CRISTO RAUL.ORG

READING HALL

"THIRD MILLENNIUM LIBRARY"

BLESSED BE THE PEACEFUL BECAUSE THEY WILL BE CALLED SONS OF GOD

EARLY CHRONICLERS OF ITALY.

CHAPTER VII.

THE CHRONICLERS OF THE MARITIME REPUBLICS: VENETIAN CHRONICLES — MARTIN DA CANALE — ANDREA DANDOLO — THE GENOESE ANNALISTS FROM CAFFARO TO JAMES D’ORIA — PISA : PETRUS PISANUS — BERNARD MARANGO — THE CHRONICLERS OF THE REST OF TUSCANY AND PRINCIPALLY THE FLORENTINES — DINO COMPAGNI — THE VILLANI.

When we turn to the chroniclers of the maritime cities, the first to attract our attention are those of Venice. After the chronicles of Altina and Grado had, in the earliest times, thrown some light on the dimness of her origin, and later John the deacon had written in the first dawn of her municipal life, she was always abundantly supplied with historians worthy of her magnificent fortunes. After those first chroniclers followed an anonymous one, who composed the Venetian annals from the middle of the eleventh to the end of the twelfth century, and among other information regarding her political history, left many important particulars touching local events in connection with the city. A fragment of a chronicle, written certainly after the death of the Doge Sebastian Ziani (a.d. 1229), and already published as part of the Chronicon A It incite, is also useful for the history of the relations of Venice with other States, and more especially with the East, where she, now mistress of the Adriatic, was extending on all sides her power and influence. And from the thirteenth century onwards her historical literature increases in vigour, and finds inspiration in the poetry of the spot and in the greatness of that political insight which, besides managing its home interests with such wisdom, directs also distant enterprises in every known quarter of the globe. Prompted by this poetry and this greatness, the chronicler Martin da Canale wrote the story of Venice down to near the end of the thirteenth century, in the form rather of a romance than a history. He makes use, however, of his predecessors, of tradition, and, for the times in which he lived, of his own observation or of oral information derived from trustworthy eyewitnesses, so that in what concerns the thirteenth century he is, on the whole, a truthful writer, and often, even in particulars, as well-informed and accurate as he is vivacious. Hardly anything is known of him personally, not even whether he was really a Venetian; but in any case he lived for long in Venice, and shows the greatest affection and admiration for her. Like the Tresors of Brunetto Latini, and like Marco Polo’s book, his also is written in French, because, as he says, “lengue franceise cort parmi le monde et est la plus delitable a lire et a oir que nule autre!”. On the origin of Venice he gives the Trojan legends and those about Attila, but is very brief till he comes near the times of Henry Dandolo. With this famous doge, Martin’s narrative expands, and becomes still fuller when he reaches the Doge Jacopo Tiepolo (A.D. 1229-1249), and till 1275—the last date in his chronicle,—when, his details, especially of Venetian manners, are a treasure-house for the modern historian. They include particulars concerning the personages of his day, the church and square of St. Mark, the celebrated tournaments which took place in this latter, the dresses and splendour of the doges, their appearances in public, and the processions of the corporations of arts in the solemn festival of the Maries; all these form so many pictures of a singular age, painted on a fairy­like background. Martin da Canale is a writer with whom it is necessary to use some circumspection, he having, as we said, almost as much of the romance writer as of the historian; yet such is the ingenuous vivacity of his fancy, that as a colourist none of his contemporaries can rival him in his description of Venice. We shall extract from this charming book the following episode, which de­scribes the taking of Zara by the Doge Dandolo, when on his way to the East with the Crusaders for the conquest of Constantinople :—

“So what shall I now tell you? The Count of St. Pol, and the Count of Flanders, the Count of Savoy, and the Marquis of Montferat, in the year 1202 of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, sent their messengers to the noble Doge of Venice, Messire Henry Dandolo, and prayed him to give them ships to cross the sea. And when my lord the doge heard the prayers which the messengers of these barons of France made for their lords, he rejoiced, and said to the messengers, ‘Go and tell your lords, that at whatever hour they will come to Venice, they shall find ships ready to cross the sea; and that the doge will in his own body cross with them in the service of the holy church.’ Then returned the messengers to their lords, and told them all this as the lord doge had commanded. And when the barons of France heard it they were very glad, both of the ships which the lord doge had promised them and also that he would in his own body cross the sea with them; for they said that better company they could not have in the whole world. Messire Henry Dandolo, the noble doge of Venice, sent for the carpenters and ordered transports and ships and galleys in great number to be speedily prepared ; and had silver coins quickly made to pay the masters and the workmen, because the small ones were not so convenient for them. And it is from the time of my Lord Henry Dandolo that in Venice they began to strike large silver coins, which are called ducats, and are current throughout the world for their excellence. The Venetians made great haste to prepare the ships, and as soon as the French were ready, they set out on their way, and rode till they came to Venice, where they were very well received, and the Venetians made great joy and feasting for them; and my lord the apostle had sent them his legate, who should absolve them from their sins. To this legate my lord the doge paid great honour, and took the holy cross from his hand; and many noble Venetians took it, and the people with them. With great joy and great feasting, Messire Henry Dandolo entered a ship to cross the sea with the barons of France, in the service of the holy Church; and the barons each placed himself in his ship, and the knights entered transports and other ships in which their horses were placed. And when they were out at sea the sailors tightened the sails to the wind, and let the ships run at full speed before the wind. And my lord the doge had left in Venice his son, called Messire Rainieri Dandolo, in his place. He governed the Venetians in Venice very wisely. My lord the doge went on across the sea, till he came to Zara, with all his company. The men of Zara were at that time so proud that they had refused the lordship of my lord the doge, and had robbed travellers on the sea, and had raised walls round their town. And the weather had changed and the sea was angry: it behoved them to take to the land to save the ships, and they went to Malconsiglio, an island just in front of Zara. And when they were in safety inside the harbour, my lord doge said to the barons, ‘My lords, you see that town. Know that it is mine : but those in it are so proud, that they refuse my rule. I wish you would wait for me here, for I would show them what those deserve who refuse the rule of their lord? When the barons heard this, they said to my lord the doge, ‘Sire, we are ready to come with you, and with us our knights?’ ‘In God’s name (this said my lord the doge), none of you shall put foot there, for I want you to see what I can do, and the Venetians with me’. They made no more delay, when they were ready with their arms ana ladders, except that Messire Henry Dandolo, the high doge of Venice, placed himself first, and the Venetians behind him; and they went to attack Zara, and the battle was begun. And it happened that, in spite of all the defence the people of Zara could make, the Venetians descended on the dry land. Then the battle was fought with spears and swords, and those on the walls threw javelins and sharp stones and pointed stakes, and defended the city with all their might. But their defence availed nothing, for now the Venetians put their ladders to the walls, and mounted on them, and beat the men of Zara down, and took the town quickly, and drove out the men of Zara, and placed my lord Henry Dandolo in possession of Zara.”

In the same way that Martin da Canale had taken largely from the historians who preceded him, so another chronicler of the name of Mark made great use of him in his turn, in compiling a Latin chronicle, of which only some fragments have been published. Of much greater weight again are his successors, Marin Sanudo Torsello and the friar Paulinus, two of the principal sources whence the great mediaeval chronicler of Venice, Andrea Dandolo, drew his historical information.

Descended from an illustrious family of warriors, statesmen, and prelates, Andrea Dandolo was born in the first years of the fourteenth century. While still very young he filled high offices—in 1331 as procurator of St. Mark, as podestà of Trieste in 1333, and three years later as general purveyor in the campaign against Mastino Della Scala. In 1343, when only thirty-six years old—or, as some think thirty-three—Andrea was raised to the ducal throne, an unusual example of such early advancement. His contemporaries all unite in pronouncing him just, liberal, and beneficent. Deeply versed in jurisprudence and history, he used his knowledge for the good of the State and of letters, which gained him the friendship of many distinguished scholars, and especially that of Petrarch. His disposition and tastes inclined him to peace, but the troubled times in which he held the reins of government rendered wars inevitable, and a great part of his thoughts had to be devoted to warlike matters. In the first years of his reign his activity was called forth by many and varied cares, among others the continual commercial and warlike relations between Asia Minor and Venice, to whose ships the ports of Egypt and Syria were then beginning to open; the commercial difficulties with the Tartars, which had arisen and been again smoothed away; the rebellion of Zara in Dalmatia quelled, notwithstanding the hostile efforts of the king of Hungary, and that of Justinopolis in Istria also put down; and finally a terrible pestilence in Venice itself. These cares only increased with the progress of time, from the growing rivalry between the Venetians and Genoese, the latter also wishing to engage in commerce with the Tartars of the sea of Azof. The rivalry soon became war, and such war as might be expected between the two greatest maritime powers of the day in Europe—a war, long and adventurous, of varied victories and defeats, difficult to conduct on account of the numerous alliances it was necessary to court and to maintain in readiness against the alliances of the enemy. And here one remembers with pleasure how the voice of Petrarch was raised, midst that clashing of arms, a counsellor of peace to the doge. But he was powerless against the force of circumstances which rendered it necessary to prosecute the war. In it the Venetians had met with a serious defeat, and while preparations were being made to defend the city against a possible attack, Andrea Dandolo died the 7th of September, 1354, either from a broken heart at the misfortunes of his country or from the fatigues undergone during those prepara­tions, having lived less than fifty years, and reigned twelve.

The many cares of State and the warlike nature of the times did not prevent him from pursuing his studies as lawyer and historian. He added a book to the statutes of Venice, superintending the work as it was being gradually prepared, and perfecting it. He ordered and assured the arrangement of the Venetian archives by the compilation of two valuable books, entitled the Liber Albus and Liber Blancus, the first containing the treaties made by Venice with oriental countries, the second those concluded with the different states of Italy. Before he rose to the ducal dignity he had undertaken some historical labours, which he afterwards incorporated in his great book, the Chronicle, or as others call it, the Annals of Venice, written while he was doge. It is an excellent work, for which he made use of every kind of materials, and it embraces the whole history of Venice to the end of the thirteenth century collected with great diligence and learning. His free access to the archives gave him all facility for consulting documents, and of this he availed himself, inserting many extracts, and even whole documents, in his book. He also read many authors not belonging to Venice from whom he could draw useful facts, and of the Venetian writers who preceded him hardly one escaped his attention, while he may well have known some who have not reached us. And he used this mass of information with much critical judgment, so that it is not too much to say that, had all the rest been lost, the chronicle of Andrea Dandolo would have preserved the pith of the earlier works, and the history of Venice would have come down to us the same. As a writer he is not very attractive. Always simple and clear, but without imagination, he takes little pains to arrange his facts or to present them artistically. Nor is this worthy chronicler a perfect historian. As Muratori says, he is not sufficiently on his guard against mere fables when relating remote events, and he is also apt to be confused in his chronology, and to fall into the errors of his predecessors. But these are slight imperfections in comparison with his great merits, and what he tells us of the origin and growth of Venice is of immense value, for we certainly have no writer of greater authority on this subject. He does not speak in his chronicle of his own times, but of those still near his own he treats with calm and honest impartiality of judgment. On the life and political institutions of Venice he has the clearest possible understanding, and as he narrates the facts he also gradually describes the historical development of that admirable constitution; and this quality alone is of such importance that it would in itself be enough to make him one of the greatest historians in the whole of the Italian Middle Age. An introductory letter was prefixed to the work by Benintendi de Ravegnanis, the chancellor of the republic, a famous man of letters, who was also a friend of Petrarch’s, and author of a Venetian history which was not finished, and only extends over the first centuries of the city’s existence. Another chancellor, Raphael—or Rafainus—de Caresinis, continued the work of Dandolo, and carried on the annals to the year 1383, with great accuracy but less impartiality than the doge, though the book has much interest as that of a contemporary and of a citizen devoted to his country’s service.

Nor did Genoa the Superb fail to emulate her rival in wisely providing for the city a series of historical writers, who successively described her vicissitudes during about two centuries, from the year 1100 to 1293. It was an illustrious Genoese citizen called Caffaro who imagined and founded this series. Born about 1080, he served as soldier and general in many expeditions and took great part as consul in the affairs of the republic, and also as ambassador to Pope Calixtus II, and to Frederick Barbarossa. When about twenty years of age, at the time of the expedition to Cesarea in 1100, he began to think of describing the achievements of his fellow-countrymen, and from that time he constantly wrote down all that either he saw himself or knew of from the ocular testimony of other consuls or similar personages, and in 1152 presented his book in full council to the consuls of the republic. They decreed that the work should be copied with great care and elegance, and then preserved in the public archives. Notwithstanding his now advanced age, Caffaro, flattered by this proof of appreciation, returned to his labours with redoubled zeal, and carried on his annals till 1163,the eighty-third year of his age, when the civil discords which were then agitating Genoa prevented his continuing his book for the remaining three years of his life. On his death in 1166, he left besides the annals a Liber de Expeditione A Imariae et Tortuosae, an expedition in which he took part (1147-1148), and another, De Liberatione Civitatum Orientis, which describes the Genoese exploits in Syria and Palestine. In these works, as in the annals, Caffaro shows himself exactly what he is—a well-informed writer, generally an eyewitness of what he relates, a courageous, religious, guileless man, much attached to his country, and a careful examiner of all that regards the public and private life of the citizens. He was also thoroughly experienced in business matters, and on intimate terms with the leading men of his day, especially with the Emperor Frederick and the Popes; tenacious of justice in all that related to the empire as well as to the Church; and after a life spent nobly in peace and war, he had the happiness in his old age to see his son Otho consul of the republic. Such is the full and well-merited eulogy with which Pertz concludes his account of Caffaro.

By order of the republic, the chancellor Obertus continued the history from 1164 to 1173. Obertus was also mixed up in the politics of his country, and had opportunities for seeing and knowing whatever of importance for Genoa was going on, whether within the city or at a distance, so that we find his times vividly portrayed in his work. The negotiations for peace with the emperor of Constantinople, the armaments prepared at Porto Venere against Pisa, the explanations given by him to Frederick Barbarossa of the disagreements between the Pisans and Genoese touching Corsica, the assistance rendered to Milan in the building of Alessandria—these are some among the many episodes in which he had a share. After him Genoa was without an historian for fifteen years, until, in 1189, Ottobonus, a municipal notary, resumed the work; and after briefly supplying the interrupted thread for those fifteen years, continued the annals with greater fullness down to 1196. He also was present at many undertakings, and could bear personal testimony to his narrative. He writes in that simple and fluent style which is the natural outcome of a mind accustomed to attend to business, and to look at things from the real and practical side. In 1194, he assisted at the siege of Gaeta with the Genoese fleet sent to Henry VI’s aid, and when the town was taken, it was he who received from its inhabitants the oath of allegiance exacted by Genoa. In 1196, he was near Bonifazio at the conflict between the Genoese and Pisan fleets, and from the minute details which he gives, we may infer that he was present at other actions described in the course of his work. He has also left us valuable information on the internal political changes which occurred in Genoa in 1194, when the consuls of the commune were replaced by a podesta elected annually and not belonging to the city, as was then the general custom of the Italian republics. Ogerius Panis succeeded to Obertus in the office of chronicler (A.D. 1197-1219), a man employed by the republic in various negotiations with the king of Arragon, Ildefonse, with the city of Marseilles, and with Frederick II. After Ogerius there came Marchisius (A.D. 1220-1224) and Bartholomeus (A.D. 1225-1248), both good writers and also employed largely in State business. They both, especially the second, had to relate a very impor­tant period in history, and to show Genoa in her relations with the neighbouring and distant States of the Mediterranean, and the varied part she took in the struggle, of which Italy was the scene, between Frederick II and the Church.

After an anonymous continuation, lasting from 1249 to 1264, the charge of the Genoese annals was entrusted no longer to one but to several writers at the same time, who, extending their labours some­what beyond the limits of Genoese territory, continued them from 1264 to 1279 with great zeal, and, in the midst of the strong party-feeling which disquieted Genoa, were admirably impartial in their narrative and in their judgments. Among the last called to this office was James D’Oria, who, having worked at them with others from 1269, was com­missioned in 1280 to continue them alone, which he did until 1294. Born in 1234, and grandson of the famous Admiral Obertus D’Oria, he served his country through many vicissitudes with pen and sword. In 1284, in a great battle against Pisa, he was with many of his relations on board a galley belonging to the D’Oria family, but when returning victorious he was exposed to a violent storm near Porto Venere, and barely escaped with his life. On his return home he attended to the rearrangement of the city archives, had many documents registered, and turned them to account in his history. Intimately acquainted with the ancient writers, he searched in them for all the information he could find, in order to compose a brief sketch of the history of Genoa prior to the times of Caffaro. Of all that related to his own day he gave copious details, especially of the relations between Genoa and Charles of Anjou, and of the expedition to Corsica conducted by Percival D’Oria. As a writer he was very discerning, and superior to all his predecessors for the acuteness of his observation, the width of his views, and for a precision of mind which led him to omit no particular which could be of interest to posterity. It is to these qualities of D’Oria’s that the history of Genoa owes the preservation of a quantity of facts concerning her constitution, her army, fleet, and coinage. On the 16th of July, worn out by bad health rather than by age, he handed in his work to the magnates of the city, who received it with the praises due to such conscientious labours. With him closes this series of annals, the only one written by commission for an Italian republic and the most complete during the whole age of the Communes. As the history of a mercantile and warlike people, it reflects their characteristics in every page, in spite of the variety of the writers and the times. These writers have much in common. A Latin full of Italian forms and phrases, hardly any rhetorical ornament, but complete simplicity of language and precision of style, great abundance of facts, names, and dates, profound patriotism and remarkable impartiality of judgment—these we find in all, from Caffaro to D’Oria, the first and the last of the series, and the two greatest for their enlightenment and the sagacity shown in their researches. The Genoese annals serve to prove more and more clearly that contemporary history, in order to give a vivid picture of events, must be presented to us by an eyewitness, and by one whose share in the action adds warmth to his description.

Pisa was less rich in annals, yet some we find there also. When in 1088 she was the ally of Genoa and Amalfi in a brilliant enterprise against the Saracens in Africa, which was like a prelude to the Crusades, one of her citizens commemorated the exploit in a rude rhyme full of patriotic fire. Also the taking of Majorca (A.D. 1115) was celebrated in a Latin poem in seven books, remarkable for the many facts it contains and the classical turn of the verse; and the same feat of arms was described by the cardinal Petrus Pisanus. We have already spoken at length of this latter among the compilers of the Pontifical Book, and mentioned how he accompanied his fellow-countrymen in the expedition to the Balearic Isles, and on his return home wrote an account of it. And indeed while writing it he enlarged on the first plan of his work, and going back to the earliest Crusade and to the taking of Jerusalem, composed the Gesta triumphalia per Pisanos facta, in which he celebrates with much warmth and vividness the deeds of his countrymen. But the principal chronicler of Pisa was Bernard Marango, who lived in the twelfth century, filled many public offices at home, and was sent abroad as ambassador in various places, among others to Rome in 1164 to sign a peace agreed upon between his fellow-citizens and the Roman people. After some short chronological notes his annals begin in the year 1004, briefly at first, then from 1136 to 1175 become fuller and contain a wider range of facts. In 1175 his work ceased, but was carried on to 1269 by Michael de Vico, a canon of Pisa in the fourteenth century. Marango is an uncouth writer but clear, and his Latin also is full of Italian words and forms. He is in substance a well-informed annalist and truthful, and much that he tells us we should not have known but for him, as he had access to sources of knowledge now lost to us. He has a special importance for the history of Pisa’s relations with the Empire and the Popes, with Genoa and with the rest of Tuscany, which was in those days brought into a more prominent position in consequence of the growing political importance of Florence, and for that wonderful uprising of arts and letters which left so deep an impress on the history of civilization.

And it was indeed about that time that chronicles began to appear in every city of Tuscany, invaluable commentators of Italy’s history from the twelfth to the fifteenth century. Among the best are the chronicles of Lucca, Siena and Pistoia, of which we may mention in connection with Lucca the annals (a.d. 1061-1394) by that same Ptolomaeus Lucensis whom we have already met with as author of a Church history, the life of Castruccio by Nicholas Tegrimus (A.D. 1301-1328), and the chronicle of John Ser Cambio (A.D. 1400-1409). For Siena, without touching on later ones, should be named the chronicle of Andrea Dei (A.D. 1186- 1352), and the annals of Neri Donati (A.D. 1352- 1381) ; while for Pistoia we have the Annali Pistolesi (A.D. 1300-1348), written in Italian, and in Italian also were many of the chronicles men­tioned as well as others omitted. This fact adds not a little to their value, since it assisted the development of the language, and also because the authors, writing in their own tongue, no longer had the flow of their thoughts interrupted, but could express them with the vivacity and clearness with which they presented themselves.

Above the rest of Tuscany towers Florence after the twelfth century. From beginnings humble and little known she rose rapidly to the first place, and became celebrated for her wealth, her arts and literature. Her people full of talent and activity, had a greater similarity than any other in modern history to the ancient Athenians, with their lively, keen, riotous and quarrelsome disposition. The Florentines ended by developing instinctively a wonderful democracy that possessed all the merits of that form of government combined with its defects. The personal sentiment, so strong in all Italians, was especially strong in the Florentines, and brought about astonishing results both for good and evil. On one hand rivalries for office and private enmities excited ferocious struggles between two parties, called at first Guelph and Ghibelline, and later, when the democratic Guelph party prevailed, renewed under the appellation of White and Black,—struggles which aroused to mutual intolerance family against family, the nobility against the people. On the other hand, and notwithstanding this disturbing state of things, there was great prosperity in commerce, industry and finance, and the guilds of the artizans grew so strong as to become the real basis of the State, and obliged the nobles, if they wished to share in public affairs, to enroll themselves among them, and of this we have an example in Dante. The Tuscan tongue was now formed, and letters and arts made such progress as had never been dreamed of before in modern times, and has never been surpassed since. It is a great truth that only people of strong feelings in everything can in everything be great; and there was no kind of beauty of which those proud and passionate spirits were not enamoured, nor loftiness of thought nor grace of feeling to which they did not attain, in spite of the fratricidal wars, the assassinations and exiles which formed part of their daily experience. In the meantime a fraternal and almost mystic affection united the great artists who came to clothe with beauty the realms of thought, and especially all turned with instinctive sympathy to Dante, then young and dreaming of love and poetry. While he was composing the Vita Nuova, Casella was putting to music his song, Amor che nella mente mi ragiona, and Giotto portrayed him beautiful in grace and tenderness, and Guido Cavalcanti and Cino of Pistoia wrote verses for him to which he replied. They were in that springtime of the mind which brings with it buds and flowers; but soon the angry tide of civic discord swept Dante along with it, and flung him upon the desolate shore of exile, where his power­ful spirit reached maturity through pain. Wandering from city to city the immortal fugitive gained keen insight into men and things, learned, one by one, the long list of Italy’s virtues, crimes, and misfortunes, and in composing the sacred poem—

            “ To which both heaven and earth have set their hand,”

he engraved on it the history of Italy, and indeed laid in it the foundation of all medieval history. It does not come within the scope of this book to inquire into the historical value of Dante’s poem, but it is well to have dwelt on it for a moment that the divine figure of the poet might shed its radiance across these pages.

The origin of Florence is shrouded in darkness. It appears to have been first of all founded two centuries before Christ, and then again by Augustus, but its history up to the eleventh century has hardly any basis except the well-known fabulous legends of Troy, of Catiline, and of Totilas, popular in the Middle Ages among the Florentines. Around these legends the imagination of the chroniclers delighted to hover, and hitherto hardly anything but matter of pure conjecture has been gathered from the most ancient records, a brief description of which will suffice. The Gesta Florentinorum of Sanzanome, starting from these vague origins, begin to be more definite about 1125, at the time of the union of Fiesole with Florence, and show us this latter in 1231 already well advanced on its course of material and intellectual prosperity. The Chronica de origine civitatis seems to be a compilation, made by various hands and at various times, in which all the different legends regarding the city’s origin have been gradually collected. The Annales Florentini primi (A.D. 1110-1173) and the Annales Florentini secundi (A.D. 1107-1247), together with a list of the consuls and Podestas of Florence from 1197 to 1267, and another chronicle formerly attributed, but it appears without good reason, to Brunetto Latini, complete the series of ancient Florentine records. To these must, however, be added a certain quantity of facts which under various forms were to be found in various manuscripts, were used by the old Florentine and Tuscan writers, and quoted from by them under the general name of Gesta Florentinorum, This source of information, as Professor Paoli remarks, was the result of “a labour of continual compilation and recompilation which was multiplex, anonymous and universal; not a really literary work, but the basis of a splendid historical literature, such as was that of Florence in the fourteenth century.”

Until now this literature was considered to have originated somewhat earlier, and to have begun with the chronicle which bears the names of Ricordano and Giacotto Malespini, who lived in the second half of the thirteenth century, and of whom but little is known and that with uncertainty. This was considered the most ancient chronicle written in the vulgar tongue, after the Diurnali of Mathew Spinelli were declared apocryphal. But now some of the learned have attacked it, and with such strong arguments that it hardly seems any longer possible to assert its authenticity, notwithstanding some grave objections set forth by those who sustain it. In any case it is now admitted by all, that even if the chronicle is in substance authentic, it has certainly come down to us com­pletely altered. So far there are not sufficient grounds for arriving at a definite conclusion, and we cannot get beyond hypotheses, among which that of Professor Paoli seems to us probable, namely that this chronicle is a remodelling of more ancient records unknown to us, and made use of by various chroniclers, either without mentioning them at all, or doing so but vaguely. This chronicle of the Malespini as it has reached us, is, however, a most attractive book, beginning with the early legends and continuing down to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, during which it relates in detail the history of Florence. It contains old forms of style and linguistic archaisms, which give picturesqueness of colouring to its mass of information, and to the many facts and episodes almost all of which we find narrated in the same words in the great chronicle of Villani. This latter, whom we are now approaching, has till now been accused of having copied and moulded into his own the work of the so-called Malespini, whereas now it would appear that they had copied from him. But before anything can be affirmed one way or other, we must wait for the results of fresh researches into the manuscripts, and of more profound critical studies; yet in any case, even if this chronicle is finally decided to be apocryphal, it has some merits which will prevent its ever being entirely effaced from Italian literature.

Of late years the chronicle of Dino Compagni, one of the fairest jewels in the Italian language, has been the subject of long and passionate controversy. The author of the chronicle was born about 1260, of an old burgher family, and while still young found himself, like Dante, taking part in public life at a time when Florence was entering on a disturbed period of civil discord, and her popular constitution was growing more and more democratic in its form. The city was divided by the enmity of several powerful families, the people engaged in a successful struggle with the nobility, and in its animosity disposed to repress their arrogance with the arrogance of the law. After the defeat of the Ghibellines of Arezzo in the battle of Campaldino (a.d. 1289), which brought with it that of all the Tuscan Ghibellines, the prevailing Guelph party began to turn against itself, and broke up, as we have said, into two factions, the Bianchi and Neri, the first taking part with the family of the Cerchi, the second with that of the Donati. To these latter the pope, Boniface VIII, inclined favourably, being suspicious of the Bianchi because they did not seem to him sufficiently distinct from the Ghibellines. On this account the pope sent his legates to Florence to support the Neri, and later brought upon her the interference of Charles of Valois, a princely adventurer, poor, and greedy of riches and honour, whose stay in Italy was a perpetual disgrace, and brought with it nothing but discord. A few years before, the Florentines, under the leadership of a public-spirited tribune, Giano della Bella, had established, by means of the Ordinamenti di Giustizia, one of the proudest democratic constitutions which can be imagined. Then Giano went into exile, persecuted by the envy of many men in power, and by another and very different tribune, the butcher Pecora, who had pushed himself into notice by flattering the evil passions of the populace, and taking advantage of them. In the meantime, Corso Donati, the Catiline of Florence, was plotting against the Ordinamenti di Giustizia, and having placed himself at the head of the Neri, he tried to shake off the yoke imposed by the popular party on the nobility. Through the coming of Charles of Valois, Corso Donati and the Neri had grown more powerful, and used their power to oppress the other party, so that the residence in Florence of the Frenchman, who came with the title of Paciere, or Peacemaker, only served to let loose party passions, and to stain the city and suburbs with murders, robberies, and violence of every kind. Then the Valois left Florence to her desolation; Boniface VIII before long died, after undergoing the disgrace of Anagni; Corso Donati was killed, but the discords and struggles did not cease. In the meantime many of the Bianchi, who had been exiled from their country, and Dante among them, in consequence of the state of matters and the common enemies were beginning to draw nearer to the Ghibellines, and they did so the more when in Tuscany also was hailed that ray of hope, which for a moment illumined Italy, weary with her long sufferings. It seemed as if Henry of Luxembourg, when he came to be crowned emperor, was bringing in his hand the olive branch instead of a sceptre. It was the fond dream of tired and peace-desiring men, and we have seen how at Padua the Guelph Mussatus sang the praises of Henry, and celebrated his exploits. Yet for all this the discords were not lulled, and when Henry directed his steps towards Tuscany, the Ghibellines there exulted, and among the Bianchi of the Guelph party the hope of a return to power revived. But the Florentine Neri did not yield. Joining with the Anjous of Naples, they showed themselves openly hostile to Henry, who was prevented by death from continuing the struggle. With him the parte bianca lost all influence, and every hope of ever regaining it.

Dino Compagni had been present in Florence at all these occurrences and shared in them, having been several times between 1282 and 1301 prior of the city, and in 1293 Gonfalonier of Justice. Spotless in his integrity, kindly in his feelings, simple, sincere, and straightforward, he made every effort in those turbulent days to recall his country­men to thoughts of peace, and for this holy object expended, but in vain, all the resources of his fervid eloquence and of his honest will. His temperate disposition led him to join the Bianchi, and when his party fell and he was obliged to withdraw from public life, he, while mourning over his country’s misfortunes, pursued in retirement his trade of silk merchant, and sought consolation in literature, which he had already attempted, and to which he contributed certain lyrics, and, as it seems, a poem entitled La Intelligenza. With his mind full of the impressions made by what he had seen, and of the affectionate regret with which the state of his country inspired him, he felt himself induced to write an account of the matters at which he had been present. “The memory,” he says, “of ancient histories has long urged my mind to write the dangerous and unprosperous vicissitudes through which this noble city, the daughter of Rome, has passed during many years, and especially in the time of the jubilee in the year 1300. And I, making excuses to myself, as being incompetent, thinking that someone else might write, omitted to write for many years, while the danger and important aspect of things has so increased that silence can no longer be kept. I proposed to write for the benefit of those who will inherit years of prosperity; that they may recognize the blessing of God, who in all times rules and governs. When I began, I proposed to tell the truth of things certain which I had seen and heard, providing they were matters worthy of note, of which surely none saw the beginnings as I did; and those which I had not actually seen, I proposed to write of according to hearsay, and because many, according to their corrupt wills exceed in what they say, I proposed to write according to the most general report.”

Having thus described the plan of his work and the reasons which made him undertake it, and given a rapid account of the city of Florence and the origin of her civil discords, he enters on his history, which from 1280 to 1312 embraces all the events alluded to by us. In this history he lives, breathes and moves, and in such a way that we know of no modern historian who equals him in his gift of lighting the same flame in his readers’ breasts as that which burned in his own. Among the ancients he has by preference been compared to Thucydides and Sallust, and perhaps he is most like the former in a natural simplicity which is lacking to the latter, to whom, however, Dino sometimes approaches in the nervous picturesqueness of his style. In Dino’s chronicle we have the whole man reproduced, with all his love and devo­tion for his country and all his generous indignation. Patriotism is indeed the moving passion of his soul, whether he exults over virtuous actions, or judges with severity and brands as infamous those un­worthy citizens, who were ruining their country for private or party interests. Against these he is especially implacable, as in the following passage: “ Arise, O wicked citizens, and take the sword and fire in your hands, and spread your iniquitous deeds. Show your impious will, and evil intentions; delay no more; go and reduce to ruin the beauties of your city. Shed the blood of your brethren, strip yourselves of faith and charity, and deny each other help and service. Sow your lies which will fill your children’s granaries. Do as Sylla did to the city of Rome, when all the evil which he did in ten years, Marius in a few days avenged. Do you think that the justice of God has failed? Even that of the world repays one for one. See how your ancestors received the reward of their discords: barter the honours they acquired. Lose no time, ye miserable: for more is consumed in one day of war than is gained in many years of peace; and small is the spark which brings destruction on a great kingdom.”

The frank and amiable disposition of Dino was little suited to the turbulent age in which he lived. In the midst of such excitement of feeling if he, as statesman, remained always in the right and kept his actions in harmony with the purity of his intentions, he did not however always find in his ingenuous candour the best remedies for preventing or repressing the civic dissensions. And this he feels himself, and when he reflects on the past and judges it in his narrative, he of his own accord recognizes and confesses his own errors and those of his colleagues; as he is fair in dispensing praise and blame to all, so he does not hesitate to accuse himself. He is not occupied with his own person, but with the facts which influenced his action, and this makes it interesting to follow him when he speaks of himself, and reveals in his simple narrative the generosity of his character and the calm impartiality of his judgment. There is no episode more touching than the one in which he tells what he did, when he was prior and Charles of Valois was about to enter Florence. Fearing civil discords in presence of a stranger, he follows the dictates of his heart, and thinking that it must speak with equal strength in every one where the honour of their country is concerned, he invokes it in his compatriots with a sublime and trusting ingenuousness. Here is the passage :—

“Things being in these terms, there came to me, Dino, a holy and honest idea, for I thought: ‘This lord will come, and will find all the citizens divided, and great scandal will follow from it.’ So I concluded, for the office that I held and for the good­will that I found in my companions, to call together many good citizens in the church of St. John; and so I did. And there were all the authorities; and when it seemed to me time, I said:  ‘Dear and worthy citizens, who have all of you in common received baptism from this font, this reason impels and binds you to love each other as dear brethren; and also because you possess the most noble city in the world. Among you some discontent has arisen, from ambition of offices, which as you know my companions and I have promised you with an oath to extend to all. This lord is coming and we must honour him. Put away your discontent and make peace among yourselves, that he may not find you divided. Put aside all the offences and ill will there has been among you in times gone by; let them be forgiven and forgotten for love of your town. And over this sacred font, whence you received holy baptism, swear among yourselves a good and perfect peace, so that the lord who is coming find all the citizens united.’ To these words all agreed, and did so, touching the book with their hands, and swore to maintain good peace, and to preserve the honours and jurisdiction of the city. And this being done we departed from that place. But the wicked citizens, who had feigned tears of tenderness, and kissed the book, and shown the most zealous mind, were the principals in the city’s destruction. Whose names I will not tell for shame’s sake. But I cannot pass over the name of the foremost, since he was the cause of the others following, and he was Rosso dello Strozza; violent in looks and deeds, leader of the others; who soon after paid the forfeit of that oath. Those who were evil disposed said this loving peace was held forth as a deception. If there was any fraud in the words, I must suffer the penalty, though one should not receive an evil reward for a good intention. I have shed many tears for that oath, thinking how many souls have been lost for their wickedness.”

“Words of true piety,” exclaims Father Tosti, quoting them in one of his books, “and would that they were impressed on every Italian mind!” But these pious words, which after six centuries fired the holy patriotism of the monk of Monte Cassino, were not sufficient in those troubled times, and perhaps it might have been better to “sharpen the swords,” as on another occasion Dino regrets not having done. His great object was to see harmony ruling among the different parties, and he hoped to reach it by gentle persuasions, as he shows us in another episode no less worthy of record, nor less vivid a picture of the times, and of the efforts which really were being made to bring back peace to the harassed city. “The Signiors were greatly urged by the more important citizens to make new Signiors. Although it was against the law of justice because it was not the time for electing them, yet we agreed to call them, more out of compassion for the city than for any other reason. And I was in the chapel of St. Bernard in the name of the whole office, and had there many of the more powerful of the people, for without them nothing could be done. There were Cione Magalotti, Segna Angiolini, Noffo Guidi for the party of the Neri; and Messers Lapo Falconieri, Cece Canigiani and Corazza Ubaldini for the Bianchi. And I addressed them humbly and with much affection, saying, ‘I wish to make the office in common, since from the rivalry about the offices there comes such discord.’ We agreed, and elected six citizens in common, three of the Neri, and three of the Bianchi. The seventh whom we could not divide we chose of so little weight that no one could suspect him. Which names I placed in writing on the altar. And Noffo Guidi spoke and said: ‘I shall say something for which you will hold me a cruel citizen.’ And I bid him be silent; and yet he spoke and with such arrogance as to ask me to be pleased to make their part in the office greater than the other; which was as much as saying ‘Undo the other part and would have put me in the place of Judas. And I told him that before I would do such treason, I would give my children to be eaten by the dogs. And so we separated from the meeting.”

Thus unconsciously reproducing himself, this man, after his fall from public life and power, passed his days modestly, as we have said, between his commerce and his pen, and so quietly that we hardly hear any more of him till the year 1323 when he died. Admirable as historian, just and kind-hearted as a man, he was a worthy contemporary and fellow-citizen of Dante, to whom he has more resemblance than any other writer of his age, from the ardour of his feelings, from the mixture of love and indignation in his character, from his singular gift of looking at things from above, of judging men and portraying them in a phrase. Many writers have spoken of him, but none perhaps with so much acumen as the great modern historian of Florence, Gino Capponi, who says of him, “Dino Compagni, an honest man, somewhat narrow in his political views, but a warm defender of what was good and right ... the cheerful companion of the first founders of a popular government, devoted to whoever had satisfied the wrath felt against the nobles, and then but little contented with the new men, and the commonalty which had risen to the seat of government; a Guelph, but from his love of order ready to receive an emperor; at last afraid of this same emperor, against whom it seemed to him that a mad and useless war was being waged; thoroughly honest in each of these ideas, but in all. finding himself at length mistaken; full of fancy and passion, and always a rigid moralist.... His history is entirely composed of a series of impressions, the clearness, vivacity and force of which prove their sincerity; the writer in describing himself depicts his time; and it is exactly in this that the merit of Dino Compagni consists, for in it he has few equals.... The Florentine Dino Compagni in that chronicle of his rises far above the prose writers of the thirteenth century. Alighieri tyrannizes with his haughty intellect over language which is raised as a fair captive to the favour of her lord; Dino, whose eloquence is so bright and efficacious, does not however succeed in hiding some effort in his composition; sincerely impassioned, yet ambitious of giving to his narrative an historical form, in which he may have taken Sallust as a model. In subtle facility of style, Compagni leaves far behind him Villani, who is infinitely superior to him in width of subject and in knowledge of facts.”

Contemporary with Dino but by some years younger was the great chronicler Giovanni Villani, who applying himself to commerce, in accordance with the traditions of his family, was busied in it both at home and abroad. In the first years of the fourteenth century he travelled to Rome, in France and in the low countries, where he saw and observed many men and things. On his return to his country, he began to occupy himself with public affairs about the time that Dino was quitting them, and when a period of comparative calm was succeeding to the turmoils and agitations described by this latter. In the year 1316 and 1317 he belonged to the office of the priors, and took part in the crafty tactics of the Florentines when they concluded a peace with Pisa and Lucca. In 1317 he was also officer of the money, and while administering the mint, collected its records with diligence and composed, chiefly by himself, a register of the coins struck in Florence up to his. time. Prior again in 1321, he superintended the rebuilding of the city walls with a great zeal which, was ill repaid, for later his work was subjected to suspicions, which however he was able to refute triumphantly. Later he was in the Florentine army, when it attacked Castruccio Castracani and was defeated by him at Altopascio. In a distressing famine which desolated many provinces of Italy in 1328, he exhibited his usual activity in diminishing its evil effects within Florence, and left us a record of the prudential measures then taken, in a chapter of his chronicle which bears witness to that economical wisdom in which the Florentines of the Middle Ages, were in advance of their time, and often in practice came near the theories of modern economists. Two years later he super­intended the making of the bronze gates of St. John, “very beautiful and of wonderful work and costliness, and they were formed in wax, and afterwards the figures were cleaned and gilt by a master Andrea Pisano, and they were founded in a furnace by Venetian masters.” In 1341 he was as hostage of war at Ferrara, and there he remained for some months together with the other hostages, and was treated with great honour and courtesy. Among the subsequent vicissitudes of Florence which he saw on his return and described vividly, was the brief usurpation and then the expulsion of the duke of Athens. Involved without fault of his in a great bankruptcy of the company of the Bonaccorsi, he was retained in prison for some time. He died in 1348, a victim to the plague rendered famous by Boccaccio’s description.

In the year 1300, on the occasion of the solemn jubilee announced by Pope Boniface VIII, Rome was visited by a vast concourse of the faithful who had betaken themselves there in pilgrimage from every part of the Christian world to pay homage to the tombs of the apostles. Thither among other pilgrims went Villani, and while wandering through that city of wonders he fell under the spell, and in presence of the majestic solitude of its ruins, found his mind returning to the past, and his heart being inflamed by those memories. So that while Dante, who was also that year treading the Roman streets, felt the great idea of his poem stirring vaguely in his mind, the keen and observing spirit of the Florentine merchant seemed suddenly to divine its own historical gifts. “In the year of Christ 1300, according to the birth of Christ, it being said by many that formerly, every hundred years of Christ’s nativity, the pope who then was made a great indulgence, Pope Boniface VIII, who was then the Apostolic, made this aforesaid year in honour of Christ’s nativity a special and great indulgence after this manner; that whatever Roman, within that year and for thirty days following, should visit the churches of the blessed Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, and for fifteen days the whole of the remaining people who were not Romans, to all he gave a full and entire pardon of their sins from blame or punishment if they had confessed aright or would confess. And for the consolation of the Christian pilgrims, every Friday and solemn festival there was shown in St. Peter’s the sudarium of Christ. On which account a great portion of the Christians then living made this aforesaid pilgrimage, women as well as men, from different and distant countries, from afar off as from the neighbourhood. And it was the most astonishing thing that ever was seen, how continually throughout the whole year they had in Rome beside the Roman people two hundred thousand pilgrims, without those who were on the road going and coming, and all were furnished and satisfied with food in just measure, men and horses, with great patience, and without noise or contentions; and I can bear witness to it for I was present and saw it. And from the offerings made by the pilgrims the Church gained great treasure, and the Romans, from supplying them, all grew rich. And I finding myself in that blessed pilgrimage in the holy city of Rome, seeing her great and ancient remains, and reading the histories and great deeds of the Romans as written by Virgil, Sallust, Lucan, Livy, Valerius, Paulus Orosius and other masters of history who wrote the exploits and deeds, both great and small, of the Romans and also of strangers in the whole world, to give recollection and example to those who are to come. So I took style and form from them, though as a disciple I was not worthy to do so great a work. But considering that our city of Florence, the daughter and offspring of Rome, is on the increase and destined to do great things, as Rome is in her decline, it appeared to me fitting to set down in this volume and new chronicle all the facts and beginnings of the city of Florence, in as far as it has been possible to me to collect and discover them, and to follow the doings of the Florentines at length, and briefly the other remarkable matters of the world, so that it may be pleasing to God, in the hope of whose grace I made this undertaking rather than by my poor knowledge; and so in the year 1300, on my return from Rome, I began to compile this book, in honour of God and of the blessed John, and in praise of our city of Florence.”

The work begun by Villani in 1300 goes back to biblical times and comes down to 1346. Nor is the idea of his work vast only for his researches into the dimness of the distant past, and for his collecting the few facts known and the many legends among which the first origin of Florence lies concealed. The wide universality of his narrative, especially in the times near him, while it attests to the author’s travels and to the comprehensiveness of his mind, makes one also feel that the book has been inspired within the walls of the universal city. Indeed, as Dino Compagni’s chronicle is confined within definite limits of time’ and place, this of Villani’s is a general chronicle extending over the whole of Europe; Dino Compagni feels and lives in the facts of his history, Villani looks at them and relates them calmly and fairly, with a serenity which makes him appear an outsider, even when he is mixed up in them and is himself their originator. While very important for Italian history in the fourteenth century, it is quite the corner-stone of the early medieval history of Florence, whose traditions he goes over and groups, and after collecting all the knowledge he can reach, relates with more or less order everything connected with past and present times. Of these latter he has a very exact knowledge. Sharer as he was in public affairs, and in the intellectual and economical life of his city, at a time when in both she had no rival in Europe, he depicts what he saw with the vividness natural to a clear mind accustomed to business and to the observation of mankind. He was Guelph, but without strong feeling, and his serenity is diffused throughout his book, which is much more taken up with an inquiry into what is useful and true than with party considerations. He is really a chronicler, not an historian, and has but little method in his narrative, often reporting the things which occurred long ago and far off just as he heard them and without criticism. Every now and then he falls into some inaccuracy, but such defects as he has are largely compensated for by his valuable qualities. He was for half a century eyewitness of his history, and provides abundant information on the constitution of Florence, her customs, industries, commerce and arts; and among the chroniclers throughout Europe, he is perhaps unequalled for the value of the statistical data preserved by him. Giovanni Villani as a writer is less profound than he is clear and acute, and though his prose has not the force and colouring of Compagni, it has the advantage of greater simplicity, so that taking his work as a whole we find him to be without doubt the greatest chronicler who has written in Italian. It is astonishing that there is not yet in Italy a really good edition of his book, and that among the many learned students of history whom Florence can boast of, not one has yet been found disposed to prepare it.

The thread of the narrative, interrupted by Giovanni Villani’s death, was taken up again by his brother Matteo, who carried the chronicle on to 1363, when he also being struck down by the plague left to his son Filippo the care of continuing the work down to 1364. Of the first we know very little: the life of the second, who was chancellor of the commune of Perugia, is better known. He was a man of learning and letters, chosen in 1401 and 1404 to expound publicly the Divine Comedy in the Florentine Studio, and author of a celebrated collection of Lives of illustrious Florentines. Though a more accomplished man of letters than either his father or uncle, he is inferior to them both as a chronicler; and even his father, while following laudably in Giovanni’s steps, was very far from equalling him.

In Florence, as in other parts of Italy, there is no absence of chroniclers in the age succeeding that of the Villanis, and some of them excellent. Among others Marchionne Stefani, Piero Minerbetti, the two Boninsegni, Giovanni Morelli have all merit as chroniclers, and generally have one advantage over those of the rest of Italy in a more facile and graceful use of their native language. The best of them all perhaps was Gino Capponi, who wrote an account of the tumult of the Ciompi (A.D. 1378), and also either by him or his son Neri is a commentary on the conquest of Pisa (a.D. 1402-1406). But with the Villanis the series of medieval chroniclers may be said to close. After them comes history, superficial still, and in its form but a servile imitation of the classic models during the humanistic movement of the fifteenth century, but in the following century displaying thought, acumen and vigour in many writings, and above all in the unsurpassed pages of Macchiavelli and Guicciardini. These two writers, while differing in their manner of thinking and feeling, both tended nevertheless towards the new life which they presaged in the midst of their country’s decay, and by their meditations on the causes of that decay, they opened out new horizons to human thought. But it was from the past that their minds drank in their strength, and from these humble and vigorous chronicles that their histories drew a vital part of their substance. Great is the service rendered by these chronicles, nor can we leave them without a sense of gratitude and reverence. By them the times of antiquity are united to ours, and by their aid we are enabled to follow for almost ten centuries the throes suffered by humanity in one of its greatest efforts on the path of progress.

EARLY CHRONICLERS OF ITALY.