Lodovico Sforza,
and survived the tragic catastrophes of his capital, which suffered more
than any other from the brutalities of Spaniards and Frenchmen. Next to
Florence, the most brilliant centers of literary activity during the
bright days of the Renaissance were princely Ferrara and royal Naples.
Lastly, we might insist upon the fact that the Italian language took its
first flight in the court of imperial Palermo, while republican Rome
remained dumb throughout the earlier stage of Italian literary
evolution. Thus the facts of the case seem to show that culture and
republican independence were not so closely united in Italy as some
historians would seek to make us believe. On the other hand it is
impossible to prove that the despotisms of the fifteenth century were
necessary to the perfecting of art and literature. All that can be
safely advanced upon this subject, is that the pacification of Italy was
demanded as a preliminary condition, and that this pacification came to
pass through the action of the princes, checked and equilibrated by the
oligarchies of Venice and Florence. It might further be urged that the
Despots were in close sympathy with the masses of the people, shared
their enthusiasms, and promoted their industry. When the classical
revival took place at the close of the fourteenth century, they divined
this movement of the Italic races to resume their past, and gave it all
encouragement. To be a prince, and not to be the patron of scholarship,
the pupil of humanists, and the founder of libraries, was an
impossibility. In like manner they employed their wealth upon the
development of arts and industries. The great age of Florentine painting
is indissolubly connected with the memories of Casa Medici. Rome owes
her magnificence to the despotic Popes. Even the pottery of Gubbio was a
creation of the ducal house of Urbino.

After the death of Henry VII. and the beginning of the Papal exile at
Avignon, the Guelf party became the rallying-point of municipal
independence, with its headquarters in Florence. Ghibellinism united
the princes in an opposite camp. 'The Guelf party,' writes Giovanni
Villani, 'forms the solid and unalterable basis of Italian liberty, and
is so antagonistic to all tyranny that, if a Guelf become a tyrant, he
must of necessity become at the same moment Ghibelline.' Milan, first to
assert the rights of the free burghs, was now the chief center of
despotism; and the events of the next ce