are of a nature contrary to that of tyrants. Therefore
the very causes which produce and fortify and augment tyrannies, conceal
and nourish in themselves the sources of their overthrow and ruin. This
indeed is the greatest wretchedness of tyrants.'

[1] See the passage condensed from his Sermons in Villari's Life of
Savonarola (Eng. Tr. vol. ii. p. 62). The most thorough-going
analysis of despotic criminality is contained in Savonarola's
_Tractato circa el Reggimento e Governo della Citta di Firenze_,
Trattato ii. cap. 2. _Della Malitia e pessime Conditioni del
Tyranno_.

It may be objected that this sweeping criticism, from the pen of a
Florentine citizen at war with Milan, partakes of the nature of an
invective. Yet abundant proofs can be furnished from the chronicles of
burghs which owed material splendor to their despots, confirming the
censure of Villani. Matarazzo, for example, whose sympathy with the
house of Baglioni is so striking, and who exults in the distinction they
conferred upon Perugia, writes no less bitterly concerning the
pernicious effects of their misgovernment.[1] It is to be noticed that
Villani and Matarazzo agree about the special evils brought upon the
populations by their tyrants. Lust and violence take the first place.
Next comes extortion; then the protection of the lawless and the
criminal against the better sort of citizens. But the Florentine, with
intellectual acumen, lays his finger on one of the chief vices of their
rule. They retard the development of mental greatness in their states,
and check the growth of men of genius. Ariosto, in the comparative calm
of the sixteenth century, when tyrannies had yielded to the protectorate
of Spain, sums up the records of the past in the following memorable
passage:[2] 'Happy the kingdoms where an open-hearted and blameless man
gives law! Wretched indeed and pitiable are those where injustice and
cruelty hold sway, where burdens ever greater and more grievous are laid
upon the people by tyrants like those who now abound in Italy, whose
infamy will be recorded through years to come as no less black than
Caligula's or Nero's.' Guicciardini, with pregnant brevity, observes:[3]
'The mortar with which the states of the tyrants are cemented is the
blood of the citizens.'

[1] Arch. Stor. xvi. 102. See my _Sketches in Italy and Greece_, p.
84.

[2] Cinque Canti, ii. 5.

[3] Ricordi Politici, ccxlii.

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