paris Bourse. By the end of 1901 the price of Italian stock on the Paris Bourse had, however, risen to par or thereabouts. The average price of Italian 4% in 1905 was 105.29 since the conversion to 33/4% net (to be further reduced to 31/2 in fivt more years), the price has been about 103.5. Rates of exchange, or, in other words the gold premium, favored Italy during the yearr immediately following the abolition of the forced currency in 1881
- In 1885, however, rates tended to rise, and though they fell in I 88(they subsequently increased to such an extent as to reach 1IoA at the end of August 1894. For the next four years they continuec low, but rose again in 1898 and 1899. in 1900 the maximum rate was 107.32, and the minimum 105.40, but in 1901 rates fell considerably, and were at par in 1902-1909.
There are in Italy six clearing houses, namely, the ancient one at Leghorn, and those of Genoa, Milan, Rome, Florence and Turin, founded since 1882.
The number of ordinary banks, which diminished between 1889 and 1894, increased in the following years, and was 158 In 1898. At the same time the capital employed in banking decreased by nearly one-half, namely, from about 12,360,000 in 1880 to about 6,520,000 in 1898. This decrease was due to the liquidation of a number of large and small banks, amongst others the Bank of Genoa, the General Bank, and the Societ di Credito Mobiliare Italiano of Rome, and the Genoa Discount Bankestablishments which alone represented f4,84o,000 of paid-up capital. Ordinary credit operations are also carried on by the co-operative credit societies, of which there are some 700.
Certain banks make a special business of lending money to owners iif land or buildings (credito fo,zdiario). Loans are repayable by Agrarian instalments, and are guaranteed by first mortgages not Credit greater in amount than half the value of the hypothecated flanks property. The banks may buy up mortgages and advance money on current account on the security of land or buildings. The development of the large cities has induced these banks to turn their attention rather to building enterprise than to mortgages on rural property. The value of their land certificates or cartetle fondiarie (representing capital in circulation) rose from 10,420,000 in 1881 to 15,560,000 in 1886, and to 30,720,000 in 1891, but fell to 29,320,000 in 1896, to 27,360,000 in 1898, and to 24,360,000 in 1907; the amount of money lent increased from 1/2Io,44o,000 in 1881 to 15,600,000 in 1886, and 30,800,000 in 1891, but fell to 29,320,000 in 1896, to 27,360,000 in 1899, and to f2I,72o,000 in 1907. The diminution was due to the law of the 10th of April 1893 upon the banks of issue, by which they were obliged to liquidate the loan and mortgage business they had previously carried on.
Various laws have been passed to facilitate agrarian credit. The law of the 23rd of January 1887 (still in force) extended the dispositions of the Civil Code with regard to privileges, and established special privileges in regard to harvested produce, produce stored in barns and farm buildings, and in regard to agricultural implements. Loans on mortgage may also be granted to landowners and agricultural unions, with a view to the introduction of agricultural improvements. These loans are regulated by special disposition, and are guaranteed by a share of the increased value of the land after the improvements have been carried out. Agrarian credit banks may, with the permission of the government, issue cartelle agrarie, or agrarian bonds, repayable by instalments and bearing interest.
Internal Administrcztion
It was not till 1865 that the administrative unity of Italy was realized. Up to that year some of the regions of the kingdom, such as Tuscany, continued to have a kind of autonomy; but by the laws of the 20th of March the whole country was divided into 69 provinces and 8545 communes. The extent to which communal independence had been maintained in Italy through all the centuries of its political disintegration was strongly in its favor. The syndic (sindaco) or chief magistrate of the commune was appointed by the king for three years, and he was assisted by a municipal junta.
Local government was modified by the law of the 10th of February 1889 and by posterior enactments. The syndics (or mayors) are now elected by a secret ballot of the communal council, though they are still government officials. In the provincial administrations the functions of the prefects have been curtailed. Each province has a prefect, responsible to and appointed by the Ministry of the Interior, while each of the regions (called variously circondarsi and distretti) has its sub-prefect. Whereas the prefect was forinei-iy ex-officio president of the provincial deputation or executive committee of the provincial council, his duties under the present law are reduced to mere participation in the management of provincial affairs, the president of the provincial deputation being chosen among and elected by the members of the deputation. The most important change introduced by the new law has been the creation in every province of a provincial administrative junta entrusted with the supervision of communal administrations, a function previously discharged by the provincial deputation. Each provincial administrative junta is composed, in part, of government nominees, and in larger part of elective elements, elected by the provincial council for four years, half of whom require to be elected every two years. The acts of communal administration requiring the sanction of the provincial administrative junta are chiefly financial. Both communal councils and prefects may appeal to the government against the decision of the provincial administrative juntas, the government being guided by the opinion of the Council of State. Besides possessing competence in regard to local government elections, which previously came within the jurisdiction of the provincial deputations, the provincial administrative juntas discharge magisterial functions in administrative affairs, and deal with appeals presented by private persons against acts of the communal and provincial administrations. The juntas are in this respect organs of~the administrative jurisprudence created in Italy by the law of the 1st of May 1890, in order to provide juridical protection for those rights and interests outside the competence of the ordinary tribunals. The provincial council only meets once a year in ordinary session.
The former qualifications for electorship in local government elections have been modified, and it is now sufficient to pay five lire annually in, direct taxes, five lire of certain communal taxes, or a certain rental (which varies according to the population of a commune), instead of being obliged to pay, as previously, at least five lire annually of direct taxes to the state. In consequence of this change the number of local electors increased by more than onethird between 1887-1889; it decreased, however, as a result of an extraordinary revision of the registers in 1894. The period for which both communal and provincial councils are elected is six years, one-half being renewed every three years.
The ratio of local electors to population is in Piedmont 79%, but in Sicily less than. 45%. The ratio of voters to qualified electors tends to increase; it is highest in Campania, Basilicata and in the south generally; the lowest percentages are given by Einilia and Liguria.
Local finance is regulated by the communal and provincial law of May 1898, which instituted provincial administrative juntas, empowered to examine and sanction the acts of the coin munal financial administrations. The sanction of the Local provincial administrative junta is necessary for sales or ~
purchases of property, alterations of rates (although in case of increase the junta can only act upon request of ratepayers paying an aggregate of one-twentieth of the local direct taxation), and expenditure affecting the communal budget for more than five, years. The provincial administrative junta is, moreover, empowered to order obligatory expenditure, such as the upkeep of roads, sanitary works, lighting, police (i.e. the so-called guardie di pubblica sicurezza, the carabinieri being really a military force; only the largest towns maintain a municipal police force), charities, education, &c., in case such expenditure is neglected by the communal authorities. The cost of fire brigades, infant asylums, evening and holiday schools, is classed as optional expenditure. Communal revenues are drawn from the proceeds of communal property, interest upon capital, taxes and local dues. The most important of the local dues is the gate tax, or dazio di consumo, which may be either a surtax upon commodities (such as alcoholic drinks or meat), having already paid customs duty at the frontier, in which case the local surtax may not exceed 50% of the frontier duty, or an exclusively communal duty limited to 10% on flour, bread and farinaceous products,2 and to 20% upon other commodities. The taxes thus vary considerably in different towns.
In addition, the communes have a right to levy a, surtax not exceeding 50% of the quota levied by the state upon lands and buildings; a family tax, or fuocatico, upon the total incomes of families, which, for fiscal purposes, are divided into various categories; a tax based upon the rent-value of houses, and other taxes upon cattle, horses, dogs, carriages and servants; also on licences for shopkeepers, hotel and restaurant keepers, &c.; on the slaughter of animals, stamp duties, one-half of the tax on bicycles, &c. Occasional sources of interest are found in the sale of communal property, the realization of communal credits, and the contraction of debt.
The provincial administrations are entrusted with the manage-. ment of the affairs of the provinces in general, as distinguished from those of the communes. Their expenditure is likewise classed as obligatory and optional. The former category comprises the maintenance of provincial roads, bridges and watercourse embankments;, secondary education, whenever this is n.ot provided for by private, institutions or by the state (elementary education being maintained by the communes), and the maintenance of foundlings and pauper lunatics. Optional expenditure includes the cost of. services of general public interest, though not strictly indispensable. Provincial revenues are drawn from provincial property, school taxes, tolls and surtaxes on land and buildings. The provincial surtaxes may not exceed 5o% of the quotas levied by the state. In 1897 the total provincial revenue was 3,732,253, of which 3,460,000 was obtained from the surtax upon lands and buildings. Expenditure amounted to 3,768,888, of which the principal items were 760,000 for roads and bridges, 520,000 for lunatic asylums, ~4o,ooo for foundling hospitals, 320,000 for interest on debtand 200,000 for police. Like communal revenue, provincial revenue has considerably increased since 1880, principally on account of the increase in the land and building surtax.
The Italian local authorities, communes and provinces alike, have considerably increased their indebtedness since 1882, The ratio of communal and provincial debt per inhabitant has grown from 30.79 lire (~1, 4s. 71/8d.) to 4370 lire (ii, 14s. iid.), an increasedue in great part to the need for improved buildings, hygienic reforms and education, but also attributable in part to the mannerin which the finances of many communes are administered. The total was in 1900, 49,496,193 for the communes and 6,908,022 for the provinces. The former total is more than double add the latter more than treble the sum in 1873, while there is an increase of 62% in the former and 26% in the latter over the totals for 1882.
See Annuario statistico -ilaliano (not, however, issued regularly each year) for general statistics; and other official publications; W. Deecke, Ita.ly; a Popular Account of the ColAntry, its People and its Institutions (translated by H. A. Nesbitt, London, 1904); B. King and T. Okey, Italy to-day (London, 1901); E. Nathan, Vent Anni di ua ital,iana altraverso al(Annuario (Rome, 1906); G. Strafforello, Geografia dellItalia (Turin, I89o19o2). - (T. As.)
History
The difficulty of Italian history lies in the fact, that until modern times the Italians have had no political unity, no independence, no organized existence as a nation. Split up into numerous and mutually hostile communities, they never, through the fourteen centuries which have elapsed since the end of the old Western empire, shook off the yoke of foreigners completely; they never until lately learned to merge their local and conflicting interests in the common good of undivided Italy. Their history is therefore not the history of a single people, centralizing and absorbing its constituent elements by a process of continued evolution, but of a group of cognate populations, exemplifying divers types of constitutional developments.
The early history of Italy will be found under ROME and allied headings. The following account is therefore mainly concerned with the periods succeeding AD. 476, when Romulus Augustulus was deposed by Odoacer. Prefixed to this are two sections dealing respectively with (A) the ethnographical and philological divisions of ancient Italy, and (B) the unification of the country under Augustus, the growth of the road system and so forth. The subsequent history is divided into five periods: (C) From 476 to 1796; (D) From 796 to 1814; (E) From 1815 to 1870; (F) From 1870 to 5902; (G) From 1902 to 1910.
A. Ancient Languages and Peoples
The ethnography of ancient Italy is a very complicated and difficult subject, and notwithstanding the researches of modern scholars is still involved in some obscurity. The great beauty and fertility of the country, as well as the charm of its climate, undoubtedly attracted, even in early ages, successive swarms of invaders from the north, who sometimes drove out the previous occupants of the most favored districts, at others reduced them to a state of serfdom, or settled down in the midst of them, until the two races gradually coalesced. Ancient writers are agreed as to the composite character of the population of Italy, and the diversity of races that were found within the limits of the peninsula. But unfortunately the traditions they have transmitted to us are often various and conflicting, while the only safe test of the affinities of nations, derived from the comparison of their languages, is to a great extent inapplicable, from the fact that the idioms that prevailed in Italy in and before the 5th century B.C. are preserved, if at all, only in a few scanty and fragmentary inscriptions, though from that date onwards we have now a very fair record of many of them (see, e.g. LATIN LANGUAGE, OSCA LINGUA, IGUVIUM, V0LScI, ETRURIA: section Language, and below). These materials, imperfect as they are, when combined with the notices derived from ancient writers and the evidence of archaeological excavations, may be considered as having furnished some results of reasonable certainty.
It must be observed that the name Italians was at one time confined to the Oenotrians; indeed, according to Antiochus of Syracuse (apud Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. ii. 1), the name of Italy was first still more limited, being applied only to the southern portion of the Bruttium peninsula (now known as Calabria). B~t in the time of that historian, as well as of Thucydides, the names of Oenotria and Italia, which appear to have been at that period regarded as synonymous, had been extended to include the shore of the Tarentine Gulf as far as Metapontum and from thence across to the gulfs of Laus and Posidonia on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It thus still comprised only the two provinces subsequently known as Lucania and Bruttium (see references s.v. Italia in R. S. Conways Italic Dialects, p. 5). The name seems to be a Graecized form of an Italic Vitelia, from the stem vitlo-, calf (Lat. vitulus, Gr. iraXs), and perhaps to have meant calf-land, grazing-land; but the origin is more certain than the meaning; the calf may be one of the many animals connected with Italian tribes (see HntPINI, SAMNITES).
Taking the term Italy to comprise the whole peninsula with the northern region as far as the Alps, we must first distinguish the tribe or tribes which spoke Indo-European languages from those who did not. To the latter category it is now possible to refer with certainty only the Etruscans (for the chronology and limits of their occupation of Italian soil see ETRURIA: section Language). Of all the other tribes that inhabited Italy down to the classical period, of whose speech there is any record (whether explicit or in the form of names and glosses), it is impossible to maintain that any one does not belong to the Indo-European group. Putting aside the Etruscan, and also the different Greek dialects of the Greek colonies, like Cumae, Neapolis, Tarentum, and proceeding from the south to the north, the different languages or dialects, of whose separate existence at some time between, say, 600 and 200 B.C., we can be, sure, may be enumerated as follows: (I) Sicel, (2) South Oscan. and Oscan, (3) Messapian, (4) North Oscan, (5) Volscian, (6) East Italic or Sabellic, (7) Latinian, (8) Sabine, (9) Iguvine or Umbrian, (10) Gallic, (11) Ligurian and (12) Venetic.
Between several of these dialects it is probable that closer affinities exist. (I) It is probable, though not very clearly demonstrated, that Venetic, East Italic and Messapian are connected together and with the ancient dialects spoken in Illyria, so that these might be provisionally entitled the Adriatic group, to which the language spoken. by the Eteocretes of the city of Praesos in Crete down to the 4th century B.C. was perhaps akin. (2) Too little is known of the Sicel language to make clear more than its Indo-European character. But it must be reckoned among the languages of Italy because of the well-supported tradition of the early existence of the Sicels in Latium (see SIcuLI). Their possible place in the earlier stratum of, Indo-European population is discussed under SABINI. How far also the language or languages spoken in Bruttium and at certain points of Lucania, such as Anxia, differed from the Oscan of Samnium and Campania there is not enough evidence to show (see BRUTTII). (3) It is doubtful whether there are any actual inscriptions which can be referred with certainty to the language of the Ligures, but some other evidence seems to link them with the -CO- peoples, whose early distribution is discussed under VoLscI and LIGURIA. (~) It is difficult to point to any definite evidence by which we may determine the dates of the earliest appearance of Gallic tribes in the north of Italy. No satisfactory collection has been made of the Celtic inscriptions of Cisalpine Gaul, though many are scattered about in different museums. For our present purpose it is important to note that the archaeological stratification in deposits like those of Bologna shows that the Gallic period supervened upon the Etruscan. Until a scientific collection of the local and personal names of this district has been made, and until the archaeological evidence is clearly interpreted, it is impossible to go beyond the region of conjecture as to the tribe or tribes occupying the valley of the Po before the two invasions. It is clear, however, that the Celtic and Etruscan elements together occupied the greater part of the district between the Apennines and the Alps down to its Romanization, which took place gradually in the course of the 2nd century B.C. Their linguistic neighbors were Ligurian in the south and south-west, and the Veneti on the east.
We know from the Roman historians that a large force of Gauls came as far south as Rome in the year 390 B.C., and that some part of this horde settled in what was henceforward known as the Ager Gallicus, the easterdmost strip of coast in what was later known as Umbria, including the towns of Caesna, Ravenna and -Ariminum. A bilingual inscription (Gallic and Latin) of the 2nd century B.C. was found as far south as Tuder, the modern Todi (Italic Dialects, ii. 528; Stokes, Bezzenbergers Beifrdge, II, p. 113).
(5) Turning now to the languages which constitute the Italic groupinthenarrowersense, (a) Oscan; (b) the dialect of Velitrae, commonly called Volscian; (c) Latinian (i.e. Latin and its nearest congeners, like Faliscan); and (d) Umbrian (or, as it may more safely be called, Iguvine), two principles of classification offer themselves, of which the first is purely linguistic, the second linguistic and topographical. Writers on the ethnology of Italy have been hitherto content with the first, namely, the broad distinction. between the dialects which preserved the IndoEuropean velars (especially the breathed plosive q) as velars or back-palatals (gutturals), with or without the addition of a w-sound, and the dialects which converted the velars wholly into labials, for example, Latinian quis contrasted with Oscan, Volscian and Umbrian pis (see further LATIN LANGUAGE).
This distinction, however, takes us but a little way towards an historical grouping of the tribes, since the only Latinian dialects of which, besides Latin, we have inscriptions are Faliscan and Marsian (see FALISCT, MAR51); although the place-names of the Aequi suggest that they belong to the same group in this respect. Except, therefore, for a very small and apparently isolated area in the north of Latium and south of Etruria, all the tribes of Italy, though their idioms differed in certain particulars, are left undiscriminated. This presents a strong contrast to the evidence of tradition, which asserts very strongly (I) the identity of the Sabines and Samnites; (2) the conquest of an earlier population by this tribe; and which affords (ci) clear evidence of the identity of the Sabines with the ruling class, i.e. the patricians, at Rome itself (see SABINI; and ROME~ Early History and Ethnology).
Some clue to this enigma may perhaps be found in the second principle of classification proposed by the present writer at the Congresso Internationale di Scienze Storiche at Rome (Atti del Con gresso, ii) in 1903. It was on that occasion pointed out that the ethnica or tribal and oppidan names of communities belonging to the Sabine stock were marked by the use of the suffix -NOas in Sabini; and that there was some linguistic evidence that this stratum of population overcame an earlier population, which used, generally, ethnica in -CO-- or -TI- (as in Marruci, Ardeates, transformed later into Marrucini, A rdeatini).
The validity of this distinction and its results are discussed under SABJNI and VoLscI, but it is well to state here its chief consequences.
I. Latin will be counted the language of the earlier plebeian stratum of the population of Rome and Latium, probably once spread over a large area of the peninsula, and akin in sijme degree to the language or languages spoken in north Italy before either the Etruscan or the Gallic invasions began.
2. It would follow, on the other hand, that what is called Oscan represented the language of the invading Sabines (more correctly Safines), whose racial affinities would seem to be of a distinctly more northern cast, and to mark them, like the Dorians or Achaeans in Greece, as an early wave of the invaders who more than once in later history havevitally influenced the fortunes of the tempting southern land into which they forced their way.
3. What is called Volscian, known only from the important inscription of the town of Velitrae, and what is called Umbrian, known from the famous Iguvine Tables with a few other records, would be regarded as Safine dialects, spoken by Safine communities who had become more or less isolated in the midst of the earlier and possibly partly Etruscanized populations, the result being that as early as the 4th century n.c. their language had suffered corruptions which it escaped both in the Samnite mountains and in the independent and self-contained community of Rome.
For fuller details the reader must be referred to the separate articles already mentioned, and to lGuvluM, PIcENUM, OscA LINGUA, MARSI, AEQUI, Sicuu and LIGURIA. Such archaeological evidence as can be connected with the linguistic data will there be discussed.
(R. S. C.)
B. Consolidation of Italy
We have seen that the name of Italy was originally applied only to the southernmost part of the peninsula, and was only gradually extended so as to comprise the central regions, such as Latium and Campania, which were designated by writers as late as Thucydides and Aristotle as in Opicia. The progress of this change cannot be followed in detail, but there can be little doubt that the extension of the Roman arms, and the gradual union of the nations of the peninsula under one dominant power, would contribute to the introduction, or rather would make the necessity felt, for the use of one general appellation. At first, indeed, the term was apparently confined to the regions of the central and southern districts, exclusive of Cisalpine Gaul and the whole tract north of the Apennines, and this continued to be the official or definite signification of the name down to the end of the republic. But the natural limits of Italy are so clearly marked that the name came to be generally employed as a geographical term at a much earlier period. Thus we already find Polybius repeatedly applying it in this wider signification to the whole country, as far as the fOot of the Alps; and it is evident from many passages in the Latin writers that this was the familiar use of the term in the days of Cicero and Caesar. The official distinction was, however, still retained. Cisalpine Gaul, including the whole of northern Italy, still constituted a province, an appellation never applied to Italy itself. As such it was assigned to Julius Caesar, together with Transalpine Gaul, and it was not till he crossed the Rubicon that he entered Italy in the strict sense of the term.
Augustus was the first who gave a definite administrative organization to Italy as a whole, and at the same time gave official sanction to that wider acceptation of the name which had already established itself in familiar usage, and which has continued to prevail ever since.
The division of Italy into eleven regions, instituted by Augustus for administrative purposes, which continued in official use till the reign of Constantine, was based mainly on the territorial divisions previously existingi and preserved with few exceptions the ancient limits.
The first region comprised Latium (in the more extended sense of the term, as including the land of the Volsci, Hernici and Aurunci), together with Campania and the district of the Picentini. It thus extended from the mouth of the Tiber to that of the Silarus (see LATIUM).
The second region included Apulia and Calabria (the name by which the Romans usually designated the district known to the Greeks as Messapia or lapygia), together with the land of the Hirpini, which had usually been considered as a part of Samnium.
The third region contained Lucania and Bruttiuin; it was bounded on the west coast by the Silarus, on the east by the Bradanus.
The fourth region comprised all the Samnites (except the Hirpini), together with the Sabines and the cognate tribes of the Frentani, Marrucini, Marsi, Peligni, Vestini and Aequiculi. It was separated from Apulia on the south by the river Tifernus, and from Picenum on the north by the Matrinus.
The fifth region was composed solely of Picenum, extending along the coast of the Adriatic from the mouth of the Matrinus to that of the Aesis, beyond Ancona. -
The sixth region was formed by Umbria, in the more extended sense of the term, as including the Ager Gallicus, along the coast of the Adriatic from the Aesis to the Ariminus, and separated from Etruria on the west by the Tiber.
The seventh region consisted of Etruria, which preserved its ancient limits, extending from the Tiber to the Tyrrhenian Sea, and separated from Liguria on the north by the river Macra.
The eighth region, termed Gallia Cispadana, comprised the southern portion of Cisalpine Gaul, and was bounded on the north (as its name implied) by the river Padus or P0, from above Placentia to its mouth. It was separated from Etruria and Umbria by the main chain of the Apennines; and the river Ariminus was substituted for the far-famed Rubicon as its limit on the Adriatic.
The ninth region comprised Liguria, extending along the seacoast from the Varus to the Macra, and inland as far as the river Padus, which constituted its northern boundary from its source in Mount Vesulus to its confluence with the Trebia just above Placentia.
The tenth region included Venetia from the Padus and Adriatic to the Alps, to which was annexed the neighboring peninsula of Istria, and to the west the territory of the Cenomani, a Gaulish tribe, extending from the Athesis to the Addua, which had previously been regarded as a part of Gallia Cisalpina.
The eleventh region, known as Gallia Transpadana, included all the rest of Cisalpine Gau1 from the Padus on the south and the Addua on the east to the foot of the Alps.
The arrangements thus established by Augustus continued almost unchanged till the time of Constantine, and formed the basis of all subsequent administrative divisions until the fall of the Western empire.
The mainstay of the Roman military control of Italy first, and of the whole empire afterwards, was the splendid system of roads. As the supremacy of Rome extended itself Roads, over Italy, the Roman road system grew step by step, each fresh conquest being marked by the pushing forward of roads through the heart of the newly-won territory, and the establishment of fortresses in connection with them. It was in Italy that the military value of a network of roads was first appreciated by the Romans, and the lesson stood them in good stead in the provinces. And it was for military reasons that from mere cart-tracks they were developed into permanent highways (T. Ashby, in Papers of the British School at Rome, I. 129). From Rome itself roads radiated in all directions. Communications with the south-east were mainly provided by the Via Appia (the queen of Roman roads, as Statius called it) and the Via Latina, which met close to Casiinum, at the crossing of the Volturnus, 3 m. N.W. of Capua, the second city in Italy in the 3rd century B.C., and the centre of the road system of Campania. Here the Via Appia turned eastward towards Beneventum, while the Via Popiia continued in a south-easterly direction through the Campanian plain and thence southwards through the mountains of Lucania and Bruttii as far as Rhegium. Coast roads of minor importance as means of through communication also existed on both sides of the toe of the boot. Other roads ran south from Capua to Cumae, Puteoli (the most important harbour of Campania), and Neapolis, which could also be reached by a coast road from Minturnae on the Via Appia. From Beneventum, another important road centre, the Via Appia itself ran south-east through the mountains past Venusia to Tarentum on the south-west coast of the heel, and thence across Calabria to Brundusium, while Trajans correction of it, following an older mule-track, ran north-east through the mountains and then through the lower ground of Apulia, reaching the coast at Barium. Both met at Brundusium, the principal port for the East. From Aequum Tuticum, on the Via Traiana, the Via Herculia ran to the south-east, crossing the older Via Appia, then south to Potentia and so on to join the Via Popilia in the centre of Lucania.
The only highroad of importance which left Rome and ran eastwards, the Via.Valeria, was not completed as far as the Adriatic before the time of Claudius; but on the north and northwest started the main highways which communicated with central and northern Italy, and with all that part of the Roman empire which was accessible by land. The Via Salaria, a very ancient road, with its branch, the Via Caecilia, ran north-eastwards to the Adriatic coast and so also did the Via Flaminia, which reached the coast at Fanum Fortunae, and thence followed it to Ariminum. The road along the east coast from Fanum Fortmrnae down to Barium, which connected the terminations of the Via Salaria and Via Valeria, and of other roads farther south crossing from Campania, had no special name in ancient times, as far as we know. The Via Flaminia was the earliest and most important road to the north; and it was soon extended (in 187 B.C.) by the Via Aemilia running through Bononia as far as Placentia, in an almost absolutely straight line between the plain of the P0 and the foot of the Apennines. In the same year a road was constructed over the Apennines from Bon.onia to Arretium, but it is difficult to suppose that it was not until later that the Via Cassia was made, giving a direct communication between Arretium and Rome. The Via Clodia was an alternative route to the Cassia for the first portion out of Rome, a branch having been built at the same time from Florentia to Lucca and Luna. Along the west coast the Via Aurelia ran up to Pisa and was continued by another Via Aemiia to Genoa. Thence the Via Postumia led to Dertona, Placentia and Cremona, while the Via Aemilia and the Via Julia Augusta continued along the coast into Gallia Narbonensis.
The road system of Cisalpine Gaul was mainly co1~ litioned by the rivers which had to be crossed, and the Alpine passes which had to be approached.
Cremona, on the north bank of the P0, was an important meeting point of roads and Hostilia (Ostiglia) another; so also was Patavium, farther east, and Altinum and Aquileia farther east still. Roads, indeed, were almost as plentiful as railways at the present day in the basin. of the P0.
As to the roads leading out of Italy, from Aquileia roads diverged northward into Raetia, eastward to Noricum and Pannonia, and southwards to the Istrian and Dalmatian coasts. Farther west came the roads over the higher Alpine passes the Brenner from Verona, the Septimer and the Splugen from Clavenna (Chiavenna), the Great and the Little St Bernard from Augusta Praetoria (Aosta), and the Mont Genvre from Augusta Taurinorum (Turin).
Westward two short but important roads led on each side of the Tiber to the great harbour at its mouth; while the coast of Latium was supplied with a coast road by Septimius Severus. To the south-west the roads were short and of little importance.
On ancient Italian geography in general see articles in PaulyWissowa, Realer.cyclopadie (1899, sqq.); Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum (Berlin, 1862 sqq.); G. Strafforello, Geografia deli Italia (Turin, 1890-1892); H. Nissen, Jtalische Landeskunde (Berlin, 1883 1902); also references in articles ROME, LATIUM, &c. (T. As.)
C. From 476 to 1796
The year 476 opened a new age for the Italian people. Odoacer, a chief of the Herulians, deposed Romulus, the last Augustus of the West, and placed the peninsula beneath the titular sway of the Byzantine emperors. At Pavia the barbarian conquerors of Italy proclaimed him king, and he received from Zeno the dignity of Roman patrician. Thus began that system of mixed government, Teutonic and Roman, which, in the absence of a national monarch, impressed the institutions of new Italy from the earliest date with dualism. The same revolution vested supreme authority in a non-resident and inefficient autocrat, whose title gave him the right to interfere in Italian affairs, but who lacked the power and will to rule the people for his own or their advantage. Odoacer inaugurated that long series of foreign rulersGreeks, Franks, Germans, Spaniards and Austrians who have successively contributed to the misgovernment of Italy from distant seats of empire.
I. Gothic and Lombard Kingdoms.
In 488 Theodoric, king of the East Goths, received commission from the Greek emperor, Zeno, to undertake the affairs of Italy. He defeated Odoacer, drove him to Ravenna, besieged him there, and in 493 completed the conquest of the country by murdering the Herulian chief with his own hand. Theodoric respected the Roman institutions which he found in Italy, held the Eternal City sacred, and governed by ministers chosen from the Roman population. He settled at Ravenna, which had been the capital of Italy since the days of Honorius, and which still testifies by its monuments to the Gothic chieftains Romanizing policy. Those who believe that the Italians would have gained strength by unification in a single monarchy must regret that this Gothic kingdom lacked the elements of stability. The Goths, except in the valley of the P0, resembled an army of occupation rather than a people numerous enough to blend with the Italic stock. Though their rule was favorable to the Romans, they were Arians; and religious differences, combined with the pride and jealousies of a nation accustomed to imperial honors, rendered the inhabitants of Italy eager to throw off their yoke. When, therefore, Justinian undertook the reconquest of Italy, his generals, Belisarius and Narses, were supported by the south. The struggle of the Greeks and the Goths was carried on for fourteen years, between 539 and 553, when Teias, the last Gothic king, was finally defeated in a bloody battle near Vesuvius. At its close the provinces of Italy were placed beneath Greek dukes, controlled by a governor-general, entitled exarch, who ruled in the Byzantine emperors name at Ravenna.
This new settlement lasted but a few years. Narses had employed Lombard auxiliaries in his, campaigns against the The Goths; and when he was recalled by ~n insulting Lombards. message from the empress in 565, he is said to have invited this fiercest and rudest of the Teutonic clans to seize the spoils of Italy. Be this as it may, the Lombards, their ranks swelled by the Gepidae, whom they had lately conquered, and by the wrecks of other barbarian tribes, passed southward under their king Alboin in 568. The Herulian invaders had been but a band of adventurers; the Goths were an army; the Lombards, far more formidable, were a nation in movement. Pavia offered stubborn resistance; but after a three years siege it was taken, and Alboin made it the capital of his new kingdom.
In order to understand the future history of Italy, it is necessary to form a clear conception of the method pursued by the Lombards in their conquest. Penetrating the peninsula, and advancing like a glacier or half-liquid stream of mud, they occupied the valley of the P0, and moved slowly downward through the centre of the country. Numerous as they were compared with their Gothic predecessors, they had not strength or. multitude enough to occupy the whole peninsula. Venice, which since the days of Attila had offered an asylum to Roman refugees from the northern cities, was left untouched. So was Genoa with its Riviera. Ravenna, entrenched within her lagoons, remained a Greek city. Rome, protected by invincible prestige, escaped. The sea-coast cities of the south, and the islands, Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, preserved their independence. Thus the Lombards neither occupied the extremities nor subjugated the brain-centre of the country. The strength of Alboins kingdom was in the north; his capital, Pavia. As his people pressed southward, they omitted to possess themselves of the coasts; and what was worse for the future of these conquerors, the original impetus of the invasion was checked by the untimely murder of Alboin in 573. After this event, the semi-independent chiefs of the Lombard tribe, who borrowed the title of dukes from their Roman predecessors, seem to have been contented with consolidating their power in the districts each had occupied. The duchies of Spoleto in the centre, and of Benevento in the south, inserted wedge-like into the middle of the peninsula, and enclosing independent Rome, were but loosely united to the kingdom at Pavia. Italy was broken up into districts, each offering points for attack from without, and fostering the seeds of internal revolution. Three separate capitals must be discriminated Pavia, the seat of the new Lombard kingdom; Ravenna, the garrison city of the Byzantine emperor; and Rome, the rallying point of the old nation, where the successor of St Peter was already beginning to assume that national protectorate which proved so influential in the future.
It is not necessary to write the history of the Lombard kingdom in detail. Suffice it to say that the rule of the Lombards proved at first far more oppressive to the native population, and was less intelligent of their old customs, than that of the Goths had been. Wherever the Lombards had the upper hand, they placed the country under military rule, resembling in its genera] character what we now know as the feudal system. Though there is reason to suppose that the Roman laws were still administered within the cities, yet the Lombard code was that of the kingdom; and the Lombards being Arians, they added the oppression of religious intolerance to that of martial despotism and barbarous cupidity. The Italians were reduced to the last extremity when Gregory the Great (590604), having strengthened his position by diplomatic relations with the duchy of Spoleto, and brought about the conversion of the Lombards to orthodoxy, raised the cause of the remaining Roman population throughout Italy. The fruit of his policy, which made of Rome a counterpoise against the effete empire of the Greeks upon the one hand and against the pressure of the feudal kingdom on the other, was seen in the succeeding century. When Leo the Isaurian published his decrees against the worship of images in 726, Gregory II. allied himself with Liudprand, the Lombard king, threw off allegiance to Byzantium, and established the autonomy of Rome. This pope initiated the dangerous policy of playing one hostile force off against another with a view to securing independence. He used the Lombards in his struggle with the Greeks, leaving to his successors the duty of checking these unnatural allies. This was accomplished by calling the Franks in against the Lombards. Liudprand pressed hard, not only upon the Greek dominions of the exarchate, but also upon Rome. His successors, Rachis and Aistolf, attempted to follow the same game of conquest. But the popes, Gregory III., Zachary and Stephen II., determining at any cost to espouse the national cause and to aggrandize their own office, continued to rely upon the Franks. Pippin twice crossed the Alps, and forced Aistolf to relinquish his acquisitions, including Ravenna, Pentapolis, the coast towns of Romagna and some cities in the duchy of Spoleto. These he handed over to the pope, of Rome. This donation of Pippin in 756 confirmed the papal see in the protectorate of the Italic party, and conferred upon it sovereign rights. The virtual outcome of the contest carried on by Rome since the year 726 with Byzantium and Pavia was to place the popes in the position held by the Greek exarch, and to confirm the limitation of the Lombard kingdom. We must, however, be cautious to remember that the south of Italy was comparatively unaffected. The dukes of the Greek empire and the Lombard dukes 1 Benevento, together with a few autonomous commercial cities, still divided Italy below the Campagna of Rome (seeL0MBARDs).
II. Frankish Emperors.
The Franko-Papal alliance, which conferred a crown on Pippin and sovereign rights upon the see of Rome, held within itself that ideal of mutually Charles supporting papacy and empire which exercised so the iireat powerful an influence in medieval history. When Charles the Great (Charlemagne) deposed his father-in- lin~as. law Desiderius, the last Lombard king, in 774, and when he received the circlet of the empire from Leo Ill, at Rome ~fl 800, he did but complete and ratify the compact offered to his grandfather, Charles Martel, by Gregory III. The relations between the new emperor and the pope were ill defined; and this proved the source of infinite disasters to Italy and Europe in the sequel. But for the moment each seemed necessary to the other; and that sufficed. Charles took possession of the kingdom of Italy, as limited by Pippins settlement. The pope was confirmed in his rectorship of the cities ceded by Aistolf, with the further understanding, tacit rather than expressed, that, even as he had wrung these provinces for the Italic people from both Greeks and Lombards, so in the future he might claim the protectorate of such portions of Italy, external to the kingdom, as he should be able to acquired This, at any rate, seems to be the meaning of that obscure re-settlement of the peninsula which Charles effected. The kingdom of Italy, transmitted on his death by Charles the Great, and afterwards Confirmed to his grandson Lotbar by the peace of Verdun in 843, stretched from the Alps to Terracina. The duchy of Benevento remained tributary, but independent. The cities of Gaeta and Naples, Sicily and the so-called Theme of Lombardy in South Apulia and Calabria, still recognized the Byzantine emperor. Venice stood aloof, professing a nominal allegiance to the East. The parcels into which the Lombards had divided the peninsula remained thus virtually unaltered, except for the new authority acquired by the see of Rome.
Internally Charles left the affairs of the Italian kingdom much as he found them, except that he appears to have pursued the policy of breaking up the larger fiefs of the Lombards, substituting counts for their dukes, and adding to the privileges of the bishops. We may reckon these measures among the earliest advantages extended to the cities, which still contained the bulk of the old Roman population, and which were destined to intervene with decisive effect two centuries later in Italian history. It should also here be noticed that the changes introduced into the holding of the fiefs, whether by altering their boundaries or substituting Frankish for Lombard vassals, were chief among the causes why the feudal system took no permanent hold in Italy. Feudalism was not at any time a national institution. The hierarchy of dukes and marquises and counts consisted of foreign soldiers imposed on. the indigenous inhabitants; and the rapid succession of conquerors, Lombards, Franks and Germans following each other at no long interval, and each endeavouring to weaken the remaining strength of his predecessor, prevented this alien hierarchy from acquiring ixity by permanence of tenure. Among the many miseries .nflicted upon Italy by the frequent changes of her northern rulers, this at least may be reckoned a blessing.
The Italians acknowledged eight kings of the house of Charles the Great, ending in Charles the Fat, who was deposed in 888. Fr8nkislj After them followed ten sovereigns, some of whom have been misnamed Italians by writers too eager to catch at any resemblance of national glory for a ~ people passive in the hands of foreign masters. The truth is that no period in Italian history was less really glorious than that which came to a close in 961 by Berengar II.s cession of his rights to Otto the Great. It was a period marked in the first place by the conquests of the Saracens, who began. to occupy Sicily early in the 9th century, overran Calabria and Apulia, took Ban and threatened Rome. In the second place it was marked by a restoration of the Greeks to power. In 890 they established themselves again at Ban, and ruled the Theme of Lombardy by means of an officer entitled Catapan. In the third place it was marked by a decline of good government in Rome. Early in the 10th century the papacy fell into the hands of a noble family, known eventually as the counts of Tusculum, who almost succeeded in rendering the office hereditary, and in uniting the civil and ecclesiastical functions of the city under a single member of their house. It is not necessary to relate the scandals of Marozias and Theodoras female reign, the infamies of John XII. or the intrigues which tended to convert Rome into a duchy~ The most important fact for the historian of Italy to notice is that during this time the popes abandoned, not only their high duties as chiefs of Christendom, but also their protectorate of Italian liberties. A fourth humiliating episode in this period was the invasion of the Magyar barbarians, who overran the north of Italy, and reduced its fairest provinces to the condition of a wilderness. Anarchy and misery are indeed the main features of that long space of time which elapsed between the death of Charles the Great and the descent of Otto. Through the almost impenetrable darkness and confusion we only discern this much, that Italy was powerless to constitute herself a nation.
The discords which followed on the break-up of the Carolingian power, and the weakness of the so-called Italian emperors, who were unable to control the feudatories (marquises of Ivrea and Tuscany, dukes of Friuli and Spoleto), from whose ranks they sprang, exposed Italy to ever-increasing misrule. The country by this time had become thickly covered over with castles, the seats of greater or lesser nobles, all of whom were eager to detach themselves from strict allegiance to the Regno. The cities, exposed to pillage by Huns in the north and Saracens in the south, and ravaged on the coast by Norse pirates, asserted their right to enclose themselves with walls, and taught their burghers the use of arms. Within the circuit of their ramparts, the bishops already began to exercise authority in rivalry with the counts, to whom, since the days of Theodoric, had been entrusted the government of the Italian burghs. Agreeably to feudal customs, these nobles, as they grew in power, retired from the town, and built themselves fortresses on points of vantage in the neighborhood. Thus the titular king of Italy found himself simultaneously at war with those great vassals who had chosen him from their own class, with the turbulent factions of the Roman aristocracy, with unruly bishops in the growing cities and with the multitude of minor counts and barons who occupied the open lands, and who changed sides according to the interests of the moment. The last king of the quasi-Italian succession, Berengar II., marquis of Ivrea (951961), made a vigorous effort to restore the authority of the regno; and had he succeeded, it is not impossible that now at the last moment Italy might have become an independent nation. But this attempt at unification was reckoned to Berengar for a crime. He only won the hatred of all classes, and was represented by the obscure annalists of that period as an oppressor of the church and a remorseless tyrant. In Italy, divided between feudal nobles and almost hereditary ecclesiastics, of foreign blood and alien sympathies, there was no national feeling. Berengar stood alone against a multitude, unanimous in their intolerance of discipline. His predecessor in the kingdom, Lothar, had left a young and beautiful widow, Adelheid. Berengar imprisoned her upon the Lake of Como, and threatened her with a forced marriage to his son Adalbert. She escaped to the castle of Canossa, where the great count of Tuscany espoused her cause, and appealed in her behalf to Otto the Saxon. The king of Germany descended into Italy, and took Adelheid in marriage. After this episode Berengar was more discredited and impotent than ever. In the extremity of his fortunes he had recourse himself to Otto, making a formal cession of the Italian kingdom, in his own name and that of his son Adalbert, to the Saxon as his overlord. By this slender tie the crown of Italy was joined to that of Germany; and the formal right of the elected king of Germany to be considered king of Italy and emperor may be held to have accrued from this epoch.
III. The German Emperors.
Berengar gained nothing by his act of obedience to Otto. The great Italian nobles, in their turn, appealed to Germany. Otto entered Lombardy Saxon in 961, deposed Berengar, assumed the crown in San and FranAmbrogio at Milan, and in 962 was proclaimed conlan emperor by John XII. at Rome. Henceforward ~ Italy changed masters according as one or other of the German families assumed supremacy beyond the Alps. It is one of the strongest instances furnished by history of the fascination exercised by an idea that the Italians themselves should have grown to glory in this dependence of their nation upon Caesars who had nothing but a name in common with the Roman Imperator of the past.
The first thing we have to notice in this revolution which placed Otto the Great upon the imperial throne is that the Italian. kingdom, founded by the Lombards, recognized by the Franks and recently claimed by eminent Italian feudatories, virtually ceased to exist. It was merged in the German kingdom; and, since for the German princes Germany was of necessity their first care, Italy from this time forward began to be left more and more to herself. The central authority of Pavia had always been weak; the regno had proved insufficient to combine the nation. But now even that shadow of union disappeared, and the Italians were abandoned to the slowly working influences which tended to divide them into separate states. The most brilliant period of their chequered history, the period which includes the rise of communes, the exchange of municipal liberty for despotism and the gradual discrimination of the five great powers (Milan, Venice, Florence, the Papacy and the kingdom of Naples), now begins. Among the centrifugal forces which determined the future of the Italian race must be reckoned, first and foremost, the new spirit of municipal independence. We have seen how the cities enclosed themselves with walls, and how the bishops defined their authority against that of the counts. Otto encouraged this revolution by placing the enclosures of the chief burghs beyond the jurisdiction of the counts. Within those precincts the bishops and the citizens were independent of all feudal masters but the emperor. He further broke the power of the great vassals by redivisions of their feuds, and by the creation of ~iew marches which he assigned to his German followers. In this way, Qwing to the dislocation of the ancient aristocracy, to the enlarged jurisdiction,of a power so democratic as the episcopate, and to the increased privileges of the burghs, feudalism received a powerful check in Italy. The Italian people, that people which gave to the world the commerce and the arts of Florence, was not indeed as yet apparent. But the conditions under which it could arise, casting from itself all foreign and feudal trammels, recognizing its true past in ancient Rome, and reconstructing a civility out of the ruins of those glorious memories, were now at last granted. The nobles from this time forward retired into the country and the mountains, fortified themselves in strong places outside the cities, and gave their best attention to fostering the rural population. Within the cities and upon the open lands the Italians, in this and the next century, doubled, trebled and quadrupled their numbers. A race was formed strong enough to keep the empire itself in check, strong enough, except for its own internecine contests, to have formed a nation equal to its happier neighbors.
The recent scandals of the papacy induced Otto to deprive the Romans of their right to elect popes. But when he died in 973, his son Otto 11. (married to Theophano of the imperial Byzantine house) and his grandson, Otto III., who descended into Italy in 996, found that the affairs of Rome and of the southern provinces were more than even their imperial powers could cope with. The faction of the counts of Tusculum raised its head from time to time in the Eternal City, and Rome still claimed to be a commonwealth. Otto III.s untimely death in 1002 introduced new discords. Rome fell once more into the hands of her nobles. The Lombards chose Ardoin, marquis of Ivrea, for king, and Pavia supported his claims against those of Henry of Bavaria, who had been elected in Germany. Milan sided with Henry; and this is perhaps the first eminent instance of cities being reckoned powerful allies in the Italian disputes of sovereigns. It is also the first instance of that bitter feud between the two great capitals of Lombardy, a feud rooted in ancient antipathies between the Roman population of Mediolanum and the Lombard garrison of Alboins successors, which proved so disastrous to the national cause. Ardoin retired to a monastery, where he died in 1015. Henry nearly destroyed Pavia, was crowned in Rome and died in 1024. After this event Heribert, the archbishop of..Milan, invited Conrad, the Franconian king of Germany, into Italy, and crowned him with the iron crown of the kingdom.
The intervention of this man, Heribert, compels us to turn a closer glance upon the cities of North Italy. It is here, at the Heribert present epoch and for the next two centuries, that the and the pith and nerve of the Italian nation must be sought; Lombard and among the burghs of Lombardy, Milan, the eldest burghs. daughter of ancient Rome, assumes the lead. In Milan we hear for the first time the word Comune. In Milan the citizens first form themselves into a Parlamento. In Milan the archbishop organizes the hitherto voiceless, defenceless population into a community capable of expressing its needs, and an army ready to maintain its rights. To Heribert is attributed the invention of the Carroccio, which played so singular and important a part in the warfare of Italian cities. A huge car drawn by oxen, bearing the standard of the burgh, and carrying an altar with the host, this carroccio, like the ark of the Israelites, formed a rallying point in battle, and reminded the armed artisans that they had a city and a church to fight for. That Heriberts device proved effectual in raising the spirit of his burghers, and consolidating them into a formidable band of warriors, is shown by the fact that it was speedily adopted in all the free cities. It must not, however, be supposed that .at this epoch the liberties of the burghs were fully developed. The mass of the people remained unrepresented in the government; and even if the consuls existed in the days of Heribert, they were but humble legal officers, transacting business for their constituents in the courts of the bishop and his viscount. It still needed nearly a century of struggle to render the burghers independent of lordship, with a fully organized commune, self-governed in its several assemblies. While making these reservations, it is at thesame time right to observe that certain Italian communities were more advanced upon the path of independence than others. This is specially the case with the maritime ports. Not to mention Venice, which has not yet entered the Italian community, and remains a Greek free city, Genoa and Pisa were rapidly rising into ill-defined autonomy. Their command of fleets gave them incontestable advantages, as when, for instance, Otto II. employed the Pisans in 980 against the Greeks in Lower Italy, and the Pisans and Genoese together attacked the Saracens of Sardinia in 1017. Still, speaking generally, the age of independence for the burghs had only begun when Heribert from Milan undertook the earliest organization of a force that was to become paramount in peace and war.
Next to Milan, and from the point of view of general politics even more than Milan, Rome now claims attention. The destinies of Italy depended upon the character which Rome. the see of St Peter should assume. Even the liberties of her republics in the north hung on the issue of a contest which in the 11th and 12th centuries shook Europe to its farthest boundaries. So fatally were the internal affairs of that magnificent but unhappy country bound up with concerns which brought the forces of the civilized world into play. Her ancient prestige, her geographical position and the intellectual primacy of her most noble children rendered Italy the battleground of principles that set all Christendom in motion, and by the clash of which she found herself for ever afterwards divided. During the reign of Conrad II., the party of the counts of Tusculum revived in Rome; and Crescentius, claiming the title of consul in. the imperial city, sought once more to control the election of the popes. When Henry III., the son of Conrad, entered Italy in 1046, he found three popes in Rome. These he abolished, and, taking the appointment into his own hands, gave German bishops to the see. The policy thus initiated upon the precedent laid down by Otto the Great was a remedy for pressing evils. It saved Rome from becoming a duchy in the hands of the Tusculum house. But it neither raised the prestige of the papacy, nor could it satisfy the Italians, who rightly regarded the Roman see as theirs. These German popes were short-lived and inefficient. Their appointment, according to notions which defined themselves within the church at this epoch, was simoniacal; and during the long minority of Henry IV., who succeeded his father in 1056, the terrible Tuscan monk, Hildebrand of Soana, forged weapons which he used with deadly effect against the presumption of the empire. The condition of the church seemed desperate, unless it could be purged of crying scandals of the subjection of the papacy to the great Roman nobles, of its subordination to the German emperor and of its internal demoralization. It was Hildebrands policy throughout three papacies, during which he controlled the counsels of the Vatican, and before he himself assumed the tiara, to prepare the mind of Italy and Europe for a mighty change. His programme included these three points: (I) the celibacy of the clergy; (2) the abolition of ecclesiastical appointments made by the secular authority; (3) the vesting of the papal election in the hands of the Roman clergy and people, presided over by the curia of cardinals. How Hildebrand paved the way for these reforms during the pontificates of Nicholas II. and Alexander II., how he succeeded in raising the papal office from the depths of degradation and subjection to illimitable sway over the minds of men in Europe, and how his warfare with the empire established on a solid basis the still doubtful independence of the Italian burghs, renewing the long neglected protectorate of the Italian race, and bequeathing to his successors a national policy which had been forgotten by the popes since his great predecessor Gregory II., forms a chapter in European history which must now be interrupted. We have to foJiow the fortunes of unexpected allies, upon whom in no small measure his success depended.
In order to maintain some thread of continuity through the perplexed and tangled vicissitudes of the Italian race, it has been Norman necessary to disregard those provinces which did not ~ immediately contribute to the formation of its history.
of the For this reason we have left the whole of the south up to the present point unnoticed. Sicily in the hands ot the Mussulmans, the Theme of Lombardy abandoned to the weak suzerainty of the Greek catapans, the Lombard duchy of Benevento slowly falling to pieces and the maritime republics of Naples, Gaeta and Amalfi extending their influence by commerce in the Mediterranean, were in effect detached from the Italian regno, beyond the jurisidiction of Rome, included in no parcel of Italy proper. But now the moment had arrived when this vast group of provinces, forming the future kingdom of the Two Sicilies, was about to enter definitely and decisively within the bounds of the Italian community. Some Norman adventurers, on pilgrimage to St Michaels shrine on Monte Gargano, lent their swords in 1017 to the Lombard cities of Apulia against the Greeks. Twelve years later we find the Normans settled at Aversa under their Count Rainuif. From this station as a centre the little band of adventurers, playing the Greeks off against the Lombards, and the Lombards against the Greeks, spread their power in all directions, until they made themselves the most considerable force in southern Italy William of Hauteville was proclaimed count of Apulia. His half-brother, Robert Wiskard or Guiscard, after defeating the papal troops at Civitella in 1053, received from Leo IX. the in.vestiture of all present and future conquests in Apulia, Calabria and Sicily, which he agreed to hold as fiefs of the Holy See. Nicholas II. ratified this grant, and confirmed the title of count. Having consolidated their possessions on the mainland, the Normans, under Robert Guiscards brother, the great Count Roger, undertook the conquest of Sicily in 1060. After a prolonged struggle of thirty years, they wrested the whole island from tile Saracens; and Reger, dying in 1101, bequeathed to his son Roger a kingdom in Calabria and Sicily second to none in Europe for wealth and magnificence. This, while the elder branch of the Hauteville family still held the title and domains of the Apulian duchy; but in 1127, upon the death of his cousin Duke William, Roger united the whole of the future realm. In. 1130 he assumed the style of king of Sicily, inscribing upon his sword the famous hexameter Appulus et Calaber Siculus mihi servit et Afer.
This Norman conquest of the two Sicilies forms the most romantic episode in medieval Italian history. By the consolidation of Apulia, Calabria and Sicily into a powerful kingdom, by checking the growth of the maritime republics and by recognizing the over-lordship of the papal see, the house of Hauteville influenced the destinies of Italy with more effect than any of the princes who had previously dealt with any portion of the peninsula. Their kingdom, though Naples was from time to time separated from Sicily, never quite lost the cohesion they had given it; and all the disturbances of equilibrium in Italy were due in after days to papal manipulation of the rights acquired by Robert Guiscards act of homage. The southern regno, in the hands of the popes, proved an insurmountable obstacle to the unification of Italy, led to French interference in Italian affairs, introduced the Spaniard and maintained in those rich southern provinces the reality of feudal sovereignty long after this alien element had been eliminated from the rest of Italy (see NORMANS; SICILY: History).
For the sake of clearness, we have anticipated the course of events by nearly a century. We must now return to the date of ~, Hildebrands elevation to the papacy in 1073, whet ~ he chose the memorable name of Gregory VII. Ir tares the next year after his election Hildebrand convenec a council, and passed measures enforcing the celibac)
of the clergy. In 1075 he caused the investiture of ecclesiastica dignitaries by secular potentates of any degree to be condemned These two reforms, striking at the most cherished privileges ant most deeply-rooted self-indulgences of the aristocratic caste ii Europe, inflamed the bitterest hostility. Henry IV., king o Germany, but not crowned emperor, convened a diet in th~
following year at Worms, where Gregory was deposed and excommunicated. The pope followed with a counter excommunication, far more formidable, releasing the kings subjects from their oaths of allegiance. War was thus declared between the two chiefs of western Christendom, that war of investitures which out-lasted the lives of both Gregory and Henry, and was not terminated till the year 1122. The dramatic episodes of this struggle are too well known to be enlarged upon. In his singlehanded duel with the strength of Germany, Gregory received material assistance from the Countess Matilda of Tuscany. She was the last heiress of the great house of Canossa, whose fiefs stretched from Mantua across Lombardy, passed the Apennines, included the Tuscan plains, and embraced a portion of the duchy of Spoleto. It was in her castle of Canossa that Henry IV. performed his three days penance in the winter of 1077; and there she made the cession of her vast domains to the church. That cession, renewed after the death of Gregory to his successors, conferred upon the popes indefinite rights, of which they afterwards availed themselves in the consolidation of their temporal power. Matilda died in the year 1115. Gregory had passed before her from the scene of his contest, an exile at Salerno, whither Robert Guiscard carried him in 1084 from the anarchy of rebellious Rome. With unbroken spirit, though the objects of his life were unattained, though Italy and Europe had been thrown into confusion, and the issue of the conflict was still doubtful, Gregory expired in 1085 with these words on his lips: I loved justice, I hated iniquity, therefore in banishment I die.
The greatest of the popes thus breathed his last; but the new spirit he had communicated to the papacy was not destined to expire with him. Gregorys immediate successors, Victor Ill., Urban II. and Paschal II., carried on his struggle with Henry IV. and his imperial antipopes, encouraging the emperors son to rebel against him, and stirring up Europe for the first crusade. When Henry IV. died, his own sons prisoner, in 1106, Henry V. crossed the Alps, entered Rome, wrung the imperial coronation from Paschal II. and compelled the pope to grant his claims on the investitures. Scarcely had he returned to Germany when the Lateran disavowed all that the pope had done, on the score that it had been extorted by force. France sided with the church. Germany rejected the bull of investiture. A new descent into Italy, a new seizure of Rome, proved of no avail. The emperors real weakness was in Germany, where his subjects openly expressed their discontent. He at last abandoned the contest which had distracted Europe. By the concordat of Worms, 1122, the emperor surrendered the right of investiture by ring and staff, and granted the right of election to the clergy. The popes were henceforth to be chosen by the cardinals, the bishops by the chapters subject to the popes approval. On the other hand the pope ceded to the emperor the right of investiture by the sceptre. But the main issue of the struggle was not in these details of ecclesiastical government; principles had been at stake far deeper and more widely reaching. The respective relations of pope and emperor, ill-defined in the compact between Charles the Great and Leo III., were brought in question, and Che two chief potentates -of Christendom, no longer tacitly concordant, stood against each other in irreconcilable rivalry. Upon this point, though the battle seemed to be a drawn one, the popes were really victors. They remained independent of the emperor, but the emperor had still to seek the crown at their hands. The pretensions of Otto the Great and Henry III. to make popes were gone for ever (see PAPACY;
INVESTITURE).
IV. Age of the Communes.
The final gainers, however, by the war of investitures were the Italians. In the first place, from this time forward, owing to the election of popes by the Roman curia, the Holy See remained in the hands ~ of Italians; and this, though it was by no means an cities. unmixed good, was a great glory to the nation. In the next place, the antagonism of the popes to the emperors, whicl became hereditary in the Holy College, forced the former tc - assume the protectorate of the national cause. But by far tht greatest profit the Italians reaped was the emancipation of theh burghs. During the forty-seven years war, when pope and emperor were respectively bidding for their affiance, and offering concessions to secure their support, the communes grew in self-reliance, strength and liberty. As the bishops had helped to free them from subservience to their feudal masters, so the war of investitures relieved them of dependence on their bishops. The age of real autonomy, signalized by the supremacy of consuls in the cities, had arrived.
In the republics, as we begin to know them after the war of investitures, government was carried on by officers called consuls, varying in number according to custom and according to the division of the town into districts. These magistrates, as we have already seen, were originally appointed to control and protect the humbler classes. But, in proportion as the people gained more power in the field the consuls rose into importance, superseded the bishops and began to represent the city in transactions with its neighbors. Popes and emperors who needed the assistance of a city, had to seek it from the consuls, and thus these officers gradually converted an obscure and indefinite authority into what resembles the presidency of a commonwealth. They were supported by a deliberative assembly, called credenza, chosen from the more distinguished citizens. In addition to this privy council, we find a gran consiglio, consisting of the burghers who had established the right to interfere immediately in public affairs, and a still larger assembly called parlamenlo, which included the whole adult population. Though the institutions of the communes varied in different localities, this is the type to which they all approximated. It will be perceived that the type was rather oligarchical than strictly democratic. Between the parlamento and the consuls with their privy council, or credenza, was interposed the gran consiglio of privileged burghers. These formed the aristocracy of the town, who by their wealth and birth held its affairs within their custody. There is good reason to believe that, when the term popolo occurs, it refers to this body and not to the whole mass of the population. The comune included the entire citybishop, consuls, oligarchy, councils, handicraftsmen, proletariate. The popolo was the governing or upper class. It was almost inevitable in the transition from feudalism to democracy that this intermediate ground should be traversed; and the peculiar Italian phrases, primo popolo, secondo popolo, terzo pa polo, and so forth, indicate successive changes, whereby the oligarchy passed from one stage to another in its progress toward absorption in democracy or tyranny.
Under their consuls the Italian burghs rose to a great height of prosperity and splendour. Pisa built her Duomo. Milan undertook the irrigation works which enriched the soil of Lombardy for ever. Massive walls, substantial edifices, commodious seaports, good roads, were the benefits conferred by this new government on Italy. It is also to be noticed that the people now began to be conscious of their past. They recognized the fact that their blood was Latin as distinguished from Teutonic, and that they must look to ancient Rome for those memories which constitute a pecples nationality. At this epoch the study of Roman law received a new impulse, imd thu. is the real meaning of the legend that Pisa, glorious through her consuls, brought the pandects in a single codex from Amalfi. The very name consul, no less than the Romanizing character of the best architecture of the time, points to the same revival of antiquity.
The rise of the Lombard communes produced a sympathetic revolution in Rome, which deserves to be mentioned in this place.
A monk, named Arnold of Brescia, animated with the Republic .
in Rome spint of the Milanese, stirred up the Romans to shake off the temporal sway of their bishop. He attempted~
in fact, upon a grand scale what was being slowly and quietly effected in the northern cities. Rome, ever mindful of hei unique past, listened to Arnolds preaching. A senate wal established, an.d the republic was proclaimed. The title of patrician was revived and offered to Conrad, king of Italy, but not crowned emperor. Conrad refused it, and the Romans conferred it upon one of their own nobles. Though these institutions borrowed high-sounding titles from antiquity, they wen in reality imitations of the Lombard civic system. The patrician stood for the consuls. The senate, composed of nobles, represented the credenza and the gran consiglio. The pope was unable to check this revolution, which is now chiefly interesting as further proof of the insurgence of the Latin as against the feudal elements in Italy at this period (see ROME: History).
Though the communes gained so much by the war of investitures, the division of the country between the popes and emperors parties was no small price to pay for inde- Munlelpendence. It inflicted upon Italy the ineradicable pal wars. curse of party-warfare, setting city against city, house against house, and rendering concordant action for a national end impossible. No sooner had the compromise of the investitures been conduded than it was manifest that the burghers of the new enfranchised communes were resolved to turn their arms against each other. We seek in vain an obvious motive for each separate quarrel. All we know for certain is that1 at this epoch, Rome attempts to ruin Tivoli, and Venice Pisa; Milan fights with Cremona, Cremona with Crema, Pavia with Verona, Verona with Padua, Piacenza with Parma, Modena and Reggio with Bologna, Bologna and Faenza with Ravenna and Imola, Florence and Pisa with Lucca and Siena, and so on through the whole list of cities. The nearer the neighbors, the more rancorous and internecine is the strife; and, as in all cases where animosity is deadly and no grave local causes of dispute are apparent, we are bound to conclude that some deeply-seated permanent uneasiness goaded these fast growing communities into rivalry. Italy was, in. fact, too small for her children. As the towns expanded, they perceived that they must mutually exclude each other. They fought for bare existence, for primacy in commerce, for the command of seaports, for the keys of mountain passes, for rivers, roads and all the avenues of wealth and plenty. The popes cause and the emperors cause were of comparatively little moment to Italian burghers; and the names of Guelph and Ghibelline, which before long began to be heard in every street, on every market-place, had no meaning for them. These watchwords are said to have arisen in Germany during the disputed succession of the empire between 1135 and 1152, when the Welfs of Bavaria opposed the Swabian princes of Waiblingen origin. But in Italy, although they were severally identified with the papal and imperial parties, they really served as symbols for jealousies which altered in complexion from time to time and place to place, expressing more than antagonistic political principles, and involving differences vital enough to split the social fabric to its foundation.
Under the imperial rule of Lothar the Saxon (1125-1137) and Conrad the Swabian (1138I I 52), these civil wars increased in violence owing to the absence of authority. Neither Swablan Lothar nor Conrad was strong at home; the former emperors. had no influence in Italy, and the latter never entered Italy at all. But when Conrad died, the electors chose his nephew Frederick, surnamed Barbarossa, who united the rival honors of Welf and Waiblingen, to succeed him; and it was soon obvious that the empire had a master powerful Fmder!ck of brain and firm of will. Frederick immediately B~barossa determined to reassert the imperial rights in his and the southern provinces, and to check the warfare of the Lombard burghs. When he first &ossed the Alps in 1154 cIties.
Lombardy was, roughly speaking, divided between two parties, the one headed by Pavia professing loyalty to the empire, the other headed by Milan ready to oppose its claims. The municipal animosities of the last quarter of a century gave substance to these factions; yet neither the imperial nor, the anti-imperial party had any real community of interest with Frederick. He came to supersede self-government by consuls, to deprive the cities of the privilege of making war on their own account and to extort his regalian rights of forage, food and lodging for his armies. It was only the habit of interurban jealousy which prevented the communes from at once combining to resist demands which threatened their liberty of action, and would leave them passive at the pleasure of a foreign master The diet was opened at Roncaglia near Piacenza, where Fredericli listened to the complaints of Como and Lodi against Milan, of Pavia against Tortona and of the marquis of Montferrat against Asti and Chieri. The plaintiffs in each case were imperialists; and Fredericks first action was to redress their supposed grievances. He laid waste Chieri, Asti and Tortona, then took the Lombard crown at Pavia, and, reserving Milan for a future day, passed southward to Rome. Outside the gates of Rome he was met by a deputation from the senate he had come to supersede, who addressed him in words memorable for expressing the republican spirit of new Italy face to face with autocratic feudalism: Thou wast a stranger, I have made thee a citizen; it is Rome who speaks: Thou earnest as an alien from beyond the Alps, I have conferred on thee the principality. Moved only to scorn and indignation by the rhetoric of these presumptuous enthusiasts, Frederick marched into the Leonine city, and took the imperial crown from the hands of Adrian IV. In return for this compliance, the emperor delivered over to the pope his troublesome rival Arnold of Brescia, who was burned alive by Nicholas Breakspear, the only English successor of St Peter. The gates of Rome itself were shut against Frederick; and even on this first occasion his good understanding with Adrian began to suffer. The points of dispute between them related mainly to Matildas bequest, and to the kingdom of Sicily, which the pope had rendered independent of the empire by renewing its investiture in the name of the Holy See. In truth, the papacy and the empire had become irreconcilable. Each claimed illimitable authority, and neither was content to abide within such limits as would have secured a mutual tolerance. Having obtained his coronation, Frederick withdrew to Germany, while Milan prepared herself against the storm which threatened. In the ensuing struggle with the empire, that great city rose to the altitude of patriotic heroism. By their sufferings no less than by their deeds of daring, her citizens showed themselves to be sublime, devoted and disinterested, winning the purest laurels which give lustre to Italian story. Almost in Fredericks presence, they rebuilt Tortona, punished Pavia, Lodi, Cremona and the marquis of Montferrat. Then. they fortified the Adda and Ticino, and waited for the emperors next descent. He came in 1158 with a large army, overran Lombardy, raised his imperial allies, and sat down before the walls of Milan. Famine forced the burghers to partial obedience, and Frederick held a victorious diet at Roncaglia. Here the jurists of Bologna appeared, armed with their new lore of Roman law, and expounded Justinians code in the interests of the German empire. It was now seen how the absolutist doctrines of autocracy developed in Justinians age at Byzantium would bear fruits in the development of an imperial idea, which was destined to be the fatal mirage of medieval Italy. Frederick placed judges of his own appointment, with the title of podest, in all the Lombard commu1ies; and this stretch of his authority, while it exacerbated his foes, forced even his friends to join their ranks against him. The war, meanwhile, dragged on. Crema yielded after an heroic siege in 1160, and was abandoned to the cruelty of its fierce rival Cremona. Milan was invested in 1161, starved into capitulation after nine months resistance, and given up to total destruction by the Italian imperialists of Fredericks army, so stained and tarnished with the vindictive passions of municipal rivalry was even this, the one great glorious strife of Italian annals. Having ruined his rebellious city, but not tamed her spirit, Frederick withdrew across the Alps. But, in the interval between his second and third visit, a league was formed against him in north-eastern Lombardy. Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Treviso, Venice entered into a compact to defend their liberties; and when he came again in 1163 with a brilliant staff of German knights, the imperial cities refused to join his standards. This vas the first and ominous sign of a coming change.
Meanwhile the election of Alexander III. to the papacy in 1159 added a powerful ally to the republican party. Opposed by an anti-pope whom the emperor favored, Alexander found it was his truest policy to rely for support upon the antiimperialist communes. They in return gladly accepted a champion who lent them the prestige and influence of the church. When Frederick once more crossed the Alps in 1166, he advanced on Rome, and besieged Alexander in the Coliseum. But the affairs of Lombardy left him no leisure to persecute a recalcitrant pontiff. In April 1167 a new league was formed between Cremona, Bergamo, Brescia, Mantua and Ferrara. In. December of the same year this league allied itself with the elder Veronese league, and received the addition. of Milan, Lodi, Piacenza, Parma, Modena and Bologna. The famous league of Lombard cities, styled Concordia in its acts of settlement, was now established. Novara, Vercelli, Asti and Tortona swelled its ranks; only Pavia and Montferrat remained imperialist between. the Alps and Apennines. Frederick fled for Lombard his life by the Mont Cenis, and in 1168 the town of Alessandria was erected to keep Pavia and the marquisate in check. In the emperors absence, Raven.na, Rimini, Imola and Foril joined the league, which now called itself the Society of Venice, Lombardy, the March, Romagna and Alessandria. For the fifth time, in 1174, Frederick entered his rebellious dominions. The fortress town of Alessandria stopped his progress with those mud walls contemptuously named of straw, while the forces of the league assembled at Modena and obliged him to raise the siege. In the spring of 1176 Frederick threatened Milan. His army found itself a little to the north of the town near the village of Legnano, when the troops of the city, assisted only by a few allies from Piacenza, Verona, Brescia, Novara and Vercelli, met and overwhelmed it. The victory was complete. Frederick escaped alone to Pavia, whence he opened negotiations with Alexander. In consequence of these transactions, he was suffered to betake himself unharmed to Venice. Here, as upon neutral ground, the emperor met the pope, and a truce for six years was concluded with the Lombard burghs. Looking back from the vantage-ground of history upon the issue of this long struggle, we are struck with the small results which satisfied the Lombard communes. They had humbled and utterly defeated their foreign lord. They had proved their strength in combination. Yet neither the acts by which their league was ratified nor the terms negotiated for them by their patron Alexander evince the smallest desire of what we now understand as national independence. The name of Italy is never mentioned. The supremacy of the emperor is not called in question. The conception of a permanent confederation, bound together in offensive and defensive alliance for common objects, has not occurred to these hard fighters and stubborn asserters of their civic privileges. All they claim is municipal autonomy; the right to manage their own affairs within the city walls, to fight their battles as they choose, and to follow their several ends unchecked. It is vain. to lament that, when they might have now established Italian independence upon a secure basis, they chose local and municipal privileges. Their mutual jealousies, combined with the prestige of the empire, and possibly with the selfishness of the pope, who had secured his own position, and was not likely to foster a national spirit that would have threatened the ecclesiastical supremacy, deprived the Italians of the only great opportunity they ever had of forming themselves into a powerful nation.
When the truce expired in 1183, a permanent peace was ratified at Constance. The intervening years had been spent by the Lombards, not irs consolidating their union, but in attempting to secure special privileges for their several cities. Alessandria della Paglia, glorious by ~ her resistance to the emperor in 1174, had even changed her name to Cesarea! The signatories of the peace of Constance were divided between leaguers and imperialists. On the one side we find Vercelli, Novara, Milan, Lodi, Bergamo, Brescia, Mantua, Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Treviso, Bologna, Faenza, Modena, Reggio, Parma, Piacenza; on the other, Pavia, Genoa, Alba, Cremona, Como, Tortona, Asti, Cesarea. Venice, who had not yet entered the Italian community, is conspicuous by her absence. According to the terms of this treaty, the communes were confirmed in their right of self-government by con6uls, and their right of warfare. The emperor retained the supreme courts of appeal within the cities, and his claim for sustenance at their expense when he came into Italy.
The privileges confirmed to the Lombard cities by the peace of Constance were extended to Tuscany, where Florence, having War of ruined Fiesole, had begun her career of freedom and clues prosperity. The next great chapter in the history of against Italian evolution is the war of the burghs against the nobles, nobles. The consular cities were everywhere surrounded by castles; and, though the feudal lords had been weakened by the events of the preceding centuries, they continued to be formidable enemies. It was, for instance, necessary to the well-being of the towns that they should possess territory round their walls, and this had to be wrested from the nobles. We cannot linger over the details of this warfare. It must suffice to say that, partly by mortgaging their property to rich burghers, partly by entering the service of the cities ~s condottieri (mercenary leaders), partly by espousing the cause of one town against another, and partly by forced submission after the siege of their strong places, the counts were gradually brought into connection of dependence on the communes. These, in their turn, forced the nobles to leave their castles, and to reside for at least a portion of each year within the walls. By these measures the counts became citizens, the rural population ceased to rank as serfs, and the Italo-Roman population of the towns absorbed into itself the remnants of Franks, Germans and other foreign stocks. It would be impossible to exaggerate the importance of this revolution, which ended by destroying the last vestige of feudality, and prepared that common Italian people which afterwards distinguished itself by the creation of European culture. But, like all the vicissitudes, of the Italian race, while it was a decided step forward in one direction, it introduced a new source of discord. The associated nobles proved ill neighbors to the peaceable citizens. They fortified their houses, retained their military habits, defied the consuls, and carried on feuds in the streets and squares. The war against the castles became a war against the palaces; and the system of government by consuls proved inefficient to control the clashing elements within the state. This led to the establishment of podests, who represented a compromise between two radically hostile parties in the city, and whose business it was to arbitrate and keep the peace between them. Invariably a foreigner, elected for a year with power of life and death and control of the armed force, but subject to a strict account at the expiration of his office, the podest might be compared to a dictator invested with limited authority. His title was derived from that of Frederick Barharossas judges; but he had no dependence on the empire. The citizens chose him, and voluntarily submitted to his rule. The podest marks an essentially transitional state in civic government, and his intervention paved the way for despotism.
The thirty years which elapsed between Frederick Barbarossas death in 1190 and the coronation of his grandson Frederick II.
in 1220 form one of the most momentous epochs in Innocent Italian history. Barbarossa, perceiving the advantage that would accrue to his house if he could join the crown of Sicily to that of Germany, and thus deprive the popes of their allies in Lower Italy, procured the marriage of his son Henry VI. to Constance, daughter of King Roger, and heiress of the Hauteville dynasty. When William II., the last monarch of the Norman race, died, Henry VI. claimed that kingdom in his wifes right, and was recognized in 1194. Three years afterwards he died, leaving a son, Frederick, to the care of Constance, who in her turn died in 1198, bequeathing the young prince, already crowned king of Germany, to the guardianship of Innocent III. It was bold policy to confide Frederick to his greatest enemy and rival; but the pope honorably discharged his duty, until his ward outgrew the years of tutelage, and became a fair mark for ecclesiastical hostility. Fredericks long minority was occupied by Innocents pontificate. Among the principal events of that reign must be reckoned the foundation of the two orders, Franciscan and Dominican, who were destined to form a militia for the holy see in conflict with the empire and the heretics of Lombardy.
A second great event was the fourth crusade, undertaken in 1198, which established the naval and commercial supremacy of the Italians in the Mediterranean. The Venetians, who contracted for the transport of the crusaders, and whose blind doge Dandolo was first to land in Constantinople, received one-half and onefourth of the divided Greek empire for their spoils. The Venetian ascendancy in the Levant dates from this epoch; for, though the republic had no power to occupy all the domains ceded to it, Candia was taken, together with several small islands and stations on the mainland. The formation of a Latin empire in the East increased the popes prestige; while at home it was his policy to organize Countess Matildas heritage by the formation of Guelph leagues, over which he presided. This is the meaning of the three leagues, in the March, in the duchy of Spoleto and in Tuscany, which now combined the chief cities of the papal territory into allies of the holy see. From the Tuscan league Pisa, consistently Ghibelline, stood aloof. Rome itself again at this epoch established a republic, with which Innocent would not or could not interfere. The thirteen districts in their council nominated four caporioni, who acted in concert with a senator, appointed, like the podest of other cities, for supreme judicial functions. Meanwhile the Guelph and Ghibelline factions were beginning to divide Italy into minute parcels. Not only did commune range itself against commune under the two rival flags, but party rose up against party within the city walls. The introduction of the factions into Florence in 1215, owing to a private quarrel between the Buondelmonti, Amidei and Donati, is a celebrated instance of what was happening in every burgh.
Frederick II. was left without a rival for the imperial throne ifl 1218 by the-death of Otto IV., and on the 22nd of November 1220, Honorius III., Innocents successor, crowned him in Rome. It was impossible for any section of the Italians to mistake the gravity of his access to power. pero~ In his single person he combined the prestige of empire with the crowns of Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, Germany and Burgundy; and in 1225, by marriage with Yolande de Brienne, he added that of Jerusalem. There was no prince greater or more formidable in the habitable globe. The communes, no less than the popes, felt that they must prepare themselves for contest to the death with a power which threatened their existence. Already in 1218, the Guelphs of Lombardy had resuscitated their old league, and had been defeated by the Ghibellines in a battle near Ghibello. Italy seemed to lie prostrate before the emperor, who commanded her for the first time from the south as well as from the north, In 1227 Frederick, who h1d promised to lead a crusade, was excommunicated by Gregory IX. because he was obliged by illness to defer his undertaking; and thus the spiritual power declared war upon its rival. The Guelph towns of Lombardy again raised their levies. Frederick enlisted his Saracen troops at Nocera and Luceria, and appointed the terrible Ezzelino da Romano his vicar in. the Marches of Verona to quell their insurrection. It was I 236, however, before he was able to take the field himself against the Lombards. Having established Ezzelino in Verona, Vicenza and Padua, he defeated the Milanese and their allies at Cortenuova in 1237, and sent their carroccio as a trophy of his victory to Rome. Gregory IX. feared lest the Guelph party would be ruined by this check. He therefore made alliance with Venice and Genoa, fulminated a new excommunication against Frederick, and convoked a council at Rome to ratify his ban in 1241. The Genoese undertook to bring the French bishops to this council. Their fleet was attacked at Meloria by the Pisans, and utterly defeated. The French prelates went in silver chains to prison. in the Ghibelline capital of Tuscany. So far Frederick had been successful at all points. In 1243 a new pope, Innocent IV., was elected, who prosecuted the war with still bitterer spirit. Forced to fly to France, he there, at Lyons, in 1245, convened a council, which enforced his condemnation of the emperor. Fredericks subjects were freed from their allegiance, and he was declared dethroned and deprived o~ all rights. Five times king and emperor as he was, Frederick, placed under the ban of the church, led henceforth a doomed existence. The mendicant monks stirred up the populace to acts of fanatical enmity. To plot against him, to attempt his life by poison or the sword, was accounted virtuous. His secretary, Piero delle Vigne, was wrongly suspected of conspiring. The crimes of his vicar Ezzelino, who laid whole provinces waste and murdered men by thousands in his Paduan prisons, increased the horror with which he was regarded. Parma revolted from him, and he spent months in 1247-1248 vainly trying to reduce this one time faithful city. The only gleam of success which shone on his ill fortune was the revolution which placed Florence in the hands of the Ghibellines in 1248. Next year Bologna rose against him, defeated his troops and took his son Enzio, king of Sardinia, prisoner at Fossaita. Hunted to the ground and broken-hearted, Frederick expired at the end of 1250 in his Apulian castle of Fiorentino. it is difficult to judge his career with fairness. The only prince who could, with any probability of success, have established the German rule in Italy, his ruin proved the impossibility of that long-cherished scheme. The nation had outgrown dependence upon foreigners, and after his death no German emperor interfered with anything but miserable failure in Italian affairs. Yet from many points of view it might be regretted that Frederick was not suffered to rule Italy. By birth and breeding an Italian, highly gifted and widely cultivated, liberal in his opinions, a patron. of literature, a founder of universities, he anticipated the spirit of the Renaissance. At his court Italian started into being as a language. His laws were wise. He was capable of givingto Italy a large and noble culture. But the commanding greatness of his position proved his ruin. Emperor and king of Sicily, he was the natural enemy of popes, who could not tolerate so overwhelming a rival, After Fredericks death, the popes carried on their war for eighteen years against his descendants. The cause of his son Conrad was sustained in Lower Italy by Manfred, one of Fredericks many natural children; and, when Frede- Conrad died in 1254, Manfred still acted as vicegerent ricks for the Swabians, who were now represented by a boy SUCCCS Conradin. Innocent IV. and Alexander IV. continued sors. to make head against the Ghibelline party. The most dramatic incident in this struggle was the crusade preached against Ezzelino. This tyrant had made himself justly odious; and when he was hunted to death in 1259, the triumph was less for the Guelph cause than for humanity outraged by the iniquities of such a monster. The battle between Guelph and Ghibelline raged with unintermitting fury. While the former faction gained in Lombardy by the massacre of Ezzelino, the latter revived in Tuscany after the battle of Montaperti, which in 1260 placed Florence at the discretion of the Ghibellines. Manfred, now called king of Sicily, headed the Ghibellines, and there was no strong counterpoise against him. In this necessity Urban IV. and Clement 1V. invited Charles of Arijou to enter italy and take the Guelph command. They made him senator of Rome and vicar of Tuscany, and promised him the investiture of the regno provided he stipulated that it should not be held in combination with the empire. Charles accepted these terms, and was welcomed by the Guelph party as their chief throughout Italy. He defeated Manfred in a battle at Grandella near Benevento in 1266. Manfred was killed; and, when Conradin, a lad of sixteen, descended from Germany to make good his claims to the kingdom, he too was defeated at Tagliacozzo in 1267. Less lucky than his uncle, Conradin escaped with his life, to die upon a scaffold at Naples. His glove was carried to his cousin Constance, wife of Peter of Aragon, the last of th great Norman-Swabian family. Enzio died in his prison foul years later. The popes had been successful; but they hac purchased their bloody victory at a great cost. This firsi invitation to French princes brought with it incalculable evils.
Charles of Anjou, supported by Rome, and recognized a~ chief in Tuscany, was by far the most formidable of the Italiar potentates. In his turn he now excited the jealousy of th popes, who began~ though cautiously, to cast their -f*elght iflt(the Ghibelline scale. Gregory initiated the policy of establish ing an equilibrium between the parties, which was carried ou by his successor Nicholas III. Charles was forced to resigr the senatorship of Rome and the signoria of Lombardy and Tuscany. In 1282 he received a more decided check, when Sicily rose against him in the famous rebellion of the Vespers. Civil Wan He lost the island, which gave itself to Aragon; and of Gue!phs thus the kingdom of Sicily was severed from that of anj Naples, the dynasty in the one being Spanish and Ghibelline, in the other French and Guelph. Mean- flCS.
while a new emperor had been elected, the prudent Rudolf of Habsburg, who abstained from interference with Italy, and who confirmed the territorial pretensions of the popes by solemn charter in 1278. Henceforth Emilia, Romagna, the March of Ancona, the patrimony of St Peter and the Campagna of Rome held of the Holy See, and not of the empire. The impei~ial chancery, without inquiring closely into the deeds furnished by the papal curia, made a deed of gift, which placed the pope in the position of a temporal sovereign. While Nicholas III. thus bettered the position of the church in Italy, the Guelph party grew stronger than ever, through the crushing defeat of the Pisans by the Genoese at Meloria in 1284. Pisa, who had ruined Amalfi, was now ruined by Genoa. She never held her head so high again after this victory, which sent her best and bravest citizens to die in the Ligurian dungeons. The Mediterranean was left to be fought for by Genoa and Venice, while Guelph Florence grew still more powerful in Tuscany. Not long after the battle of Meloria Charles of Anjou died, and was succeeded by his son Charles II. of Naples, who played no prominent part in Italian affairs. The Guelph party was held together with a less tight hand even in cities so consistent as Florence. Here in the year 1300 new factions, subdividing the old Guelphs and Ghibellines under the names of Neri and Bianchi, had acquired such force that Boniface VIII., a violently Guelph pope, called in Charles of Valois to pacify the republic and undertake the charge of Italian affairs. Boniface was a passionate and unwise man. After quarrelling with the French king, Philip le Bel, he fell into the hands of the Colonna family at Anagni, and died, either of the violence he there received or of mortification, in October 1303.
After the short papacy of Benedict XI. a Frenchman, Clement V., was elected, and the seat of the papacy was transferred to Avignon. Thus began that Babylonian exile of the popes which placed them in subjection to the French Jatio~ crown and ruined their prestige in Italy. Lasting of the seventy years, and joining on to the sixty years of ?P~cYtO the Great Schism, this enfeeblement of the papal Vig 0
authority, coinciding as it did with the practical elimination of the empire from Italian affairs, gave a long period of comparative independence to the nation. Nor must it be forgotten that this exile was due to the policy which induced the pontiffs, in their detestation of Ghibellinism, to rely successively upon the houses of Anjou and o Valois. This policy it was which justified Dantes fierce epigramthe puttaneggiar co regi.
The period we have briefly traversed was immortalized by Dante in an epic which from one point of view might be called the poem of the Guelphs and Ghibellines. From the foregoing bare narration of events it is impossible to estimate the importance of these parties, or to understand theil bearing on subsequent Italian history. We are therefore forced to pause awhile, and probe beneath the surface. The civil wars may be regarded as a continuation of the previous municipal struggle, intensified by recent hostilities between the burghers and the nobles. The quarrels of the church and empire lend pretexts and furnish war-cries; but the real question at issue is not the supremacy of pope or emperor. The conflict is a social one, between civic and feudal in.stitution.s, between commercial and military interests, between progress and conservatism. Guelph aemocracy and industry idealize the pope. The banner of the church waves above the camp of those who aim at positive prosperity and republican equality. Ghibelline aristocracy and immobility idealize the emperor. The prestige of the empire~ based upon Roman law and feudal tradition, attracts imaginatiw patriots and systematic thinkers. The two ideals are counter posed and mutually excltisive. No city calls itself either Guelpi or Ghibelline till it has expelled one-half of its inhabitants; for each party is resolved to constitute the state according to its own conception, and the affirmation of the, one programme is the negation of the other. The Ghibelline honestly believes that the Guelphs will reduce society to chaos. The Guelph is persuaded that the Ghibeffines wifi annihilate freedom and strangle commerce. The struggle is waged by two sets of men who equally love their city, but who would fain rule it upon diametrically opposite principles, and who fight to the death for its possession. This contradiction enters into the minutest details of lifearmorial bearings, clothes, habits at table, symbolize and accentuate the difference. Meanwhile each party forms its own organization of chiefs, finance-officers and registrars at home, and sends ambassadors to foreign cities of the same complexion. A network of party policy embraces and dominates the burghs of Italy, bringing the most distant centres into relation, and by the very division of the country augmenting the sense of nationality. The Italians learn through their discords at this epoch that they form one community. .The victory in the conflict practically falls to the hitherto unenfranchised plebeians. The elder noble families die out or lose their preponderance~ In some cities, as notably in. Florence after the date 1292, it becomes criminal to be scioperato, or unemployed in industry. New houses rise into importance; a new commercial aristocracy is formed. Burghers of all denominations are enrolled in one or other of the arts or gilds, and these trading companies furnish the material from which the government or signoria bf the city is composed. Plebeian handicrafts assert their right to be represented on an equality with learned professions and wealthy corporations. The ancient classes are confounded and obliterated in a population more homogeneous, more adapted for democracy and despotism.
In addition to the parliament and the councils which have been already enumerated, we now find a council of the party New con- established within the city. This body tends to stitution become a little state within the state, and, by conof the free trolling the victorious majority, disposes of the cities, government as it thinks best. The consuls are merged in ancients or priors, chosen from the arts. A new magistrate, the gonfalonier of justice, appears in some of the Guelph cities, with the special duty of keeping the insolence of the nobility in check. Meanwhile the podest still subsists; but he is no longer equal to the task d maintaining an equilibrium of forces. He sinks more and more into a judge, loses more and more the character of dictator. His ancient place is now occupied by a new functionary, no longer acting as arbiter, but concentrating the forces of the triumphant party. The captain of the people, acting as head of the ascendant Guelphs or Ghibellines, undertakes the responsibility of proscriptions, decides on questions of policy, forms alliances, declares war. Like all officers created to meet an emergency, the limitations to his power are illdefined, and he is often little better than an autocrat.
V. Age of the Despots.
Thus the Italians, during the heat of the civil wars, were ostensibly divided between partisans of the ~ ~ empire and partisans of the church. After the death Tyrannies, of Frederick II. their affairs were managed by Manfred and by Charles of Anjou, the supreme captains of the parties, under whose orders acted the captains of the people in each city. The contest being carried on by warfare, it followed that these captains in the burghs were chosen on account of military skill; and, since the nobles were men of arms by profession, members of ancient houses took the lead again in towns where they had been absorbed into the bourgeoisie. In this way, after the downfall of the Ezzelini of Romano, the Della Scala dynasty arose in Verona, and the Carraresi in Padua. The Estensi made themselves lords of Ferrara; the Torriani headed the Guelphs of Milan. At Ravenna we find the Polenta family, at Rimini the Malatestas, at Parma the Rossi, at Piacenza the Scotti, at Faenza the Manfredi. There is not a burgh of northern Italy but can trace the rise of a dynastic house to the vicissitudes of this period. In Tuscany, where the Guelph party was very strongly organized, and the commercial constitution of Florence kept the nobility in check, the communes remained as yet free from hereditary masters. Yet generals from time to time arose, the Conte Ugolino della Gheradesca at Pisa, Uguccione della Faggiuola at Lucca, the Conte Guido di Montefeltro at Florence, who threatened the liberties of Tuscan cities with military despotism.
Left to themselves by absentee emperors and exiled popes, the Italians pursued their own course of development unchecked. After the commencement of the 14th century, the civil wars decreased in fury, and at the same time it was perceived that their effect had been to confirm tyrants in their grasp upon free cities. Growing up out of the captain of the people or signore of the commune, the tyrant annihilated both parties for his own profit and for the peace of the state. He used the dictatorial powers with which he was invested to place himself above the law, resuming in his person the state-machinery which had preceded him. In him, for the first time, the city attained selfconsciousness; the blindly working forces of previous revolutions were combined in the will of a ruler. The tyrants general policy was to favor the multitude at the expense of his own caste. He won favor by these means, and completed the levelling down of classes, which had been proceeding ever since the emergence of the communes.
In I309 Robert, grandson of Charles, the first Angevine sovereign, succeeded to the throne of Naples, and became the leader of the Guelphs in Italy. In the next year Henry D ~t VII. of Luxembourg cro~sed the Alps soon after his ofeccjv~ election to the empire, and raised the hopes of the wars.
Ghibellines. Dante from his mountain solitudes Advent of passionately called upon him to play the part of a Messiah. But it was now impossible for any German to control the Garden of the Empire. Italy had entered on a new phase of her existence, and the great poets De monarchia represented a dream of the past which could not be realized. Henry established imperial vicars in the Lombard towns, confirming the tyrants, but gaining nothing for the empire in exchange for the titles he conferred. After receiving the crown in Rome, he died at Buonconvento, a little walled town south of Siena, on his backward journey in 1313. The profits of his inroad were reaped by despots, who used the Ghibelline prestige for the consolidation of their own power. It is from this epoch that the supremacy of the Visconti, hitherto the unsuccessful rivals of the Guelphic Torriani for the signory of Milan, dates. The Scaligers in Verona and the Carraresi in Padua were strengthened; and in Tuscany Castruccio Castracane, Ugucciones successor at Lucca, became formidable. In 1325 he defeated the Florentines at Alto Pascio, and carried home their carroccio as a trophy of his victory over the Guelphs. Louis of Bavaria, the next emperor, made a similar excursion in the year 1327, with even greater loss of imperialprestige. He deposed Galeazzo Visconti on his downward journey, and offered Milan for a sum of money to his son Azzo upon his return. Castruccio Castracane was nominated by him duke of Lucca; and this is the first instance of a dynastic title conferred upon an Italian adventurer by the emperor. Castruccio dominated Tuscany, where the Guelph cause, in the weakness of King Robert, languished. But the adventurers death in 1328 saved the stronghold of republican institutions, and Florence breathed freely for a while again. Can Grande della Scalas death in the next year inflicted on ,the Lombard Ghibellines a loss hardly inferior to that of Castruccios on their Tuscan allies. Equally contemptible in its political results and void of historical interest was the brief visit of John of Bohemia, son of Henry VII., whom the Ghibellines next invited to assume their leadership. He sold a few privileges, conferred a few titles, and recrossed the Alps in 1333. It is clear that at this time the fury of the civil wars was spent. In spite of repeated efforts on the part of the Ghibellines, in spite of King Roberts supine incapacity, the imperialists gained no permanent advantage. The Italians were tired of f,ghting, and the leaders of both factions looked exclusively to their own interests. Each city which had been the cradle of freedom thankfully accepted a master, to qutmch the conflagration of party strife, encouragt trade, and make the handicraftsmen comfortable. Even the Florentines in 1342 submitted for a few months to the despotism of the duke of Athens. They conferred the signory upon him for life; and, had he not mismanaged matters, he might have held the city in his grasp. Italy was settling cown and turning her attention to home comforts, arts and literature. Boccaccio, the contented bourgeois, succeeded to Dante, the fierce aristocrat.
The most marked proof of the change which came over Italy towards the middle of the I4th century is furnished by the companies of adventure. It was with their own militia that the burghers won freedom in the war of independence, subdued the nobles, and fought the battles of the parties. But from this time forward they laid down their arms, and played the game of warfare by the aid of mercenaries. Ecclesiastical overlords, interfering ~from a distance in. Italian politics; prosperous republics, with plenty of money to spend but no leisure or inclination for camp-life; cautious tyrants, glad of every pretext to emasculate their subjects, and courting popularity by exchanging conscription for taxationall combined to favor the new system. Mercenary troops are said to have been first levied from disbanded Germans, together with Breton and English adventurers, whom the Visconti and Castruccio took into their pay. They soon appeared under their own captains, who hired them out to the highest bidder, or marched them on marauding expeditions up and down the less protected districts. The names of some of these earliest captains of adventure, Fra Moriale, Count Lando and Duke Werner, who styled himself the Enemy of God and Mercy, have been preserved to us. As the companies grew in size and improved their discipline, it was seen by the Italian nobles that this kind of service offered a good career for men of spirit, who had learned the use of arms. To leave so powerful and profitable a calling in the hands of foreigners seemed both dangerous and uneconomical. Therefore, after the middle of the century, this profession fell into the hands of natives. The first Italian who formed an exclusively Italian company was Alberico da Barbiano, a nobleman of Romagna, and founder of the Milanese house of Belgiojoso. In his school the great condottieri Braccio da Montone and Sforza Attendolo were formed; and henceforth the battles of Italy were fought by Italian generals commanding native troops. This was better in some respects than if the mercenaries had been foreigners. Yet it must not be forgotten that the new companies of adventure, who decided Italian affairs for the next century, were in no sei~se patriotic. They sold themselves for money, irrespective of tile cause which they upheld; and, while changing masters, they had no care for any interests but their own. The name condottiero, derived from condolta, a paid contract to supply so many fighting men in serviceable order, sufficiently indicates the nature of the business. In the hands of able captains, like Francesco Sforza or Piccinino, these mercenary troops became moving despotisms, draining the country of its wealth, and always eager to fasten and found tyrannies upon the provinces they had been summoned to defend. Their generals substituted heavy-armed cavalry for the old militia, and introduced systems of campaigning which reduced the art of war to a game of skill. Battles became all but bloodless; diplomacy and tactics superseded feats of arms and hard blows in pitched fields. In this way the Italians lost their military vigour, and wars were waged by despots from their cabinets, who pulled the strings of puppet captains in their pay. Nor were the people only enfeebled for resistance to a real foe; the whole political spirit of the race was demoralized. The purely selfish bond between condottieri and their employers, whether princes or republics, involved intrigues and treachery, checks and counterchecks, secret terror on the one hand and treasonable practice on the other, which ended by making statecraft in Italy synonymous with perfidy.
It must further be noticed that the rise of mercenaries was synchronous with a change in the nature of Italian despotism. The tyrants, as we have already seen, established themselves as captains of the people, vicars of the empire, vicars for the church, leaders of the Guelph and Ghibelline parties. They were accepted by a population eager for repose, who had merged old class distinctions in the conflicts of preceding centuries. They rested in large measure on the favor of the multitude, Chan~ and pursued a policy of sacrificifig to their interests In type the nobles. It was natural that these self-made of desprinces should seek to secure the peace which pollsm. they had promised in their cities, by freeing the people from military service and disarming the aristocracy. As their tenure of power grew firmer, they advanced dynastic claims, assumed titles, and took the style of petty sovereigns. Their government became paternal; and, though there was no limit to their cruelty when stung by terror, they used the purse rather than the sword, bribery at home and treasonable intrigue abroad in preference to coercive measures or open war. Thus was elaborated the type of despot which attained completeness in Gian Galeazzo Visconti and Lorenzo de Medici. No longer a tyrant of Ezzelinos stamp, he reigned by intelligence and terrorism masked beneath a smile. He substituted cunning and corruption for violence. The lesser people tolerated him because he extended the power of their city and made it beautiful with public buildings., The bourgeoisie, protected in their trade, found it convenient to support him. The nobles, turned into courtiers, placemen, diplomatists and men of affairs, ended by preferring his authority to the alternative of democratic institutions. A lethargy of well-being, broken only by the pinch of taxation for war-costs, or by outbursts of frantic ferocity and lust in the less calculating tyrants, descended on the population of cities which had boasted of their freedom. Only Florence and Venice, at the close of the period upon which we are now entering, maintained their republican independence. And Venice was ruled by a close oligarchy; Florence was passing from the hands of her oligarchs into the power of the Medicean merchants.
Between the year 1305, when Clement V. settled at Avignon, and the year 1447, when Nicholas V. re-established the papacy upon a solid basis at Rome, the Italians approximated D~cr1mimore nearly to self-government than at any other nation of epoch of their history. The conditions which have the five been described, of despotism, mercenary warfare and bourgeois prosperity, determined the character of this epoch, which was also the period when the great achievements of the Renaissance were prepared. At the end of this century and a half, five principal powers divided the peninsula; and their confederated action during the next forty-five years (1447-1492) secured for Italy a season of peace and brilliant pro,sperity. These five powers were the kingdom of Naples, the duchy of Milan, the republic of Florence, the republic of Venice and the papacy. The subsequent events of Italian history will be rendered most intelligible if at this point we trace the development of these five constituents of Italian greatness separately.
When Robert of Anjou died in 1343, he was succeeded by his grand-daughter Joan, the childless wife of four successive husbands, Andrew of Hungary, Louis of Taranto, Th ~James of Aragon and Otto of Brunswick. Charles of Si~Iles. Durazzo, the last male scion of the Angevine house in Lower Italy, murdered Joan in 1382, and held the kingdom for five years. Dying in 1387, he transmitted Naples to his son Ladislaus, who had no children, and was followed in 1414 by his sister Joan II. She too, though twice married, died without issue, having at one time adopted Louis III. of Provence and his brother Ren, at another Alfonso V. of Aragon, who inherited the crown of Sicily. After her death in February 1435 the kingdom was fought for between Ren of Anjou and Alfonso, surnamed the Magnanimous. Ren found supporters among the Italian princes, especially the Milanese Visconti, who helped him to assert his claims with arms. During the war of succession which ensued, Alfonso was taken prisoner by the Genoese fleet in August 1435, and was sent a prisoner to Filippo Maria at Milan. Here he pleaded his own cause so powerfully, and proved so incontestably the advantage which might ensue to the Visconti from his alliance, if he held the regno, that he obtained his I release and, recognition as king. From the end of the year 1435
Alfonso reigned alone and undisturbed in Lower Italy, combining for the first time since the year 1282 the crowns of Sicily and Naples. The former he held by inheritance, together with that of Aragon. The latter he considered to be his by conquest. Therefore, when he died in 1458, he bequeathed Naples to his natural son Ferdinand, while Sicily and Aragon passed together to his brother John, and so on to Ferdinand the Catholic. The twenty-three years of Alfonsos reign were the most prosperous and splendid period of South Italian history. He became an Italian in taste and sympathy, entering with enthusiasm into the humanistic ardour of the earlier Renaissance, encouraging men of letters at his court, administering his kingdom on the principles of an enlightened despotism, and lending his authority to establish that equilibrium in the peninsula upon which the politicians of his age believed, not without reason, that Italian independence might be secured.
The last member of the Visconti family of whom we had occasion to speak was Azzo, who bought the city in 1328 from Duchy of Louis of Bavaria. His uncle Lucchino succeeded, but Milan. was murdered in 1349 by a wife against whose life he had been plotting. Lucchinos brother John, arch bishop of Milan, now assumed the lordship of the city, and extended the power of the Visconti over Genoa and the whole of north Italy, with the exception of Piedmont, Verona, Mantua, Ferrara and Venice. The greatness of the family dates from the reign of this masterful prelate. He died in 1354, and his heritage was divided between three members of his house, Matteo,Bernab and Galeazzo. In the next year Matteo, being judged incompetent to rule, was assassinated by order of his brothers, who made an equal partition of their subject citiesBernab residing in Milan, Galeazzo in Pavia. Galeazzo was the wealthiest and most magnificent Italian of his epoch. He married his daughter Violante to our duke of Clarence, and his son Gian Galeazzo to a daughter of King John of France. When he died in 1378, this son resolved to reunite the domains of the Visconti; and, with this object in view, he plotted and executed the murder of his uncle Bernab. Gian Galeazzo thus became by one stroke the most formidable of Italian despots. Immured in his castle at Pavia, accumulating wealth by systematic taxation and methodical economy, he organized the mercenary troops who eagerly took service under so good a paymaster; and, by directing their operations from his cabinet, he threatened the whole of Italy with conquest. The last scions of the Della Scala family still reigned in Verona, the last Carraresi in Padua; the Estensi were powerful in Ferrara, the Gonzaghi in Mantua. Gian Galeazzo, partly by force and partly by intrigue, discredited these minor despots, pushed his dominion to the very verge of Venice, and, having subjected Lombardy to his sway, proceeded to attack Tuscany. Pisa and Perugia were threatened with extinction, and Florence dreaded the advance of the Visconti arms, when the plague suddenly cut short his career of treachery and conquest in the year 1402. Seven years before his death Gian Galeazzo bought the title of duke of Milan and count of Pavia from the emperor Wenceslaus, and there is no doubt that he was aiming at the sovereignty of Italy. But no sooner was he dead than the essential weakness of an artificial state, built up by cunning and perfidious policy, with the aid of bought troops, dignified by no dynastic title, and consolidated by no sense of loyalty, became apparent. Gian Galeazzos duchy was a masterpiece of mechanical contrivance, the creation of a scheming intellect and lawless will. When the mind which had planned it was withdrawn, it fell to pieces, and the very hands which had been used to build it helped to scatter its fragments. The Viscontis own generals, Facino Cane, Pandolfo Malatesta, Jacopo dal Verme, Gabrino Fondulo, Ottobon Terzo, seized upon the tyranny of several Lombard cities. In others the petty tyrants whom thc Visconti had uprooted reappeared. The Estensi recovered theii grasp upon Ferrara, and the Gonzaghi upon Mantua. Venici strengthened herself between the Adriatic and the Alps. Florenc reassumed her Tuscan hegemony. Other communes which stit preserved the shadow of independence, like Perugia and Bologna began once more to dream of republican freedom under theii own leading families. Meanwhile Gian Galeazzo had left two sons, Giovanni Maria and Filippo Maria. Giovanni, a monster of cruelty and lust, was assassinated by some Milanese nobles in 1412; and now Filippo set about rebuilding his fathers duchy. Herein he was aided by the troops of Facino Cane, who, dying opportunely at this period, left considerable wealth, a welltrained band of mercenaries, and a widow, Beatrice di Tenda. Filippo married and then beheaded Beatrice after a mock trial for adultery, having used her money and her influence in reuniting several subject cities to the crown of Milan. He subsequently spent a long, suspicious, secret and incomprehensible career in the attempt to piece together Gian Galeazzos Lombard state, and to carry out his schemes of Italian conquest. In this endeavour he met with vigorous opponents. Venice and Florence, strong in the strength of their resentful oligarchies, offered a determined resistance; nor was Filippo equal in ability to his father. His infernal cunning often defeated its own aims, checkmating him at the point of achievement by suggestions of duplicity or terror. In the course of Filippos wars with Florence and Venice, the greatest generals of this age were formedFrancesco Carmagnola, who was beheaded between the columns at Venice in 1432; Niccol Piccinino, who died at Milan in 1444; and Francesco Sforza, who survived to seize his masters heritage in 1450. Son of Attendolo Sforza, this Francesco received the hand of Filippos natural daughter, Bianca, as a reward for past service and a pledge of future support. When the Visconti dynasty ended by the dukes death in 1447, he pretended to espouse the cause of the Milanese republic, which was then re-established; but he played his cards so subtly as to make himself, by the help of Cosimo de Medici in Florence, duke de facto if not de jure. Francesco Sforza was the only condottiero among many aspiring to be tyrants who planted themselves firmly on a throne of firstrate importance. Once seated in the duchy of Milan, he displayed rare qualities as a ruler; for he not only entered into the spirit of the age, which required humanity and culture from a despot, but he also knew how to curb his desire for territory. The conception of confederated Italy found in him a vigorous supporter. Thus the limitation of the Milanese duchy under Filippo Maria Visconti, and its consolidation under Francesco Sforza, were equally effectual in preparing the balance of power to which Italian politics now tended.
This balance could not have been established without the concurrent aid of Florence. After the expulsion of the duke of Athens in 1343, and the great plague of 1348, the Florentine proletariate rose up against the merchant princes. This insurgence of the artisans, in a republic which had been remodelled upon economical principles by Giano della Bellas constitution of 1292, reached a climax in 1378, when the Ciompi rebellion placed the city for a few years in the hands of the Lesser Arts. The revolution was but temporary, and was rather a symptom of democratic tendencies in the state than the sign of any capacity for government on the part of the working classes. The necessities of war and foreign affairs soon placed Florence in the power of an oligarchy headed by the great Albizzi family. They fought the battles of the republic with success against the Visconti, and widely extended the Florentine domain over the Tuscan cities. During their season of ascendancy Pisa was enslaved, and Florence gained the access to the sea. But throughout this period a powerful opposition was gathering strength. It was led by the Medici, who sided with the common people, and increased their political importance by the accumulation and wise employment of vast commercial wealth. In 1433 the Albizzi and the Medici came to open strife. Cosimo de Medici, the chief of the opposition, was exiled to Venice. In the next year he returned, assumed the presidency of the democratic party, and by a system of corruption and popularity-hunting, combined with the patronage of arts and letters, established himself as the real but unacknowledged dictator of the commonwealth. Cosimo abandoned the policy of his predecessors. Instead of opposing Francesco Sforza in Milan, he lent him his prestige and influence, foreseeing that the dynastic future of his own family and the pacification of Italy might be secured by a balance of power in which Florence should rank on equal terms with Milan and Naples.
The republic of Venice differed essentially from any other state in Italy; and her history was so separate that, up to this Venice point, it would have been needless to interrupt the narrative by tracing it. Venice, however, in the 14th century took her place at last as an Italian power on an equality at least with the very greatest. The constitution of the commonwealth had slowly matured itself through a series of revolutions, which confirmed and defined a type of singular stability. During the earlier days of the republic the doge had been a prince elected by the people, and answerable only to the popular assemblies. In 1032 be was obliged to act in concert with a senate, called pregadi; and in 1172 the grand council, which became the real sovereign of the state, was formed. The several steps whereby the members of the grand council succeeded in eliminating the people from a share in the government, and reducing the doge to the position of their ornamental representative, cannot here be described. It must suffice to say that these changes culminated in 1297, when an act was passed for closing the grand counci], or in other words for confining it to a fixed number of privileged families, in whom the government was henceforth vested by hereditary right. This ratification of the oligarchical principle, together with the establishment in 1311 of the Council of Ten, completed that famous constitution which endured till the extinction of the republic in 1797. Meanwhile, throughout the middle ages, it had been the policy of Venice to refrain from conquests on the Italian mainland, and to confine her energies to commerce in the East. The first entry of any moment made by the Venetians into strictly Italian affairs was in 1336, when the republics of Florence and St Mark allied themselves against Mastino della Scala, and the latter took possession of Treviso. After this, for thirty years, between 1352 and 1381, Venice and Genoa contested the supremacy of the Mediterranean. Pisas maritime power having been extinguished in the battle of Meloria (1284), the two surviving republics had no rivals. They fought their duel out upon the Bosporus, off Sardinia, and in the Morea, with various success. From the first great encounter, in 1355, Venice retired we]l-nigh exhausted, and Genoa was so crippled that she placed, herself under the protection of the Visconti. The second and decisive battle was fought upon the Adriatic. The Genoese fleet under Luciano Doria defeated the Venetians off Pola in 1379, and sailed without opposition to Chioggia, which was stormed and taken. Thus the Venetians found themselves blockaded in their own lagoons. Meanwhile a fleet was raised for their relief by Carlo Zeno in the Levant, and the admiral Vittore Pisani, who had been imprisoned after the defeat at Pola, was released to lead their forlorn hope from the city side. The Genoese in their turn were now blockaded in Chioggia, and forced by famine to surrender. The losses of men and money which the war of Chioggia, as it was called, entailed, though they did not immediately depress the spirit of the Genoese republic~ signed her naval ruin. During this second struggle to the death with Genoa, the Venetians had been also at strife with the Carraresi of Padua and the Scaligers of Verona. In 1406, after the extinction of these princely houses they added Verona, Vicenza and Padua to the territories they claimed on terra firma. Their career of conquest, and their new policy of forming Italian alliances and entering into the management of Italian affairs were confirmed by the long dogeship of Francesco Foscari (1423-1457), who must rank with Alfonso, Cosimo de Medici, Francesco Sforza and Nicholas V., as a joint-founder of confederated Italy. When Constantinople fell in 1453, the old ties between Venice and the Eastern empire were broken, and she now entered on a wholly new phase of her history. Ranking as one of the five Italian powers, she was also destined to defend Western Christendom against the encroachments of the Turk in Europe. (Se VENICE: History.)
By their settlement in Avignon, the popes relinquished their protectorate of Italian liberties, and lost their position as Italiar potentates. Rienzis revolution in Rome (3471354), and hi~ establishment of a republic upon a fantastic basis, half classical half feudal, proved the temper of the times; while the rise of dynastic families in the cities of the church, claiming the title of papal vicars, but acting in their own interests, Tb weakened the authority of the Holy See. The pre- Paacy. datory expeditions of Bertrand du Poiet and Robert of Geneva were as ineffective as the descents of the emperors; and, though the cardinal Albornoz conquered Romagna and the March in 1364, the legates who resided in those districts were not long able to hold them against their despots. At last Gregory XI. returned to Rome; and Urban VI., elected in 1378, put a final end to the Avignonian exile. Still the Great Schism, which now distracted Western Christendom, so enfeebled the papacy, and kept the Roman pontiffs so engaged in ecclesiastical disputes, that they had neither power nor leisure to occupy themselves seriously with their temporal affairs. The threatening presence of the tWo princely houses of Orsini and Colonna, alike dangerous as friends or foes, rendered Rome an unsafe residence. Even when the schism was nominally terminated in 1415 by the council of Constance, the next two popes held but a precarious grasp upon their Italian. domains. Martin V. (1417143,) resided principally at Florence. Eugenius IV. (1431-1447) followed his example. And what Martin managed to regain Eugenius lost. At the same time, the change which had now come over Italian politics, the desire on all sides for a settlement, and the growing conviction that a federation was necessary, proved advantageous to the popes as sovereigns. They gradually entered into the spirit of their age, assumed the style of despots and made use of the humanistic movement, then at its height, to place themselves in a new relation to Italy. The election of Nicholas V. in 1447 determined this revolution in the papacy, and opened a period of temporal splendour, which ended with the establishment of the popes as sovereigns. Thomas of Sarzana was a distinguished humanist. Humbly born, he had been tutor in the house of the Albizzi, and afterwards librarian of the Medici at Florence, where he imbibed the politics together with the culture of the Renaissance, Soon after assuming the tiara, he found himself without a rival in the church; for the schism ended by Felix V.s resignation in 1449. Nicholas fixed his residence in Rome, which he began to rebuild and to fortify, determining to render the Eternal City once more a capital worthy of its high place in Europe. The Romans were flattered; and, though his reign was disturbed by republican conspiracy, Nicholas V. was able before his death in 1455 to secure the modern status of the pontiff as a splendid patron and a wealthy temporal potentate.
Italy was now for a brief space independent. The humanistic movement had created a common culture, a common language and sense of common nationality. The five great powers, with their satellitesdukes of Savoy and Co~n~ede~ Urbino, marquesses of Ferrara and Mantua, republics Italy.
of Bologna, Perugia, Sienawere constituted. All political institutions tended toward despotism. The Medici became yearly more indispensable to Florence, the Bentivogli more autocratic in Bologna, the Baglioni in Perugia; and even Siena was ruled by the Petrucci. But this despotism was of a mild type. The princes were Italians; they shared-the common enthusiasms of the nation for art, learning, literature and science; they studied how to mask their tyranny with arts agreeable to the multitude. When Italy had reached this point, Constantinople was taken by the Turks. On all sides it was felt that the Italian alliance must be tightened; and one of the last, best acts of Nicholas V.s pontificate was the appeal in 1453 to the five great powers in federation. As regards their common opposition to the Turk, this appeal led to nothing; but it marked the growth of a new Italian consciousness.
Between 1453 and 1492 Italy continued to be prosperous and tranquil. Nearly all wars during this period were undertaken either to check the growing power of Venice or to further th ambition of the papacy. Having become despots, the popes sought to establish their relatives in principalities. The worc nepotism acquired new significance in the reigns of Sixtus IV and Innocent VIII. Though the country was convulsed by rn great struggle, these forty years witnessed a truly appallin~
increase of olitical crime. To be a prince was tantamount to being the mark of secret conspiracy and assassination. Among the most noteworthy examples of such attempts maybe mentioned the revolt of the barons against Ferdinand I. of Naples (1464), the murder of Galeazzo Maria Sforza at Milan (1476) and the plot of the Pazzi to destroy the Medici (1478). After Cosimo de Medicis death in 1464, the presidency of the Florentine republic passed to his son Piero, who left it in 1469 to his sons Lorenzo and Giuliano. These youths assumed the style of princes, and it was against their lives that the Pazzi, with the sanction of Sixtus IV., aimed their blow. Giuliano was murdered, Lorenzo escaped, to tighten his grasp upon the city, which now loved him and was proud of him. During the following fourteen years of his brilliant career he made himself absolute master of Florence, and so modified her institutions that the Medici were henceforth necessary to the state. Apprehending the importance of Italian federation, Lorenzo, by his personal tact and prudent leadership of the republic, secured peace and a common intelligence between the five powers. His own family was fortified by the marriage of his daughter to a son of Innocent VIII., which procured his son Giovannis elevation~to the cardinalate, and involved two Medicean papacies and the future dependence of Florence upon Rome.
VI. Age of Invasions
The year 1492 opened a new age for Italy. In this year Lorenzo died, and was succeeded by his son, the vain and weak Piero; France passed beneath the personal control of the inexperienced Charles viii. VIII.; the fall of Granada freed Spain from her embarrassments; Columbus discovered America, destroying the commercial supremacy of Venice; last, but not least, Roderigo Borgia assumed the tiara with the famous title of Alexander VI. In this year the short-lived federation of the five powers was shaken, and Italy was once more drawn into the vortex of Europe~n affairs. The events which led to this disaster may be briefly told. After Galeazzo Marias assassination, his crown passed to a boy, Gian Galeazzo, who was in due course married to a grand-daughter of Ferdinand I. of Naples. But the government of Milan remaned in the hands of this youths uncle, Lodovico, surnamed II Moro. Lodovico resolved to become duke of Milan. The king of Naples was his natural enemy, and he had cause to suspect that Piero de Medici might abandon his alliance. Feeling himself alone, with no right to the title he was bent on seizing, he had recourse to Charles VIII. of France, whom he urged to make good his claim to the kingdom of Naples. This claim, it may be said in passing, rested on the will of King Ren of Anjou. After some hesitation, Charles agreed to invade Italy. He crossed the Alps in 1495, passed through Lombardy, entered Tuscany, freed Pisa from the yoke of Florence, witnessed the expulsion of the Medici, marched to Naples and was crowned tliereall this without striking a blow. Meanwhile Lodovico procured his nephews death, and raised a league against the French in Lombardy. Charles hurried back from Naples, and narrowly escaped destruction at Fornovo in the passes of the Apennines. He made good his retreat, however, and returned to France in 1495. Little remained to him of his light acquisitions; but he had convulsed Italy by this invasion, destroyed her equilibrium, exposed her military weakness and political disunion, and revealed her wealth to greedy and more powerful nations.
The princes of the house of Aragon, now represented by Frederick, a son of Ferdinand I., returned to Naples. Florence Louk xii. made herself a republic, adopting a form of constitution analogous to that of Venice. At this crisis she was ruled by the monk Girolamo Savonarola, who inspired the people with a thirst for freedom, preached the necessity of reformation, and placed himself in direct antagonism to Rome. After a short but eventful career, the influence of which was long effective, he lost his hold upon the citizens. Alexander VI. procured a mock trial, and his enemies burned him upon the Piazza in 1498. In this year Louis XII. succeeded Charles VIII. upon the throne of France. As duke of Orleans he had certain claims to Milan through his grandmother Valentina, dap~hter of Gian Galeazzo, the first duke. They were not valid, for the investiture of the duchy had been granted only to male heirs. But they served as a sufficient pretext, and in. 1499 Louis entered and subdued the Milanese. Lodovico escaped to Germany, returned the next year, was betrayed by his Swiss mercenaries and sent to die at Loches in France. In 1500 Louis made the blunder of calling Ferdinand the Catholic to help him in the conquest of Naples. By a treaty signed at Granada, the French and Spanish kings were to divide the spoil. The conquest was easy; but, when it came to a partition, Ferdinand played his ally false. He made himself supreme over the Two Sicilies, which he now reunited under a single crown. Three years later, unlessoned by this experience, Louis signed the treaty of Blois (1504), whereby be invited the emperor Maximilian to aid him in the subjugation of Venice. No policy could have been less far-sighted; for Charles V., joint heir to Austria, Burgundy, Castile and Aragon, the future overwhelming rival of France, was already born.
The stage was now prepared, and all the actors who were destined to accomplish the ruin of Italy trod it with their armies. Spain, France, Germany, with their Swiss auxiliaries, had been summoned upon various pretexts to partake her provinces. Then, too late, patriots like Machiavelli perceived the suicidal self-indulgence of the past, which, by substituting mercenary troops for national militias, left the Italians at the absolute discretion. of their neighbors. Whatever parts the Italians themselves played in the succeeding quarter of a century, the game was in the hands of French, Spanish and German invaders. Meanwhile, no scheme for combination against common foes arose in the peninsula. Each petty potentate strove for his own private advantage in the confusion; and at this epoch the chief gains accrued to the papacy. Aided by his terrible son, Cesare Borgia, Alexander VI. chastised the Roman nobles, subdued Romagna and the March, threatened Tuscany, and seemed to be upon the point of creating a Central Italian state in favor of his progeny, when he died suddenly in 1503. His conquests reverted to the Holy See. Julius II., his bitterest enemy and powerful successor, continued Alexanders policy, but no longer in the interest of his own relatives. It became the nobler ambition of Julius to aggrandize the church, and to reassume the protectorate of the Italian people. With this object, he secured Emilia, carried his victorious arms against Ferrara, and curbed the tyranny of the Baglioni in Perugia. Julius II. played a perilous game; but the stakes were high, and he fancied himself strong enough to guide the tempest he evoked. Quarrelling with the Venetians In 1508, he combined the forces of all Europe by the league of Cambray against them; and, when he had succeeded in his first purpose of humbling them even to the dust, he turned round in 1510, uttered his famous resolve to expel the barbarians from Italy, and pitted the Spaniards against the French. It was with the Swiss that he hoped to effect this revolution; but the Swiss, now interfering for the first time as principals in Italian affairs, were incapable of more than adding to the already maddening distractions of the people. Formed for mercenary warfare, they proved a perilous instrument in the hands of those who used them, and were hardly less injurious to their friends than to their foes. In 1512 the battle of Ravenna between the French troops and the allies of JuliusSpaniards, Venetians and Swisswas fought. Gaston de Foix bought a doubtful victory dearly with his death; and the allies, though beaten on the banks of the Ronco, immediately afterwards expelled the French from Lombardy. Yet Julius II. had failed, as might have been fOreseen. He only exchanged one set of foreign masters for another, and taught a new barbarian race how pleasant were the plains of Italy. As a consequence of the battle of Ravenna, the Medici returned in 1512 to Florence.
When Leo X. was elected in 1513, Rome and Florence rejoiced; but Italy had no repose. Louis XII. had lost the game, and the Spaniards were triumphant. But new actors appeared upon the scene, and the same old struggle was resumed with fiercer energy. By the victory of Marignano ~n. 1515 Francis I., having now succeeded to the throne of France, regained the Milanese, and broke the power of the Swiss, who held it for Massimiliano Sforza, the titular duke. Leo for a while relied on Francis; for the vast power of Charles V., who succeeded to the empire in 1519, as in 1516 he had succeeded to the crowns of Spain and Lower Italy, threatened the whole of Europe. It was Leos nature, however, to be inconstant. In 1521 he changed sides, allied himself to Charles, and died after hearing that the imperial troops had again expelled the French from Milan. During the next four years the Franco-Spanish war dragged on in Lombardy until the decisive battle of Pavia in 1525, when Francis was taken prisoner, and Italy lay open to the Spanish armies. Meanwhile Leo X. had been followed by Adrian VI., and Adrian by Clement VII., of the house of Medici, who had long ruled Florence. In the reign of this pope Francis was released from his prison in Madrid (1526), and Clement hoped that he might still be used in the Italian interest as a counterpoise to Charles. It is impossible in this place to follow the tangled intrigues of that period. The year 1527 was signalized by the famous sack of Rome. An army of mixed German and Spanish troops, pretending to act for the emperor, but which may rather be regarded as a vast marauding party, entered Italy under their leader Frundsberg. After his death, the Constable de Bourbon took command of them; they marched slowly down, aided by the marquis of Ferrara, and unopposed by the duke of Urbino, reached Rome, and took it by assault. The constable was killed in the first onslaught; Clement was imprisoned in the castle of St Angelo; Rome was abandoned to the rage of 30,000 ruffians. As an immediate result of this catastrophe, Florence shook off the Medici, and established a republic. But Clement, having made peace with the emperor, turned the remnants of the army which had sacked Rome against his native city. After a desperate resistance, Florence fell in 1530. Alessandro de Medici was placed there with the title of duke of Civit di Penna; and, on his murder in 1537, Cosimo de Medici, of the younger branch of the ruling house, was made duke. Acting as lieutenant for the Spaniards, he subsequently (1555) subdued Siena, and bequeathed to his descendants the grand-duchy of Tuscany.
VII. Spanish-Austrian Ascendancy.
It was high time, after the sack of Rome in 1527, that Charles V. should undertake Italian affairs. The country was exposed to anarchy, Settlement of which this had been the last and most disgraceby Spain. ful example. The Turks were threatening western Europe, and Luther was inflaming Germany. By the treaty of Barcelona in 1529 the pope and emperor made terms. By that of Cambray in the same year France relinquished Italy to Spain. Charles then entered the port of Genoa, and on the 5th of November met Clement VII. at Bologna. He there received the imperial crown, and summoned the Italian princes for a settlement of all disputed claims. Francesco Sforza, the last and childless heir of the ducal house, was left in Milan till his death, which happened in 1535. The republic of Venice was respected in her liberties and Lombard territories. The Este family received a confirmation of their duchy of Modena and Reggio, and were invested in their fief of Ferrara by the pope. The marquessate of Mantua was made a duchy; and Florence was secured, as we have seen, to the Medici. The great gainer by this settlement was the papacy, which held the most substantial Italian province, together with a prestige that raised it far above all rivalry. The rest of Italy, however parcelled, henceforth became but a dependence upon Spain. Charles V., it must be remembered, achieved his conquest and confirmed his authority far less as emperor than as the heir of Castile and Aragon. A Spanish viceroy in Milan and another in Naples, supported by Rome and by the minor princes who followed the policy dictated to them from Madfid, were sufficient to preserve the whole peninsula in a state of somnolent inglorious servitude.
From 1530 until 1796, that is, for a period of nearly three centuries, the Italians had no history of their own. Their annals are filled with records of dynastic changes and redistributions of territory, consequent upon treaties signed by foreign powers, in the settlement of quarrels which no wise concerned the people.
Italy only too often became the theatre of desolating and distracting wars. But these wars were fought for the most part by alien armies; the points at issue were decided beyond the Alps; the gains accrued to royal families whose names were unpronounceable by southern tongues. The affairs of Europe during the years when Habsburg and Bourbon fought their domestic battles with the blood of noble races may teach grave lessons to all thoughtful men of our days, but none bitterer, none fraught with more insulting recollections, than to the Italian people, who were haggled over like dumb driven cattle in the mart of chaffering kings. We cannot wholly acquit the Italians of their share of blame. When they might have won national independence, after their warfare with the Swabian emperors, they let the golden opportunity slip. Pampered with commercial prosperity, eaten to the core with inter-urban rivalries, they submitted to despots, renounced the use of arms, and offered themselves in the hour of need, defenceless and disunited to the shock of puissant nations. That they had created modern civilization for Europe availed them nothing. Italy, intellectually first among the peoples, was now politically and practically last; and nothing to her historian is more heartrending than to watch the gradual extinction of her spirit in this age of slavery.
In 1534 Alessandro Farnese, who owed his elevation to his sister Giulia, one of Alexander VI.s mistresses, took the tiara with the title of Paul III. It was his ambition to create a duchy for his family; and with this object he Pont!!! gave Parma and Piacenza to his son Pier Luigi. After ~,iii. much wrangling between the French and Spanish parties, the duchy was confirmed in 1586 to Ottaviano Farnese and his son Alessandro, better known as Philip II.s general, the prince of Parma. Alessandros descendants reigned in Parma and Piacenza till the year 1731. Paul III.s pontificate was further marked by important changes in the church, all of which confirmed the spiritual autocracy of Rome. In 1540 this pope approved of Loyolas foundation, and secured the powerful militia of the Jesuit order. The Inquisition was established with almost unlimited powers in Italy, and the press was placed under its jurisdiction. Thus free thought received a check, by which not only ecclesiastical but political tyrants knew how to profit. Henceforth it was impossible to publish or to utter a word which might offend the despots of church or state; and the Italians had to amuse their leisure with the polite triflings of academics. In 1545 a council was opened at Trent for the reformation of church discipline and the promulgation of orthodox doctrine. The decrees of this council defined Roman Catholicism against the Reformation; and, while failing to regenerate morality, they enforced a hypocritical observance of public decency. Italy to outer view put forth blossoms of hectic and hysterical piety, though at the core her clergy and her aristocracy were more corrupt than ever.
In 1556 Philip II., by the abdication of his father Charles V., became king of Spain. He already wore the crown of the Two Sicilies, and ruled the duchy of Milan. In the next year Ferdinand, brother of Charles, was elected emperor. The French, meanwhile, had not entirely abandoned their claims on Italy. Gian Pietro Caraffa, who was made pope in 1555 with the name of Paul IV., endeavoured to revive the ancient papal policy of leaning upon France. He encouraged the duke of Guise to undertake the conquest of Naples, as Charles of Anjou had been summoned by his predecessors. But such schemes were now obsolete an& anachronistic. They led to a languid lingering Italian campaign, which was settled far beyond the Alps by Philips victories over the French at St Quentin and Gravelines. The peace of Cteau Cambresis, signed in 1559, left the Spanish monarch undisputed lord of Italy. Of free commonwealths there now survived only Venice, which, together with Spain, achieved for Europe the victory of Lepanto in 1573; Genoa, which, after the ineffectual Fieschi revolution in 1547, abode beneath the rule of the great Doria family, and held a feeble sway in Corsica; and the two insignificant republics of Lucca and San Marino.
The tuture hope of Italy, however, was growing in a remote and hitherto neglected corner. Emmanuel Philibert, duke of Savoy, represented the oldest and not the least illustrious reigning house in Europe, and his descendants were destined to achieve for Italy the independence which no other power or prince had given her since the fall of ancient Rome. (See SAvoy, HOUSE or.)
When Emmanuel Philibert succeeded to his father Charles III. in 1553, he was a duke without a duchy. But the princes of the house of Savoy were a race of warriors; and what Emmanuel Philibert lost as sovereign he regained as captain of adventure in the service of his cousin Philip II. The treaty of Cteau Cambresis in 1559, and the evacuation of the Piedmontese cities held by French and Spanish troops in 1574, restored his state. By removing the capital from Chambry to Turin, he completed the transformation of the dukes of Savoy from Burgundian into Italian sovereigns. They still owned Savoy beyond the Alps, the plains of Bresse, and the maritime province of Nice.
Emmanuel Philibert was succeeded by his son Charles Emmanuel I., who married Catherine, a daughter of Philip II. He seized the first opportunity of annexing Saluzzo, which had been lost to Savoy in the last two reigns, and renewed the disastrous policy of his grandfather Charles III. by invading Geneva and threatening Provence. Henry IV. of France forced him in 1601 to relinquish Bresse and his Burgundian possessions. In return he was allowed to keep Saluzzo. All hopes of conquest on the transalpine side were now quenched; but the keys of Italy had been given to the dukes of Savoy; and their attention was still further concentrated upon Lombard conquests. Charles Emmanuel now attempted the acquisition of Montferrat, which was soon to become vacant by the death of Francesco Gonzaga, who held it together with Mantua. In order to secure this territory, he went to war with Philip III. of Spain, and allied himself with Venice and the Grisons to expel the Spaniards from the Valtelline. When the male line of the Gonzaga family expired in i62~, Charles, duke of Nevers, claimed Mantua and Montferrat in right of his wife, the only daughter of the last duke. Charles Emmanuel was now checkmated by France, as he had formerly been by Spain. The total gains of all his strenuous endeavours amounted to the acquisition of a few places on the borders of Montferrat.
Not only the Gonzagas, but several other ancient ducal families, died out about the date which we have reached. The ~ legitimate line of the Estensi ended in 1597 by the Vion of death of Alfonso II., the last duke of Ferrara. He oIdducai left his domains to a natural relative, Cesare dEste, families, who would in earlier days have inherited without dispute, for bastardy had been no bar on more than one occasion in the Este pedigree. Urban VIII., however, put in a claim to Ferrara, which, it will be remembered, had been recognized a papal fief in 1530. Cesare dEste had to content himself with Modena and Reggio, where his descendants reigned ,as dukes till 1794. Under the same pontiff, the Holy See absorbed the duchy of Urbino on the death of Francesco Maria II., the last representative of Montefeltro and Della Rovere. The popes were now masters of a fine and compact territory, embracing no inconsiderable portion of Countess Matildas legacy, in addition to Pippins donation, and the patrimony of St Peter. Meanwhile Spanish fanaticism, the suppression of the Huguenots in France and the Catholic policy of Austria combined to strengthen their authority as pontiffs. Urbans predecessor, Paul V., advanced so far as to extend his spiritual jurisdiction over Venice, which, up to the date of his election (1605), had resisted all encroachments of the Holy See. Venice offered the single instance in Italy of a national church. The republic managed the tithes, and the clergy acknowledged no chief above their own patriarch. Paul V. now forced the Venetians to admit his ecclesiastical supremacy; but they refused to readmit the Jesuits, who had been expelled in 1606. This, if we do not count the proclamation of James I. of England (1604), was the earliest instance of the orders banishment from a state where it had proved disloyal to the commonwealth.
Venice rapidly declined throughout the 17th century. The loss of trade consequent upon the closing of Egypt and the Levant, together with the discovery of America and ~e~ilne the sea-route to the Indies, had dried up her thief of Vonl~e source of wealth. Prolonged warfare with the Otto- and mans, who forced her to abandon Candia in 1669, Spain. as they had robbed her of Cyprus in 570, still further crippled her resources. Yet she kept the Adriatic free of pirates, notably by suppressing the sea-robbers called Uscocchi (1601-1617), maintained herself in the Ionian Islands, and in 1684 added one more to the series of victorious episodes which render her annals so romantic. In that year Francesco Morosini, upon whose tomb we still may read the title Peloponnesiacus, wrested the whole of the Morea from the Turks. But after his death in 1715 the republic relaxed her hold upon his conquests. The Venetian nobles abandoned themselves to indolence and vice. Many of them fell into the slough of pauperism, and were saved from starvation by public doles. Though the signory still made a brave show upon occasions of parade, it was clear that the state was rotten to the core, ahd sinking into the decrepitude of dotage. The Spanish monarchy at the same epoch dwindled with apparently less reason. Philips Austrian successors reduced it to the rank of a secondary European power. This decline of vigour was felt, with the customary effects of discord and bad government, in Lower Italy. The revolt of Masaniello in Naples (1647), followed by rebellions at Palermo and Messina, which placed Sicily for a while in the hands of Louis XIV. (1676-1678) were symptoms of progressive anarchy. The population, ground down by preposterous taxes, ill-used as only the subjects of Spaniards, Turks or Bourbons are handled, rose in blind exasperation against their oppressors. It is impossible to attach political importance to these revolutions; nor did they bring the people any appreciable good. The destinies of Italy were decided in the cabinets and on the battlefields of northern Europe. A Bourbon at Versailles, a Habsburg at Vienna, or a thick-lipped Lorrainer, with a stroke of his pen, wrote off province against province, regarding not the populations who had bled for him or thrown themselves upon his mercy.
This inglorious and passive chapter of Italian history is continued to the date of the French Revolution with the records of three dynastic wars, the war of the Spanish succession, the war of the Polish succession, the war of the Austrian ~5~s of succession, followed by three European treaties, ~ which brought them respectively to diplomatic terminations. Italy, handled and rehandled, settled and resettled, upon each of these occasions, changed masters without caring or knowing what befell the principals in any one of the disputes. Humiliating to human nature in general as are the annals of the 18th-century campaigns in Europe, there is no point of view from which they appear in a light so tragi-comic as from that afforded by Italian history. The system of setting nations by the ears with the view of settling the quarrels of a few reigning houses was reduced to absurdity when the people, as in these cases, came to be partitioned and exchanged without the assertion or negation of a single principle affecting their interests or rousing their emotions.
In 1700 Charles II. died, and with him ended the Austrian family in Spain. Louis XIV. claimed the throne for Philip, duke of Anjou. Charles, archduke of Austria, opposed him. The dispute was fought out in Flanders; but Spanish Lombardy felt the shock, as usual, of the French and Austrian dynasties. The French armies were more than once defeated by Prince Eugene of Savoy, who drove them out of Italy in 1707. Therefore, in the peace of Utrecht (1713), the services of the house of Savoy had to be duly recognized. Victor Amadeus II. received Sicily with the title of king. Montferrat and Alessandria were added to his northern provinces, and his state was recognized as independent. Charles of Austria, now emperor, took Milan, Mantua, Naples and Sardinia for his portion of the Italian spoil. Philip founded the Bourbon line of Spanish kings, renouncing in Italy all that his Habsburg predecessors had gained. Discontented with this diminution of the Spanish heritage, Philip V. married Elisabetta Farnese, heiress to the last duke of Parma, in 1714. He hoped to secure this duchy for his son, Don Carlos; and Elisabetta further brought with her a claim to the grand-duchy of Tuscany, which would soon become vacant by the death of Gian Gaston.e de Medici. After this marriage Philip broke the peace of Europe by invading Sardinia. The Quadruple Alliance was formed, and the new king of Sicily was punished for his supposed adherence to Philip V. by the forced exchange of Sicily for the island of Sardinia. It was thus that in 1720 the house~ of Savoy assumed, the regal title which it bore until the declaration of the Italian kingdom in the last century. Victor AmadeusIl.sreignwasof greatimport- I ance in the history of his state. Though a despot, as all Inonarchs were obliged to be at that date, he reigned with prudence, probity and zeal for the welfare of his subjects. He took public education out of the hands of the Jesuits, which, for the future development of manliness in his dominions, was a measure of incalculable value. The duchy of Savoy in his days became a kingdom, and Sardinia, though it seemed a poor exchange for Sicily, was a far less perilous possession than the larger and wealthier island would have been. In 1730 Victor Amadeus abdicated in favor of his son Charles Emmanuel III. Repenting of this step, he subsequently attempted to regain Turin, but was imprisoned in. the castle of Rivoli, where he ended his days in 1732.
The War of the Polish Succession which now disturbed Europe is only important in Italian history because the treaty of Vienna in 1738 settled the disputed affairs of the duchies Polish of Parma and Tuscany. The duke Antonio Farnese acreS died ill 1731; the grand-duke Gian Gastone de Medici died in 737. In the duchy of Parma Don Carlos had already been proclaimed. But he was now transferred to the Two Sicilies, while Francis of Lorraine, the husband of Maria Theresa, took Tuscany and Parma. Milan and Mantua remained in the hands of the Austrians. On this occasion Charles Emmanuel acquired Tortona and Novara.
Worse complications ensued for the Italians when the emperor Charles VI., father of Maria Theresa, died in i74o. The three branches of the Bourbon house, ruling in France, Austrian Spain and the Sicilies, joined with Prussia, Bavaria and the kingdom of Sardinia to despoil Maria Theresa of her heritage. Lombardy was made the seat of war; and here the king of Sardinia acted as in some sense the arbiter of the situation. After war broke out, he changed sides and supported the Habsburg-Lorraine party. At first, in 1745, the Sardinians were defeated by the French and Spanish troops. But Francis of Lorraine, elected emperor in that year, sent an army to the kings support, which in 1746 obtained a signal victory over the Bourbons at Piacenza. Charles Emmanuel now threatened Genoa. The Austrian soldiers already held the town. But the citizens expelled them, and the republic kept her independence. In 1748 the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which put an end to the War of the Austrian Succession, once more redivided Italy. Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla were formed into a duchy for Don Philip, brother of Charles III. of the Two Sicilies, and son of Philip V. of Spain. Charles III. was confirmed in his kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The Austrians kept Milan and Tuscany. The duchy of Modena was placed under the protection of the French. So was Genoa, which in 1755, after Paolis insurrection against the misgovernment of the republic, ceded her old domain of Corsica to France.
From the date of this settlement until 1792, Italy enjoyed a period of repose and internal amelioration under her numerous Forty- paternal despots. It became the fashion during these four forty-four years of peace to encourage the industrial years population and to experiment alize in economical re pea~. forms. The Austrian government in Lombardy under Maria Theresa was characterized by improved agriculture, regular administration, order, reformed taxation and increased education.. A considerable amount of local autonomy was allowed, and dependence cn Vienna was very slight and not irksome. The nobles and the clergy were rich and influential, but kept in order by the civil power. There was no feeling of nationality, but the people were prosperous, enjoyed profound peace and were placidly content with the existing order of things. On the death of Maria Theresa in 1780, the emperor Joseph II. instituted much wider reforms. Feudal privileges were done away with, clerical influence diminished and many monasteries and convents suppressed, the criminal law rendered more humane and torture abolished largely as a result of G. Beccarias famous pamphlet Dei delitli e delle pene. At the same time Josephs administration was more arbitrary, and local autonomy was to some extent curtailed. His anti-clerical laws produced some ill-feeling among the more devout part of the population. On the whole the Austrian rule in. pre-revolutionary days was beneficial and far from oppressive, and helped Lombardy to recover from the ill-effects of the Spanish domination. It did little for the moral education of the people, but the same criticism applies more or less to all the European governments of the day. The emperor Francis I. ruled the grand-duchy of Tuscany by lieutenants until his death in 1765, when it was given, as an. independent state, to his second son, Peter Leopold. The reign of this duke was long remembered as a period of internal prosperity, wise legislation and important public enterprise. Leopold, among other useful works, drained the Val di Chiana, and restored those fertile upland plains to agriculture. In 1790 he succeeded to the empire, and left Tuscany to his son Ferdinand. The kingdom of Sardinia was administered upon similar principles, but with less of geniality. Charles Emmanuel made his will law, and erased the remnants of free institutions from his state. At the same time he wisely followed his fathers policy with regard to education and the church. This is perhaps the best that can be said of a king who incarnated the stolid absolutism of the period. From this date, however, we are able to trace the revival of independent thought among the Italians. The European ferment of ideas which preceded the French Revolution expressed itself in men like Alfieri, the fierce denouncer of tyrants, Beccaria, the philosopher of criminal jurisprudence, Volta, the physicist, and numerous political economists of Tuscany. Moved partly by external influences and partly by a slow internal reawakening, the people was preparing for the efforts of the I9th century. The papacy, during this period, had to reconsider the question of the Jesuits, who made themselves universally odious, not only in Italy, but also in France and Spain. In the pontificate of Clement XIII they ruled the Vatican, and almost succeeded in embroiling the pope with the concerted Bourbon potentates of Europe. His successor, Clement XIV. suppressed the order altogether by a brief of 1773. (J. A. S.)
D. Italy in the Napoleonic Period, 1796-1814
The campaign of 1796 which led to the awakening of the Italian people to a new consciousness of unity and strength is detailed in the article NAPOLEONIC CAMPAIGNS. Here we can attempt only a general survey of the events, political, civic and social, which heralded the Risorgimento in its first phase. It is desirable in the first place to realize the condition of Italy at the time when the irruption of the French and the expulsion of the Austrians opened up a new political vista for that oppressed and divided people.
For many generations Italy had been bandied to and fro between. the Habsburgs and the Bourbons The decline of French influence at the close of the reign of Louis XIV.
left the Habsburgs and the Spanish Bourbons without ~ serious rivals. The former possessed the rich duchies Frecch of Milan (including Mantua) and Tuscany; while Revolu through a marriage alliance with the house of Este UoI, of Modena (the Archduke Ferdinand had married the heiress of Modena) its influence over that duchy was supreme. It also had a few fiefs in Piedmont and in Genoese territory. By marrying her daughter, Maria Amelia, to the young duke of Parma, and another daughter, Maria Carolina, to Ferdinand of Naples, Maria Theresa consolidated Habsburg influence in the north and south of the peninsula. The Spanish Bourbons held Naples and Sicily, as well as the duchy of Parma.
Of the nominally independent states the chief were the kingdom of Sardinia, ruled over by the house of Savoy, and comprising Piedmont, the isle of Sardinia and nominally Savoy and Nice, though the two provinces last named had virtually been lost to the monarchy since the campaign of 1793. Equally extensive, but less important in the political sphere, were the Papal States and Veneti, the former torpid under the obscurantist rule of pope and cardinals, the latter enervated by luxury and the policy of unmanly complaisance long pursued by doge and council. The ancient rival of Venice, Genoa, was likewise far gone in decline. The small states, Lucca and San Marino, completed the map of Italy. The worst governed part of the peninsula was the south, where feudalism lay heavily on the cultivators and corruption pervaded all ranks. Milan and Piedmont were comparatively well governed; but repugnance to Austrian rule in the former case, and the contagion of French Jacobinical opinions in the latter, brought those populations into increasing hostility to the rulers. The democratic propaganda, which was permeating all the large towns of the peninsula, then led to the formation of numerous and powerful clubs and secret societies; and the throne of Victor Amadeus III., of the house of Savoy, soon began to totter under the blows delivered by the French troops at the mountain barriers of his kingdom and under the insidious assaults of the friends of liberty at Turin. Plotting was rife at Milan, as also at Bologna, where the memory of old liberties predisposed men to cast off clerical rule and led to the first rising on behalf of Italian liberty in the year 1794. At Palermo the Sicilians struggled hard to establish a republic in place of the odious government of an alien dynasty. Bona- The anathemas of the pope, the bravery of Piedmontese and Austrians, and the subsidies of Great Britain failed to keep the league of Italian princes against France intact. The grand-duke of Tuscany was the first of the European sovereigns who made peace with, and recognized the French republic, early in 1795. The first fortnight of Napoleons campaign of 1796 detached Sardinia from alliance with Austria and England. The enthusiasm of the Italians for the young Corsican liberator greatly helped his progress. Two months later Ferdinand of Naples sought for an armistice, the central duchies were easily overrun, and, early in 1797, Pope Pius VI. was fain to sign terms of peace with Bonaparte at Tolentino, practically ceding the northern part of his states, known as the Legations. The surrender of the last Habsburg stronghold, Mantua, on the 2nd of February 1797 left the field clear for the erection of new political institutions.
Already the men of Reggio, Modena and Bologna had declared for a democratic policy, in which feudalism and clerical rule should have no place, and in which manhood suffrage, TahdeaCnIes~ together with other rights promised by Bonaparte Republin to the men of Milan in May 1796, should form the basis of a new order of things. In ,taking this step the Modenese and Romagnols had the encouragement of Bonaparte, despite the orders which the French directory sent to him in a contrary sense. The result was the formation of an assembly at Modena which abolished feudal dues and customs, declared for manhood suffrage and established the Cispadane Republic (October 1796).
The close of Bonapartes victorious campaign against the Archduke Charles in 1797 enabled him to mature those designs respecting Venice which are detailed in the article NAPOLEON. On a far higher level was his conduct towards the Milanese. While the French directory saw in that province little more than a district which might be plundered and bargained for, Bonaparte, though by no means remiss in the exaction of gold and of artistic treasures, was laying the foundation of a friendly republic. During his sojourn at the castle of Montebello or Mombello, near I\Iilan, he commissioned several of the leading men of northern Italy to draw up a project of constitution and list of reforms for that province. Meanwhile he took care to curb the excesses of the Italian Jacobins and to encourage the Moderates, who were favorable to the French connection as promising a guarantee against Austrian domination and internal anarchy. He summed up his conduct in the letter of the 8th of May 1797 to the French directory, I cool the hot heads here and warm the cool ones. The Transpadane Republic, or, as it was soon called, the Cisalpine 7l~~ Republic, began its organized life on the 9th of July Republic. 1797, with a brilliant festival at Milan. The constitution was modelled on that of the French directory, and, lest there should be a majority of clerical or Jacobinical deputies, the French Republic through its general, Bonaparte, nominated and appointed the first deputies and administrators of the new government. In the same month it was joined by the Cispadane Republic; and the terms of the treaty of Campo Formio (October 17, 1797), while fatal to the political life of Venice, awarded to this now considerable state the Venetian territories west of the river Adige. A month later, under the pretence of stilling the civil strifes in the Valtelline, Bonaparte absorbed that Swiss district in the Cisalpine Republic, which thus included all the lands between Como and Verona on the north, and Rimini on the south.
Early in the year 1798 the Austrians, in pursuance of the scheme of partition agreed on at Campo Formio, entered Venice and brought to an end its era of independence which had lasted some 1100 years. Venice with its mainland End of the territories east of the Adige, inclusive of Istria and Dalmatia, went to the Habsburgs, while the Venetian isles of the Adriatic (the lonian Isles) and the Venetian fleet went to strengthen France for that eastern expedition on which Bonaparte had already set his heart. Venice not only paid the costs of the war to the two chief belligerents, but her naval resources also helped to launch the young general on his career of eastern adventure. Her former rival, Genoa, bad also been compelled, in June 1797, to bow before the young conqueror, and had undergone at his hands a remodelling on the lines already followed at Milan. The new Genoese republic, French in all but name, was renamed the Ligurian Republic.
Before he set sail for Egypt, the French had taken possession of Rome. Already maste,rs of the papal fortress of Ancona, they began openly to challenge the popes authority F~nch at the Eternal City itself. Joseph Bonaparte, then occupaFrench envoy to the Vatican, encouraged democratic tion of manifestations; and one of them, at the close of 1797, Rome. led to a scuffle in which a French general, Duphot, was killed. The French directory at once ordered its general, Berthier, to march to Rome: the Roman democrats proclaimed a republic on the 15th of February 1798, and on their invitation Berthier and his troops marched in. The pope, Pius VI., was forthwith haled away to Siena and a year later to Valence in the south of France, where he died. Thus fell the temporal power. The liberators of Rome thereupon proceeded to plunder the city in a way which brought shame on their cause and disgrace (perhaps not wholly deserved) on the general left in command, Massna.
These events brought revolution to the gates of the kingdom of Naples, the worst-governed part of Italy, where the boorish king, Ferdinand IV. (il r lazzarone, he was termed), N I
and his whimsical consort, Maria Carolina, scarcely apes. held in check the discontent of their own subjects. A British fleet under Nelson, sent into the Mediterranean in May 1798 primarily for their defence, checkmated the designs of Bonaparte in Egypt, and then, returning to Naples, encouraged that court to adopt a spirited policy. It is now known that the influence of Nelson and of the British ambassador, Sir William Hamilton, and Lady Hamilton precipitated the rupture between Naples and France. The results were disastrous. The Neapolitan troops at first occupied Rome, but, being badly handled by their leader, the Austrian general, Mack, they were soon scattered in flight; and the Republican troops under General The Championnet, after crushing the stubborn resistance Parthenoof the lazzaroni, made their way into Naples and paean proclaimed the Parthenopaean Republic (January 23, Republic. 1799). The Neapolitan Democrats chose five of their leading men to be directors. and tithes and feudal dues and customs were abolished. Much good work was done by the Republicans during their brief tenure of power,but it soon came to an endowing to the course of events which favored a reaction against France. The directcrs of Paris, not content with overrunning and plundering Switzerland, had outraged German sentiment in many ways. Further, at the close of 1798 they virtually compelled the young king of Sardinia, Charles Emmanuel IV., to abdicate at Turin. He retired to the island of Sardinia, while the French despoiled Piedmont, thereby adding fuel to the resentment rapidly growing against them in every part of Europe.
The outcome of it all was the War of the Second Coalition, in which Russia, Austria, Great Britain, Naples and some secondary states of Germany took part. The incursion Suvarov In itaiy. of an Austro-Russian army, led by that strange but magnetic being, Suvarov, decided the campaign in northern Italy. The French, poorly handled by Schrer and Srurier, were everywhere beaten, especially at Magnano (April 5) and Cassano (April 27). Milan and Turin fell before the allies, and Moreau, who took over the command, had much difficulty in making his way to the Genoese coast-line. There he awaited the arrival of Macdonald with the an y of Naples. That general, Championnets successor, had been compelled by these reverses and by the threatening pressure of Nelsons fleet to evacuate Naples and central Italy. In many parts the peasants and townsfolk, enraged by the licence of the French, hung on his flank and rear. The republics set up by the French at Naples, Rome and Milan collapsed as soon as the French troops retired; and a reaction in favor of clerical and Austrian influence set in with great violence. For the events which then occurred at Naples, so compromising to the reputation of Nelson, see NELSON and NAPLES. Sir William Hamilton was subsequently recalled in a manner closely resembling a disgrace, and his place was taken by Paget, who behaved with mote dignity and tact.
Meanwhile Macdonald, after struggling through central Italy, had defeated an Austrian force at Modena (June 12, 1799), but Suvarov was able by swift movements utterly to overthrow him at the Trebbia (June 1719). The wreck of his force drifted away helplessly towards Genoa. A month later the ambitious young general, Joubert, who took over Moreaus command and raffled part of Macdonalds following, was utterly routed by the Austro-Russian army at Novi (August 15) with the loss of 12,000 men. Joubert perished in the battle. The growing friction between Austria and Russia led to the transference of Suvarov and his Russians to Switzerland, with results which were to be fatal to the allies in that quarter. But in Italy the Austrian successes continued. Melas defeated Championnet near Coni on the 4th of November; and a little later the French garrisons at Ancona and Coni surrendered. The tricolour which floated triumphantly over all the strongholds of Italy early in the year, at its close waved only over Genoa, wher Massna prepared for a stubborn defence. Nice and Savoy also seemed at the mercy of the invaders. Everywhere the old order of things was restored. The death of the aged Pop Pius VI. at Valence (August 29, 1799) deprived the French of whatever advantage they had hoped to gain by dragging him into exile; on the 24th of March 1800 the conclave, assembled for greater security on the island of San Giorgio at Venice, electec a new pontiff, Pius VII.
Such was the position of affairs when Bonaparte returnec from Egypt and landed at Frjus. The contrast presented b)
his triumphs, whether real or imaginary, to the reverso Campaiza sustained by the armies of the French directory, wa~
Marengo. fatal to that body and to popular institutions in France After the coup detat of Brumaire (November 1799) he as First Con~uI, began to~ organize an expedition against th~ Atistrians (Russia having now retired from the coalition), ii northern Italy. The campaign culminating at Marengo wu the result. By that triumph (due to Desaix and Kellermani rather than directly to him), Bonaparte consolidated his owi position in France and again laid Italy at his feet. The Austriai general, Melas, signed an armistice whereby he was to retir with his army beyond the river Mincio. Ten days earlier, namely on the 4th of June, Massna had been compelled by hunger to capitulate at Genoa; but the success at Marengo, followed up by that of Macdonald in north Italy, and Moreat~ at Hohenlinden (December 2, 1800), brought the emperor Francis to sue for peace which was finally concluded -. Treaty of at Luneville on the 9th of February 1801. The Lunville. Cisalpine and Ligurian Republics (reconstituted soon after Marengo) were recognized by Austria on condition that they were independent of France. The rule of Pius VII. over the Papal States was admitted; and Italian affairs were arranged much as they were at Campo Formio: Modena and Tuscany now reverted to French control, their former rulers being promised compensation in Germany. Naples, easily worsted by the French, under Miollis, left the British alliance, and made peace by the treaty of Florence (March 1801), agreeing to withdraw her troops from the Papal States, to cede Piombino and the Presidii (in Tuscany) to France and to close her ports to British ships and commerce. King Ferdinand also had to accept a French garrison at Taranto, and other points in the south.
Other changes took place in that year, all of them in favor of France. By complex and secret bargaining with the court of Madrid, Bonaparte procured the cession to France Napoleons of Louisiana, in North America, and Parma; while reorganthe duke of Parma (husband of an infanta of Spain) 1zat1o~ of was promoted by him to the duchy of Tuscany, now 1t8tV. renamed the kingdom of Etruria. Piedmont was declared to be a military division at the disposal of France (April 21, r8oi); and on the 21st of September 1802, Bonaparte, then First Consul for life, issued a decree for its definitive incorporation in the French Republic. About that time, too, Elba fell into the hands of Napoleon. Piedmont was organized in six departments on the model of those of France, and a number of French veterans were settled by Napoleon in and near the fortress of Alessandria. Besides copying the Roman habit of planting military colonies, the First Consul imitated the old conquerors of the world by extending and completing the road-system of his outlying districts, especially at those important passes, the Mont Cenis and Simplon. He greatly improved the rough track over the Simplon Pass, so that, when finished in 1807, it was practicable for artillery. Milan was the terminus of the road, and the construction of the Foro Buonaparte and the completion of the cathedral added dignity to the Lombard capital. The Corniche road was improved; and public works in various parts of Piedmont, and the Cisalpine and Ligurian Republics attested the foresight and wisdom of the great organizer of industry and quickener of human energies. The universities of Pavia and Bologna were reopened and made great progress in this time of peace and growing prosperity. Somewhat later the Pavia ] was begun in order to connect Lake Como with the Adriatic for barge-traffic.
The personal nature of the tic binding Italy to France was illustrated by a .curious incident of the winter of I8o2I8O3~ Bonaparte, now First Consul for life, felt strong enough to impose his will on the Cisalpine Republic and to set at defiance one of the stipulations of the treaty of Lunville. On the pretext 01 consolidating that republic, he invited 450 of its leading men tc come to Lyons to a consulta. In reality he and his agents hac already provided for the passing of proposals which were agreeable to him. The deputies having been dazzled by I tes anc reviews, Talleyrand and Marescalchi, ministers of foreign affain at Paris and Milan, plied them with hints as to the course to th followed by the consulta; and, despite the rage of the mon democratic of their number, everything corresponded to thi wishes of the First Consul. It remained to find a chief. Ver) many were in favor of Count Melzi, a Lombard noble, who hat been chief of the executive at Milan; but again Talleyrand ant French agents set to work on behalf of their master, with thi result that he was elected president for ten years. He accepte that office because, as he frankly informed the deputies, he ha(found no one who for his services rendered to his country his authority with the people and his separation from part~
has deserved such an office. Melzi was elected vice-president with merely honorary functions. The constitution comprised a consulla charged with executive duties, a legislative body of 150 members and a court charged with the maintenance of the fundamental laws. These three bodies were to be chosen by three electoral colleges consisting of (a) landed proprietors, (b) learned men. and clerics, (c) merchants and traders, holding their sessions biennially at Milan, Bologna and Brescia respectively. In practice the consulta could override the legislature; and, as the consulta was little more than the organ of the president, the whole constitution may be pronounced as autocratic as that of France after the changes brought about by Bonaparte in August 1802. Finally we must note that the Cisalpine now took the name of the Italian Republic, and that by a concordat with the pope, Bonaparte regulated its relations to the Holy See in a manner analogous to that adopted in the famous French concordat promulgated at Easter 1802 (see CONCORDAT). It remains to add that the Ligurian Republic and that of Lucca remodelled their constitutions in a way somewhat similar to that of the Cisalpine.
Bonapartes ascendancy did not pass unchallenged. Many of the Italians retained their enthusiasm for democracy and national independence. In 1803 movements in these directions Kingdom .
of itaLy. took place at Rimim, Brescia and Bologna; but they were sharply repressed, and most Italians came to acquiesce in the Napoleonic supremacy as inevitable and indeed beneficial. The complete disregard shown by Napoleon for one of the chief conditions of the treaty of Lunville (February 1801)that stipulating for the independence of the Ligurian and Cisalpine Republicsbecame more and more apparent every year. Alike in political and commercial affairs they were for all practical purposes dependencies of France. Finally, after the proclamation of the French empire (May 18, 1804) Napoleon proposed to place his brother Joseph over the Italian state, which now took the title of kingdom of Italy. On Joseph declining, Napoleon finally decided to accept the crown which Melzi, Marescalchi, Serbelloni and others begged him to assume. Accordingly, on the 26th of May i8o5, in the cathedral at Milan, he crowned himself with the iron crown of the old Lombard kings, using the traditional formula, God gave it me: let him beware who touches it. On the 7th of June he appointed his step-son, Eugene Beauharnais, to be viceroy. Eugene soon found that his chief duty was to enforce the wifi of Napoleon. The legislature at Milan having ventured to alter some details of taxation, Eugene received the following rule of conduct from his step-father: Your system of government is simple: the emperor wills it to be thus. Republicanism was now everywhere discouraged. The little republic of Lucca, along with Piombino, was now awarded as a principality by the emperor to Elisa Bonaparte and her husband, Bacciocchi.
In June 1805 there came a last and intolerable affront to the emperors of Austria and Russia, who at that very time were seeking to put bounds to Napoleons ambition and to redress the balance of power. The French emperor, at the supposed request of the doge of Genoa, declared the Ligurian Republic to be an integral part of the French empire. This defiance to the sovereigns of Russia and Austria rekindled the flames of war. The third coalition was formed between Great Britain, Russia and Austria, Naples soon joining its ranks.
For the chief events of the ensuing campaigns see NAPOLEONIC CAMPAIGNS. While Massna pursued the Austrians into their own lands at the close of I8o5, Italian forces under Eugene and Gouvion St Cyr (q.v.) held their ground against allied forces landed at Naples. After Austerlitz (December 2, 1805) Austria made peace by the treaty of Pressburg, ceding to the kingdom of Italy her part of Venetia along with the provinces of Istria and Dalmatia. Napoleon then turned fiercely against Maria Carolina of Naples upbraiding her with her perfidy. He sent Joseph Bonaparte and Massna southwards with a strong column, compelled the Anglo-Russian forces to evacuati Naples, and occupied the south of the peninsula with littli opposition except at the fortress of Gaeta. The Bourbon courl sailed away to Palermo, where it remained for eight years under the protection afforded by the British fleet and a British army of occupation. On the 15th of February 18o6 Joseph Bonaparte entered Naples in triumph, hi~
troops capturing there two hundred pieces of cannon. in Naples. Gaeta, however, held out stoutly against the French.
Sir Sidney Smith with a British squadron captured Capri (February 18o6), and the peasants of the Abruzzi and Calabria soon began to give trouble. Worst of all was the arrival of a small British force in Calabria under Sir John. Stuart, which beat off with heavy loss an attack imprudently delivered by General Rynier on. level ground near the village of Maida (July 4). The steady volleys of Kempts light infantry were fatal to the French, who fell back in disorder under a bayonet charge of the victors, with the loss of some 2700 men. Calabria now rose in. revolt against King Joseph, and the peasants dealt out savage reprisals to the French troops. On the 18th of July, however, Gaeta surrendered to Massna, and that marshal, now moving rapidly southwards, extricated Rynier, crushed the Bourbon rising in Calabria with great barbarity, and compelled the British force to re-embark for Sicily. At Palermo Queen Maria Carolina continued to make vehement but futile efforts for the overthrow of King Joseph.
It is more important to observe that under Joseph and his ministers or advisers, including the Frenchmen Roederer, Dumas, Miot de Melito and the Corsican Saliceti, great progress was made in abolishing feudal laws and customs, in reforming the judicial procedure and criminal laws on the model of the Code Napoleon, and in attempting the beginnings of elementary education. More questionable was Josephs policy in closing and confiscating the property of 213 of the richer monasteries of the land. The monks were pensioned off, but though the confiscated property helped to fill the empty coffers of the state, the measure aroused widespread alarm and resentment among that superstitious people.
The peace of Tilsit (July 7, 1807) enabled Napoleon to press on his projects for securing the command of the Mediterranean, thenceforth a fundamental axiom of his policy. Consequently, in. the autumn of 1807 he urged on Joseph the adoption of vigorous measures for the capture of Sicily. Already, in the negotiations with England during the summer of 1806, the emperor had shown his sense of the extreme importance of gaining possession of that island, which indeed caused the breakdown of the peace proposals then being considered; and now he ordered French squadrons into the Mediterranean in order to secure Corfu and Sicily. His plans respecting Corfu succeeded. That island and some of the adjacent isles fell into the hands of the French (some of them were captured by British troops in 180910); but Sicily remained unassailable. Capri, however, fell to the French on the 18th of October 1808, shortly after the arrival at Naples of the new king, Murat.
This ambitious marshal, brother-in-law of Napoleon, foiled in his hope of gaining the crown of Spain, received that of Naples in the summer of 1808, Joseph Bonaparte being moved M
from Naples to Madrid. This arrangement pleased King of neither of the relatives of the emperor; but his will Naples, now was law on the continent. Joseph left Naples on the 23rd of May 18o8; but it was not until the 6th of September that Joachim Murat made his entry. A fortnight later his consort Caroline arrived, and soon showed a vigour and restlessness of spirit which frequently clashed with the dictates of her brother, the emperor and the showy, unsteady policy of her consort. The Spanish national rising of 1808 and thereafter the Peninsular War diverted Napoleons attention from the affairs of south Italy. In June 1809, during his campaign against Austria, Sir John Stuart with an Anglo-Sicilian force sailed northwards, captured Ischia and threw Murat into great alarm; but on the news of the Austrian defeat at Wagram Stuart sailed back again.
It is now time to turn to the affairs of central Italy. Early it 18o8 Napoleon. proceeded with plans which he had secretl) concerted after the treaty of Tilsit for transferring the infantf of Spain who, after the death of her consort, reigned at Florence on behalf of her young son, Charles Louis, from her kingdom of Etruria to the little principality of Entre Douro e Ceeral Minho which he proposed to carve out from the north Y~ of Portugal. Etruria reverted to the French empire, but the Spanish princess and her son did not receive the promised indemnity. Elisa Bonaparte and her husband, Bacciocchi, rulers of Lucca and Piombino, became the heads of the administration in Tuscany, Elisa showing decided governing capacity.
The last part of the peninsula to undergo the Gallicizing influence was the papal dominion. For some time past the relations between Napoleon and the pope, Pius VII., had been Napoleon severely strained, chiefly because the emperor insisted ~pacj~ on controlling the church, both in France and in the kingdom of Italy, in a way inconsistent with the traditions of the Vatican, but also because the pontiff refused to grant the divorce between Jerome Bonaparte and the former Miss Patterson on which Napoleon early in the year 1806 laid so much stress. These and other disputes led the emperor, as successor of Charlemagne, to treat the pope in a very highhanded way. Your Holiness (he wrote) is sovereign of Rome, but I am its emperor; and he threatened to annul the presumed donation of Rome by Charlemagne, unless the pope yielded implicit obedience to him in all temporal affairs. He further exploited the Charlemagne tradition for the benefit of the continental system, that great engine of commercial war by which he hoped to assure the ruin of England. This aim prompted the annexation of Tuscany, and his intervention in the affairs of the Papal States. To this the pope assented under pressure from Napoleon; but the latter soon found other pretexts for intervention, and in February 1808 a French column under Miollis occupied Rome, and deposed the papal authorities. Against this violence Pius VII. protested in vain. Napoleon sought to push matters to an extreme, and on the 2nd of April Annexa- he adopted the rigorous measure of annexing to the tion of the kingdom of Italy the papal provinces of Ancona, Papal Urbino, Macerata and Camerina. This measure, which States, seemed to the pious an act of sacrilege, and to Italian patriots an outrage on the only independent sovereign of the peninsula, sufficed for the present. The outbreak of war in Spain, followed by the rupture with Austria in the spring of 1809, distracted the attention of the emperor. But after the occupation of Vienna the conqueror dated from that capital on the 17th of May 1809 a decree virtually annexing Rome and the Painmonium Petri to the French empire. Here again he cited the action of Charlemagne, his august predecessor, who had merely given certain domains to the bishops of Rome as fiefs, though Rome did not thereby cease to be part of his empire.
In reply the pope prepared a bull of excommunication against those who should infringe the prerogatives of the Holy See in this matter. Thereupon the French general, Miollis, who still occupied Rome, caused the pope to be arrested and carried him away northwards into Tuscany, thence to Savona; finally he was taken, at Napoleons orders, to Fontainebleau. Thus, a second time, fell the temporal power of the papacy. By an imperial decree of the I7th of February 1810, Rome and the neighboring districts, including Spoleto, became part of the French empire. Rome thenceforth figured as its second city, and entered upon a new life under the administration of French officials. The Roman territory was divided into two departmentsthe Tiber and Trasimenus; the Code Napoleon was introduced, public works were set on foot and great advance was made in the material sphere. Nevertheless the harshness with which the emperor treated the Roman clergy and suppressed the monasteries caused deep resentment to the orthodox.
There is no need to detail the fortunes of the Napoleonic states in