With Maximilian I begins not only the general intervention of foreign nations, but a new imperial policy with regard to Italy. The first step -- the investiture of Lodovico il Moro with the duchy of Milan and the exclusion of his unhappy nephew -- was not of a kind to bear good fruits. According to the modern theory of intervention when two parties are tearing a country to pieces, a third may step in and take its share, and on this principle the empire acted. But right and justice could be involved no longer. When Louis XI was expected in Genoa (1507), and the imperial eagle was removed from the hall of the ducal palace and replaced by painted lilies, the historian Senarega asked what, after all, was the meaning of the eagle which so many revolutions had spared, and what claims the empire had upon Genoa. No one knew more about the matter than the old phrase that Genoa was a camera imperii. In fact, nobody in Italy could give a clear answer to any such questions. At length when Charles V held Spain and the empire together, he was able by means of Spanish forces to make good imperial claims: but it is notorious that what he thereby gained turned to the profit, not of the empire, but of the Spanish monarchy.
Closely connected with the political illegitimacy of the dynasties of the fifteenth century was the public indifference to legitimate birth, which to foreigners -- for example, to Comines -- appeared so remarkable. The two things went naturally together. In northern countries, as in Burgundy, the illegitimate offspring were provided for by a distinct class of appanages, such as bishoprics and the like; in Portugal an illegitimate line maintained itself on the throne only by constant effort; in Italy, on the contrary, there no longer existed a princely house where even in the direct line of descent, bastards were not patiently tolerated.
Continued on page
three.
The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy
by Jacob Burckhardt
Part One: The State as a Work of Art
Chapter 3 - Despots of the Fifteenth Century: 1 2 3 4 5
Chapter 2 <<< Contents >>> Chapter 4
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