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RENAISSANCE IN ITALY
THE CATHOLIC REACTION
In Two Parts
volumes 1 and 2
BY
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
'Deh! per Dio, donna,
Se romper si potria quelle grandi ale?
* * * * *
Tu piangi e taci; e questo meglio parmi'
SAVONAROLA: _De Ruina Ecclesia_
PART I
NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1887 _AUTHOR'S EDITION_
PREFACE.
At the end of the second volume of my 'Renaissance in Italy' I indulged
the hope that I might live to describe the phase of culture which closed
that brilliant epoch. It was in truth demanded that a work pretending to
display the manifold activity of the Italian genius during the 15th
century and the first quarter of the 16th, should also deal with the
causes which interrupted its further development upon the same lines.
This study, forming a logically-necessitated supplement to the five
former volumes of 'Renaissance in Italy,' I have been permitted to
complete. The results are now offered to the public in these two parts.
So far as it was possible, I have conducted my treatment of the Catholic
Revival on a method analogous to that adopted for the Renaissance. I
found it, however, needful to enter more minutely into details regarding
facts and institutions connected with the main theme of national
culture.
The Catholic Revival was by its nature reactionary. In order to explain
its influences, I have been compelled to analyze the position of Spain
in the Italian peninsula, the conduct of the Tridentine Council, the
specific organization of the Holy Office and the Company of Jesus, and
the state of society upon which those forces were brought to bear.
In the list of books which follows these prefatory remarks, I have
indicated the most important of the sources used by me. Special
references will be made in their proper places to works of a subordinate
value for the purposes of my inquiry.
DAVOS PLATZ: _July_ 1886.
_WORKS COMMONLY REFERRED TO IN THE TWO SUCCEEDING VOLUMES OF THIS
BOOK_.
SISMONDI.--Histoire des Republiques Italiennes du Moyen Age.
RANKE.--History of the Popes. 3 vols. English edition: Bohn.
CREIGHTON.--History of the Papacy during the Reformation. 2
vols. Macmillan.
BOTTA.--Storia d'Italia. Continuata da quella del Guicciardini
sino al 1789.
FERRARI.--Rivoluzioni d'Italia. 3 vols.
QUINET.--Les Revolutions d'Italie.
GALLUZZI.--Storia del Granducato di Toscana.
PALLAVICINI.--Storia del Concilio Tridentino.
SARPI.--Storia del Concilio. Vols. 1 and 2 of Sarpi's Opere.
DENNISTOUN'S Dukes of Urbino. 3 vols.
ALBERI.--Relazioni degli Ambasciatori Veneti.
MUTINELLI.--Storia Arcana ed Aneddotica d'Italia. Raccontata
dai Veneti Ambasciatori. 4 vols. Venice. 1858.
MUTINELLI.--Annali Urbani di Venezia.
LITTA.--Famiglie Celebri Italiane.
PHIUPPSON.--La Contre-Revolution Religieuse au XVIme Siecle
Bruxelles. 1884.
DEJOB.--De l'Influence du Concile de Trente. Paris. 1884.
GIORDANI.--Delia Venuta e Dimora in Bologna del Sommo Pontefice
Clemente VII. per la Coronazione di Carlo V., Imperatore. Bologna. 1832.
BALBI.--Sommario della Storia d'Italia.
CANTU.--Gli Eretici d'Italia. 3 vols. Torino. 1866.
LLORENTE.--Histoire Critique de I'Inquisition d'Espagne. 4 vols.
Paris. 1818.
LAVALLEE.--Histoire des Inquisitions Religieuses. 2 vols. Paris.
1808.
MCCRIE.--History of the Reformation in Italy. Edinburgh. 1827.
TIRABOSCHI.--Storia della Letteratura Italiana.
DE SANCTIS.--Storia della Letteratura Italiana. 2 vols.
SETTEMBRINI.--Storia della Letteratura Italiana. 3 vols.
CANTU.--Storia della Letteratura Italiana. Decreta, etc.,
Societatis Jesu. Avignon. 1827.
CANTU.--Storia della Diocesi di Como. 2 vols.
DANDOLO.--La Signora di Monza e le Streghe del Tirolo. Milano.
1855.
BONGHI.--Storia di Lucrezia Buonvisi. Lucca. 1864.
Archivio Storico Italiano.
BANDI LUCCHESI.--Bologna: Romagnoli. 1863.
BERTOLOTTI.--Francesco Cenci e la sua Famiglia. Firenze. 1877.
GNOLI.--Vittoria Accoramboni. Firenze: Le Monnier. 1870.
DAELLI.--Lorenzino de'Medici. Milano. 1862.
DE STENDHAL.--Chroniques et Nouvelles. Paris. 1855.
GIORDANO BRUNO.--Opere Italiane (Wagner). 2 vols. Leipzig. 1830.
JORDANUS BRUNUS.--Opera Latina. 2 vols. Neapoli. 1879.
BRUNO.--Scripta Latina (Gfoerer). Stuttgart. 1836.
BERTI.--Vita di Giordano Bruno. Firenze, Torino, Milano. 1868.
BRUNNHOFER.--Giordano Bruno's Weltanschauung und Verhangniss.
Leipzig. 1882.
PAOLO SARPI.--Opere. 6 vols. Helmstat. 1765.
FRA FULGENZIO MICANZI--Vita del Sarpi.
BIANCHI GIOVINI.--Biografia di Fra Paolo Sarpi. 2 vols. Bruxelles. 1836.
Lettere di Fra Paolo Sarpi. 2 vols. Firenze. 1863.
CAMPBELL.--Life of Fra Paolo Sarpi. London: Molini and Green. 1869
DEJOB.--Marc-Antoine Muret. Paris: Thorin. 1881.
CHRISTIE.--Etienne Dolet. London: Macmillan. 1880.
RENOUARD.--Imprimerie des Aides.
TORQUATO TASSO.--Opere. Ed. Rosini. 33 vols. Pisa. 1822
and on.
_WORKS REFERRED TO IN THIS BOOK_.
TASSO.--Le Lettere. Ed. Guasti. 5 vols. Firenze. 1855.
CECCHI.--T. Tasso e la Vita Italiana. Firenze. 1877.
CECCHI.--T. Tasso. Il Pensiero e le Belle Lettere, etc. Firenze. 1877.
D'OVIDIO.--Saggi Critici. Napoli. 1878.
MANSO.--Vita di T. Tasso, in Rosini's edition, vol. 33.
ROSINI.--Saggio sugli Amori di T. Tasso, in edition cited
above, vol. 33.
GUARINI.--Il Pastor Fido. Ed. Casella. Firenze: Barbera. 1866.
MARINO.--Adone, etc. Napoli. 1861.
CHIABRERA.--Ed. Polidori. Firenze: Barbera. 1865.
TASSONI.--La Secchia Rapita. Ed. Carducci. Firenze: Barbera 1861.
Il Parnaso Italiano.
BAINI.--Vita di G. P. L. Palestrina.
FELSINA PITTRICE.--2 vols. Bologna. 1841.
LANZI.--History of Painting in Italy. English Edition.
London. Bohn. Vol. 3.
CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
CHAPTER I.
THE SPANISH HEGEMONY.
Italy in the Renaissance--The Five Great Powers--The Kingdom of
Naples--The Papacy--The Duchy of Milan--Venice--The Florentine
Republic--Wars of Invasion closed by the Sack of Rome in
1527--Concordat between Clement VII. and Charles V.--Treaty of
Barcelona and Paix des Dames--Charles lands at Genoa--His Journey
to Bologna--Entrance into Bologna and Reception by
Clement--Mustering of Italian Princes--Franceso Sforza replaced in
the Duchy of Milan--Venetian Embassy--Italian League signed on
Christmas Eve 1529--Florence alone excluded--The Siege of Florence
pressed by the Prince of Orange--Charles's Coronation as King of
Italy and Holy Roman Emperor--The Significance of this Ceremony at
Bologna--Ceremony in S. Petronio--Settlement of the Duchy of
Ferrara--Men of Letters and Arts at Bologna--The Emperor's Use of
the Spanish Habit--Charles and Clement leave Bologna in March
1530--Review of the Settlement of Italy affected by Emperor and
Pope--Extinction of Republics--Subsequent Absorption of Ferrara and
Urbino into the Papal States--Savoy becomes an Italian
Power--Period between Charles's Coronation and the Peace of Cateau
Cambresis in 1559--Economical and Social Condition of the Italians
under Spanish Hegemony--The Nation still exists in Separate
Communities--Intellectual Conditions--Predominance of Spain and
Rome--Both Cosmopolitan Powers--Leveling down of the Component
Portions of the Nation in a Common Servitude--The Evils of Spanish
Rule
CHAPTER II.
THE PAPACY AND THE TRIDENTINE COUNCIL.
The Counter-Reformation--Its Intellectual and Moral
Character--Causes of the Gradual Extinction of Renaissance
Energy--Transition from the Renaissance to the Catholic
Revival--New Religious Spirit in Italy--Attitude of Italians toward
German Reformation--Oratory of Divine Love--Gasparo Contarini and
the Moderate Reformers--New Religious Orders--Paul III.--His early
History and Education--Political Attitude between France and
Spain--Creation of the Duchy of Parma--Imminence of a General
Council--Review of previous Councils--Paul's Uneasiness--Opens a
Council at Trent in 1542--Protestants virtually excluded, and
Catholic Dogmas confirmed in the first Sessions--Death of Paul in
1549--Julius III.--Paul IV.--Character and Ruling Passions of G. P.
Caraffa--His Futile Opposition to Spain--Tyranny of His
Nephews--Their Downfall--Paul devotes himself to Church Reform and
the Inquisition--Pius IV.--His Minister Morone--Diplomatic Temper
of this Pope--His Management of the Council--Assistance rendered by
his Nephew Carlo Borromeo--Alarming State of Northern Europe--The
Council reopened at Trent in 1562--Subsequent History of the
Council--It closes with a complete Papal Triumph in 1563--Place of
Pius IV. in History--Pius V.--The Inquisitor Pope--Population of
Rome--Social Corruption--Sale of Offices and Justice--Tridentine
Reforms depress Wealth--Ascetic Purity of Manners becomes
fashionable--Catholic Reaction generates the
Counter-Reformation--Battle of Lepanto--Gregory XIII.--His
Relatives--Policy of enriching the Church at Expense of the
Barons--Brigandage in States of the Church--Sixtus V.--His Stern
Justice--Rigid Economy--Great Public Works--Taxation--The City of
Rome assumes its present form--Nepotism in the Counter-Reformation
Period--Various Estimates of the Wealth accumulated by Papal
Nephews--Rise of Princely Roman Families
CHAPTER III.
THE INQUISITION AND THE INDEX.
Different Spirit in the Holy Office and the Company of Jesus--Both
needed by the Counter-Reformation--Heresy in the Early
Church--First Origins of the Inquisition in 1203--S. Dominic--The
Holy Office becomes a Dominican Institution--Recognized by the
Empire--Its early Organization--The Spanish Inquisition--Founded in
1484--How it differed from the earlier Apostolical
Inquisition--Jews, Moors, New Christians--Organization and History
of the Holy Office in Spain--Torquemada and his Successors--The
Spanish Inquisition never introduced into Italy--How the Roman
Inquisition organized by Caraffa differed from it--_Autos da fe_ in
Rome--Proscription of suspected Lutherans--The Calabrian
Waldenses--Protestants at Locarno and Venice--Digression on the
Venetian Holy Office--Persecution of Free Thought in
Literature--Growth of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum--Sanction
given to it by the Council of Trent--The Roman Congregation of the
Index--Final Form of the Censorship of Books under Clement
VIII.--Analysis of its Regulations--Proscription of Heretical
Books--Correction of Texts--Purgation and Castration--Inquisitorial
and Episcopal Licenses--Working of the System of this Censorship in
Italy--Its long Delays--Hostility to Sound Learning--Ignorance of
the Censors--Interference with Scholars in their Work--Terrorism of
Booksellers--Vatican Scheme for the Restoration of Christian
Erudition--Frustrated by the Tyranny of the Index--Dishonesty of
the Vatican Scholars--Biblical Studies rendered nugatory by the
Tridentine Decree on the Vulgate--Decline of Learning in
Universities--Miserable Servitude of Professors--Greek dies
out--Muretus and Manutius in Rome--The Index and its Treatment of
Political Works--Machiavelli--_Ratio Status_--Encouragement of
Literature on Papal Absolutism--Sarpi's Attitude--Comparative
Indifference of Rome to Books of Obscene or Immoral
Tendency--Bandello and Boccaccio--Papal Attempts to control
Intercourse of Italians with Heretics
CHAPTER IV.
THE COMPANY OF JESUS.
Vast Importance of the Jesuits in the Counter-Reformation--Ignatius
Loyola--His Youth--Retreat at Manresa--Journey to
Jerusalem--Studies in Spain and Paris--First Formation of his Order
at Sainte Barbe--Sojourn at Venice--Settlement at Rome--Papal
Recognition of the Order--Its Military Character--Absolutism of the
General--Devotion to the Roman Church--Choice of Members--Practical
and Positive Aims of the Founder--Exclusion of the Ascetic,
Acceptance of the Worldly Spirit--Review of the Order's Rapid
Extension over Europe--Loyola's Dealings with his Chief
Lieutenants--Propaganda--The Virtue of Obedience--The _Exercitia
Spiritualia_--Materialistic Imagination--Intensity and
Superficiality of Religious Training--The Status of the
Novice--Temporal Coadjutors--Scholastics--Professed of the Three
Vows--Professed of the Four Vows--The General--Control exercised
over him by his Assistants--His Relation to the General
Congregation--Espionage a Part of the Jesuit System--Advantageous
Position of a Contented Jesuit--The Vow of Poverty--Houses of the
Professed and Colleges--The Constitutions and Declarations--Problem
of the _Monita Secreta_--Reciprocal Relations of Rome and the
Company--Characteristics of Jesuit Education--Direction of
Consciences--Moral Laxity--Sarpi's
Critique--Casuistry--Interference in Affairs of State--Instigation
to Regicide and Political Conspiracy--Theories of Church
Supremacy--Insurgence of the European Nations against the Company
CHAPTER V.
SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC MORALS I PART I.
How did the Catholic Revival affect Italian Society?--Difficulty of
Answering this Question--Frequency of Private Crimes of
Violence--Homicides and Bandits--Savage Criminal Justice--Paid
Assassins--Toleration of Outlaws--Honorable Murder--Example of the
Lucchese Army--State of the Convents--The History of Virginia de
Leyva--Lucrezia Buonvisi--The True Tale of the Cenci--The Brothers
of the House of Massimo--Vittoria Accoramboni--The Duchess of
Palliano--Wife-Murders--The Family of Medici
CHAPTER VI.
SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC MORALS: PART II.
Tales illustrative of Bravi and Banditti--Cecco Bibboni--Ambrogio
Tremazzi--Lodovico dall'Armi--Brigandage--Piracy--Plagues--The
Plagues of Milan, Venice, Piedmont--Persecution of the
Untori--Moral State of the Proletariate--Witchcraft--Its Italian
Features--History of Giacomo Centini
RENAISSANCE IN ITALY.
CHAPTER I.
THE SPANISH HEGEMONY.
Italy in the Renaissance--The Five Great Powers--The Kingdom of
Naples--The Papacy--The Duchy of Milan--Venice--The Florentine
Republic--Wars of Invasion closed by the Sack of Rome in
1527--Concordat between Clement VII. and Charles V.--Treaty of
Barcelona and Paix des Dames--Charles lands at Genoa--His Journey
to Bologna--Entrance into Bologna and Reception by
Clement--Mustering of Italian Princes--Francesco Sforza replaced in
the Duchy of Milan--Venetian Embassy--Italian League signed on
Christmas Eve, 1529--Florence alone excluded--The Siege of Florence
pressed by the Prince of Orange--Charles's Coronation as King of
Italy and Holy Roman Emperor--The Significance of this Ceremony at
Bologna--Ceremony in S. Petronio--Settlement of the Duchy of
Ferrara--Men of Letters and Arts at Bologna--The Emperor's Use of
the Spanish Habit--Charles and Clement leave Bologna in March,
1530--Review of the Settlement of Italy effected by Emperor and
Pope--Extinction of Republics--Subsequent Absorption of Ferrara and
Urbino into the Papal States--Savoy becomes an Italian
Power--Period between Charles's Coronation and the Peace of Cateau
Cambresis in 1559--Economical and Social Condition of the Italians
under Spanish Hegemony--The Nation still Exists in Separate
Communities--Intellectual Conditions--Predominance of Spain and
Rome--Both Cosmopolitan Powers--Leveling down of the Component
Portions of the Nation in a Common Servitude--The Evils of Spanish
Rule.
In the first volume of my book on _Renaissance in Italy_ I attempted to
set forth the political and social phases through which the Italians
passed before their principal States fell into the hands of despots, and
to explain the conditions of mutual jealousy and military feebleness
which exposed those States to the assaults of foreign armies at the
close of the fifteenth century.
In the year 1494, when Charles VIII. of France, at Lodovico Sforza's
invitation, crossed the Alps to make good his claim on Naples, the
peninsula was Independent. Internal peace had prevailed for a period of
nearly fifty years. An equilibrium had been established between the five
great native Powers, which secured the advantages of confederation and
diplomatic interaction.
While using the word confederation, I do not, of course, imply that
anything similar to the federal union of Switzerland or of North America
existed in Italy. The contrary is proved by patent facts. On a miniature
scale, Italy then displayed political conditions analogous to those
which now prevail in Europe. The parcels of the nation adopted different
forms of self-government, sought divers foreign alliances, and owed no
allegiance to any central legislative or administrative body. I
therefore speak of the Italian confederation only in the same sense as
Europe may now be called a confederation of kindred races.
In the year 1630, when Charles V. (of Austria and Spain) was crowned
Emperor at Bologna, this national independence had been irretrievably
lost by the Italians. This confederation of evenly-balanced Powers was
now exchanged for servitude beneath a foreign monarchy, and for
subjection to a cosmopolitan elective priesthood.
The history of social, intellectual, and moral conditions in Italy
during the seventy years of the sixteenth century which followed
Charles's coronation at Bologna, forms the subject of this work; but
before entering upon these topics it will be well to devote one chapter
to considering with due brevity the partition of Italy into five States
in 1494, the dislocation of this order by the wars between Spain and
France for supremacy, the position in which the same States found
themselves respectively at the termination of those wars in 1527, and
the new settlement of the peninsula effected by Charles V. in 1529-30.
The five members of the Italian federation in 1494 were the kingdom of
Naples, the Papacy, the Duchy of Milan, and the Republics of Venice and
Florence. Round them, in various relations of amity or hostility, were
grouped these minor Powers: the Republics of Genoa, Lucca, Siena; the
Duchy of Ferrara, including Modena and Reggio; the Marquisates of Mantua
and Montferrat; and the Duchy of Urbino. For our immediate purpose it is
not worth taking separate account of the Republic of Pisa, which was
practically though not thoroughly enslaved by Florence; or of the
despots in the cities of Romagna, the March. Umbria, and the Patrimony
of S. Peter, who were being gradually absorbed into the Papal
sovereignty. Nor need we at present notice Savoy, Piemonte, and Saluzzo.
Although these north-western provinces were all-important through the
period of Franco-Spanish wars, inasmuch as they opened the gate of Italy
to French armies, and supplied those armies with a base for military
operations, the Duchy of Savoy had not yet become an exclusively Italian
Power.
The kingdom of Naples, on the death of Alfonso the Magnanimous in 1458,
had been separated from Sicily, and passed by testamentary appointment
to his natural son Ferdinand. The bastard Aragonese dynasty was Italian
in its tastes and interests, though unpopular both with the barons of
the realm and with the people, who in their restlessness were ready to
welcome any foreign deliverer from its oppressive yoke. This state of
general discontent rendered the revival of the old Angevine party, and
their resort to French aid, a source of peril to the monarchy. It also
served as a convenient fulcrum for the ambitious schemes of conquest
which the princes of the House of Aragon in Spain began to entertain. In
territorial extent the kingdom of Naples was the most considerable
parcel of the Italian community. It embraced the whole of Calabria,
Apulia, the Abruzzi, and the Terra di Lavoro; marching on its northern
boundary with the Papal States, and having no other neighbors. But
though so large and so compact a State, the semifeudal system of
government which had obtained in Naples since the first conquest of the
country by the Normans, the nature of its population, and the savage
dynastic wars to which it had been constantly exposed, rendered it more
backward in civilization than the northern and central provinces.
The Papacy, after the ending of the schism and the settlement of
Nicholas V. at Rome in 1447, gradually tended to become an Italian
sovereignty. During the residence of the Popes at Avignon, and the
weakness of the Papal See which followed in the period of the Councils
(Pisa, Constance, and Basel), it had lost its hold not only on the
immediate neighborhood of Rome, but also on its outlying possessions in
Umbria, the Marches of Ancona, and the Exarchate of Ravenna. The great
Houses of Colonna and Orsini asserted independence in their
principalities. Bologna and Perugia pretended to republican government
under the shadow of noble families; Bentivogli, Bracci, Baglioni. Imola,
Faenza, Forli, Rimini, Pesaro, Urbino, Camerino, Citta di Castello,
obeyed the rule of tyrants, who were practically lords of these cities
though they bore the titles of Papal vicars, and who maintained
themselves in wealth and power by exercising the profession of
_condottieri_. It was the chief object of the Popes, after they were
freed from the pressing perils of General Councils, and were once more
settled in their capital and recognized as sovereigns by the European
Powers, to subdue their vassals and consolidate their provinces into a
homogeneous kingdom. This plan was conceived and carried out by a
succession of vigorous and unscrupulous Pontiffs--Sixtus IV., Alexander
VI., Julius II., and Leo X.--throughout the period of distracting
foreign wars which agitated Italy. They followed for the most part one
line of policy, which was to place the wealth and authority of the Holy
See at the disposal of their relatives, Riarios, Delia Roveres, Borgias,
and Medici. Their military delegates, among whom the most efficient
captain was the terrible Cesare Borgia, had full power to crush the
liberties of cities, exterminate the dynasties of despots, and reduce
refractory districts to the Papal sway. For these services they were
rewarded with ducal and princely titles, with the administration of
their conquests, and with the investiture of fiefs as vassals of the
Church. The system had its obvious disadvantages. It tended to indecent
nepotism; and as Pope succeeded Pope at intervals of a few years, each
bent on aggrandizing his own family at the expense of those of his
predecessors and the Church, the ecclesiastical States were kept in a
continual ferment of expropriation and internal revolution. Yet it is
difficult to conceive how a spiritual Power like the Papacy could have
solved the problem set before it of becoming a substantial secular
sovereignty, without recourse to this ruinous method. The Pope, a
lonely man upon an ill-established throne, surrounded by rivals whom
his elevation had disappointed, was compelled to rely on the strong arm
of adventurers with whose interests his own were indissolubly connected.
The profits of all these schemes of egotistical rapacity eventually
accrued, not to the relatives of the Pontiffs; none of whom, except the
Delia Roveres in Urbino, founded a permanent dynasty at this period; but
to the Holy See. Julius II., for example, on his election in 1503,
entered into possession of all that Cesare Borgia had attempted to grasp
for his own use. He found the Orsini and Colonna humbled, Romagna
reduced to submission; and he carried on the policy of conquest by
trampling out the liberties of Bologna and Perugia, recovering the
cities held by Venice on the coast of Ravenna, and extending his sway
over Emilia. The martial energy of Julius added Parma and Piacenza to
the States of the Church, and detached Modena and Reggio from the Duchy
of Ferrara. These new cities were gained by force; but Julius pretended
that they formed part of the Exarchate of Ravenna, which had been
granted to his predecessors by Pepin and Charles the Great. He pursued
the Papal line of conquest in a nobler spirit than his predecessors, not
seeking to advance his relatives so much as to reinstate the Church in
her dominions. But he was reckless in the means employed to secure this
object. Italy was devastated by wars stirred up, and by foreign armies
introduced, in order that the Pope might win a point in the great game
of ecclesiastical aggrandizement. That his successor, Leo X., reverted
to the former plan of carving principalities for his relatives out of
the possessions of their neighbors and the Church, may be counted among
the most important causes of the final ruin of Italian independence.
Of the Duchy of Milan it is not necessary to speak at any great length,
although the wars between France and Spain were chiefly carried on for
its possession. It had been formed into a compact domain, of
comparatively small extent, but of vast commercial and agricultural
resources, by the two dynasties of Visconti and Sforza. In 1494 Lodovico
Sforza, surnamed Il Moro, ruled Milan for his nephew, the titular Duke,
whom he kept in gilded captivity, and whom he eventually murdered. In
order to secure his usurped authority, this would-be Machiavelli thought
it prudent to invite Charles VIII. into Italy. Charles was to assert his
right to the throne of Naples. Lodovico was to be established in the
Duchy of Milan. All his subsequent troubles arose from this transaction.
Charles came, conquered, and returned to France, disturbing the
political equilibrium of the Italian States, and founding a disastrous
precedent for future foreign interference. His successor in the French
kingdom, Louis XII., believed he had a title to the Duchy of Milan
through his grandmother Valentina, daughter of Gian Galeazzo Visconti.
The claim was not a legal one; for in the investiture of the Duchy
females were excluded. It sufficed, however, to inflame the cupidity of
Louis; and while he was still but Duke of Orleans, with no sure prospect
of inheriting the crown of France, he seems to have indulged the fancy
of annexing Milan. No sooner had he ascended the French throne than he
began to act upon this ambition. He descended into Lombardy, overran the
Milanese, sent Lodovico Sforza to die in a French prison, and initiated
the duel between Spain and France for mastery, which ended with the
capture of Francis I. at Pavia, and his final cession of all rights over
Italy to Charles V. by the Treaty of Cambray.
Of all the republics which had conferred luster upon Italy in its
mediaeval period of prosperity Venice alone remained independent. She
never submitted to a tyrant; and her government, though growing yearly
more closely oligarchical, was acknowledged to be just and liberal.
During the centuries of her greatest power Venice hardly ranked among
Italian States. It had been her policy to confine herself to the lagoons
and to the extension of her dominion over the Levant. In the fifteenth
century, however, this policy was abandoned. Venice first possessed
herself of Padua, by exterminating the despotic House of Carrara; next
of Verona, by destroying the Scala dynasty. Subsequently, during the
long dogeship of Francesco Foscari (1423-1457), she devoted herself in
good earnest to the acquisition of territory upon the mainland. Then
she entered as a Power of the first magnitude into the system of purely
Italian politics. The Republic of S. Mark owned the sea coast of the
Adriatic from Aquileia to the mouths of the Po; and her Lombard
dependencies stretched as far as Bergamo westward. Her Italian neighbors
were, therefore, the Duchy of Milan, the little Marquisate of Mantua,
and the Duchy of Ferrara. When Constantinople fell in 1453, Venice was
still more tempted to pursue this new policy of Italian aggrandizement.
Meanwhile her growing empire seemed to menace the independence of less
wealthy neighbors. The jealousy thus created and the cupidity which
brought her into collision with Julius II. in 1508, exposed Venice to
the crushing blow inflicted on her power by the combined forces of
Europe in the war of the League of Cambray. From this blow, as well as
from the simultaneous decline of their Oriental and Levantine commerce,
the Venetians never recovered.
When we turn to the Florentines, we find that at the same epoch, 1494,
their ancient republican constitution had been fatally undermined by the
advances of the family of Medici towards despotism. Lorenzo de'Medici,
who enjoyed the credit of maintaining the equilibrium of Italy by wise
diplomacy, had lately died. He left his son Piero, a hot-headed and rash
young man, to control the affairs of the commonwealth, as he had
previously controlled them, with a show of burgherlike equality, but
with the reality of princely power. Another of his sons, Giovanni,
received the honor of the Cardinalship. The one was destined to
compromise the ascendency of his family in Florence for a period of
eighteen years, the other was destined to re-establish that ascendency
on a new and more despotic basis. Piero had not his father's prudence,
and could not maintain himself in the delicate position of a commercial
and civil tyrant. During the disturbances caused by the invasion of
Charles VIII. he was driven with all his relatives into exile. The
Medici were restored in 1512, after the battle of Ravenna, by Spanish
troops, at the petition of the Cardinal Giovanni. The elevation of this
man to the Papacy in 1513 enabled him to plant two of his nephews, as
rulers, in Florence, and to pave the way whereby a third eventually rose
to the dignity of the tiara. Clement VII. finally succeeded in rendering
Florence subject to the Medici, by extinguishing the last sparks of
republican opposition, and by so modifying the dynastic protectorate of
his family that it was easily converted into a titular Grand Duchy.
The federation of these five Powers had been artificially maintained
during the half century of Italy's highest intellectual activity. That
was the epoch when the Italians nearly attained to coherence as a
nation, through common interests in art and humanism, and by the
complicated machinery of diplomatic relations. The federation perished
when foreign Powers chose Lombardy and Naples for their fields of
battle. The disasters of the next thirty-three years (1494-1527) began
in earnest on the day when Louis XII. claimed Milan and the Regno. He
committed his first mistake by inviting Ferdinand the Catholic to share
in the partition of Naples. That province was easily conquered; but
Ferdinand retained the whole spoils for himself, securing a large
Italian dependency and a magnificent basis of operations for the Spanish
Crown. Then Louis made a second mistake by proposing to the visionary
Emperor Maximilian that he should aid France in subjugating Venice. We
have few instances on record of short-sighted diplomacy to match the
Treaties of Granada and Blois (1501 and 1504), through which this
monarch, acting rather as a Duke of Milan than a King of France,
complicated his Italian schemes by the introduction of two such
dangerous allies as the Austrian Emperor and the Spanish sovereign,
while the heir of both was in his cradle--that fatal child of fortune
Charles.
The stage of Italy was now prepared for a conflict which in no wise
interested her prosperous cities and industrious population. Spain,
France, Germany, with their Swiss auxiliaries, had been summoned upon
various pretexts to partake of the rich prey she offered. Patriots like
Machiavelli perceived too late the suicidal self-indulgence which, by
substituting mercenary troops for national militia, and by accustoming
selfish tyrants to rely on foreign aid, had exposed the Italians
defenceless to the inroads of their warlike neighbors. Whatever parts
the Powers of Italy might play, the game was really in the hands of
French, Spanish, and German invaders. Meanwhile the mutual jealousies
and hatreds of those Powers, kept in check by no tie stronger than
diplomacy, prevented them from forming any scheme of common action. One
great province (Naples) had fallen into Spanish hands; another (Milan)
lay open through the passes of the Alps to France. The Papacy, in the
center, manipulated these two hostile foreign forces with some advantage
to itself, but with ever-deepening disaster for the race. As in the days
of Guelf and Ghibelline, so now again the nation was bisected. The
contest between French and Spanish factions became cruel. Personal
interests were substituted for principles; cross-combinations perplexed
the real issues of dispute; while one sole fact emerged into
distinctness--that, whatever happened, Italy must be the spoil of the
victorious duelist.
The practical termination of this state of things arrived in the battle
of Pavia, when Francis was removed as a prisoner to Madrid, and in the
sack of Rome, when the Pope was imprisoned in the Castle of S. Angelo.
It was then found that the laurels and the profit of the bloody contest
remained with the King of Spain. What the people suffered from the
marching and countermarching of armies, from the military occupations of
towns, from the desolation of rural districts, from ruinous campaigns
and sanguinary battles, from the pillage of cities and the massacres of
their inhabitants, can best be read in Burigozzo's _Chronicle of Milan_,
in the details of the siege of Brescia and the destruction of Pavia, in
the _Chronicle of Prato_, and in the several annals of the sack of Rome.
The exhaustion of the country seemed complete; the spirit of the people
was broken. But what soon afterwards became apparent, and what in 1527
might have been thought incredible, was that the single member of the
Italian union which profited by these apocalyptic sufferings of the
nation, was the Papacy. Clement VII., imprisoned in the Castle of S.
Angelo, forced day and night to gaze upon his capital in flames and hear
the groans of tortured Romans, emerged the only vigorous survivor of the
five great Powers on whose concert Italian independence had been
founded. Instead of being impaired, the position of the Papacy had been
immeasurably improved. Owing to the prostration of Italy, there was now
no resistance to the Pope's secular supremacy within the limits of his
authorized dominion. The defeat of France and the accession of a Spanish
monarch to the Empire guaranteed peace. No foreign force could levy
armies or foment uprisings in the name of independence. Venice had been
stunned and mutilated by the League of Cambray. Florence had been
enslaved after the battle of Ravenna. Milan had been relinquished,
out-worn, and depopulated, to the nominal ascendency of an impotent
Sforza. Naples was a province of the Spanish monarchy. The feudal
vassals and the subject cities of the Holy See had been ground and
churned together by a series of revolutions unexampled even in the
mediaeval history of the Italian communes. If, therefore, the Pope could
come to terms with the King of Spain for the partition of supreme
authority in the peninsula, they might henceforward share the mangled
remains of the Italian prey at peace together. This is precisely what
they resolved on doing. The basis of their agreement was laid in the
Treaty of Barcelona in 1529. It was ratified and secured by the Treaty
of Cambray in the same year. By the former of these compacts Charles and
Clement swore friendship. Clement promised the Imperial crown and the
investiture of Naples to the King of Spain. Charles agreed to reinstate
the Pope in Emilia, which had been seized from Ferrara by Julius II.; to
procure the restoration of Ravenna and Cervia by the Venetians; to
subdue Florence to the House of Medici; and to bestow the hand of his
natural daughter Margaret of Austria on Clement's bastard nephew
Alessandro, who was already designated ruler of the city. By the Treaty
of Cambray Francis I. relinquished his claims on Italy and abandoned his
Italian supporters without conditions, receiving in exchange the
possession of Burgundy. The French allies who were sacrificed on this
occasion by the Most Christian to the Most Catholic Monarch consisted
of the Republics of Venice and Florence, the Dukes of Milan and Ferrara,
the princely Houses of Orsini and Fregosi in Rome and Genoa, together
with the Angevine nobles in the realm of Naples. The Paix des Dames, as
this act of capitulation was called (since it had been drawn up in
private conclave by Louise of Savoy and Margaret of Austria, the mother
and the aunt of the two signatories), was a virtual acknowledgment of
the fact that French influence in Italy was at an end.[1]
The surrender of Italy by Francis made it necessary that Charles V.
should put in order the vast estates to which he now succeeded as sole
master. He was, moreover, Emperor Elect; and he judged this occasion
good for assuming the two crowns according to antique custom.
Accordingly in July, 1529, he caused Andrea Doria to meet him at
Barcelona, crossed the Mediterranean in a rough passage of fourteen
days, landed at Genoa on August 12, and proceeded by Piacenza, Parma and
Modena to Bologna, where Clement VII. was already awaiting him. The
meeting of Charles and Clement at Bologna was so solemn an event in
Italian history, and its results were so important for the several
provinces of the peninsula, that I may be excused for enlarging at some
length upon this episode.
[Footnote 1: It is significant for the future of Italy that both the
ladies who drew up this agreement were connected with Savoy. Louise,
Duchess of Angouleme, was a daughter of the house. Margaret, daughter of
Maximilian, was Duchess Dowager of Savoy.]
With pomp and pageantry it closed an age of unrivaled intellectual
splendor and of unexampled sufferings through war. By diplomacy and
debate it prescribed laws for a new age of unexpected ecclesiastical
energy and of national peace procured at the price of slavery.
Illustrious survivors from the period of the pagan Renaissance met here
with young men destined to inaugurate the Catholic Revival. The compact
struck between Emperor and Pope in private conferences, laid a basis for
that firm alliance between Spain and Rome which seriously influenced the
destinies of Europe. Finally, this was the last occasion upon which a
modern Caesar received the iron and golden crowns in Italy from the
hands of a Roman Pontiff. The fortunate inheritor of Spain, the Two
Sicilies, Austria and the Low Countries, who then assumed them both at
the age of twenty-nine, was not only the last who wielded the Imperial
insignia with imperial authority, but was also a far more formidable
potentate in Italy than any of his predecessors since Charles the Great
had been.[2]
[Footnote 2: In what follows regarding Charles V. at Bologna I am
greatly indebted to Giordani's laboriously compiled volume: _Della
Venuta e Dimora in Bologna del Sommo Pont. Clemente VII. etc._ (Bologna,
1832).]
That Charles should have employed the galleys of Doria for the
transhipment of his person, suite, and military escort from Barcelona,
deserves a word of comment. Andrea Doria had been bred in the service of
the French crown, upon which Genoa was in his youth dependent. He
formed a navy of decisive preponderance in the western Mediterranean,
and in return for services rendered to Francis in the Neapolitan
campaign of 1528, he demanded the liberation of his native city. When
this was refused, Doria transferred his allegiance to the Spaniard,
surprised Genoa and reinstated the republic, magnanimously refusing to
secure its tyranny for himself or even to set the ducal cap upon his
head. Charles invested him with the principality of Melfi and made him a
Grandee of Spain. By this series of events Genoa was prepared to accept
the yoke of Spanish influence and customs, which pressed so heavily in
the succeeding century on Italy.
Charles had a body of 2000 Spaniards already quartered at Genoa, as well
as strong garrisons in the Milanese, and a force of about 7000 troops
collected by the Prince of Orange from the _debris_ of the army which
had plundered Rome. While he was on his road from Genoa to Bologna, this
force was already moving upon Florence. He brought with him as escort
some 10,000 men, counting horse and infantry. The total of the troops
which obeyed his word in Italy might be computed at about 27,000,
including Spanish cavalry and foot-soldiers, German lansknechts and
Italian mercenaries. This large army, partly stationed in important
posts of defence, partly in movement, was sufficient to make every word
of his a law. The French were in no position to interfere with his
arrangements. His brother Ferdinand, King of Bohemia and Hungary, was
engaged in a doubtful contest with Soliman before the gates of Vienna.
He was himself the most considerable potentate in Germany, then
distracted by the struggles of the Reformation. Italy lay crushed and
prostrate, trampled down by armies, exhausted by impost and exactions,
terrorized by brutal violence. That Charles had come to speak his will
and be obeyed was obvious.
To greet the king on his arrival at Genoa, Clement deputed two
ambassadors, the Cardinals Ercole Gonzaga and Monsignor Gianmatteo
Giberti, Bishop of Verona. Gonzaga was destined to play a part of
critical importance in the Tridentine Council. Giberti had made himself
illustrious in the Church by the administration of his diocese on a
system which anticipated the coming ecclesiastical reforms, and was
already famous in the world of letters by his generous familiarity with
students.[3] Three other men of high distinction and of fateful future
waited on their imperial master. Of these the first was Cardinal
Alessandro Farnese, who succeeded Clement in the Papacy, opened the
Tridentine Council, and added a new reigning family to the Italian
princes. The others were the Pope's nephews, Alessandro de'Medici, Duke
of Florence designate, and his cousin the Cardinal Ippolito de'Media.
Six years later, Ippolito died at Itri, poisoned by his cousin
Alessandro, who was himself murdered at Florence in 1537 by another
cousin, Lorenzino de'Medici.
[Footnote 3: See _Ren. in It._, vol. v. p. 357.]
It had been intended that Charles should travel to Bologna from Parma
through Mantua, where the Marquis Federigo Gonzaga had made great
preparations for his reception. But the route by Reggio and Modena was
more direct; and, yielding to the solicitations of Alfonso, Duke of
Ferrara, he selected this instead. One of the stipulations of the Treaty
of Barcelona, it will be remembered, had been that the Emperor should
restore Emilia--that is to say, the cities and territories of Modena,
Reggio, and Rubbiera--to the Papacy. Clement regarded Alfonso as a
contumacious vassal, although his own right to that province only rested
on the force of arms by which Julius II. had detached it from the Duchy
of Ferrara. It was therefore somewhat difficult for Charles to accept
the duke's hospitality. But when he had once done so, Alfonso knew how
to ingratiate himself so well with the arbiter of Italy, that on taking
leave of his guest upon the confines of Bologna, he had already secured
the success of his own cause.
Great preparations, meanwhile, were being made in Bologna. The misery
and destitution of the country rendered money scarce, and cast a gloom
over the people. It was noticed that when Clement entered the city on
October 24, none of the common folk responded to the shouts of his
attendants, _Viva Papa Clemente_! The Pope and his Court, too, were in
mourning. They had but recently escaped from the horrors of the Sack of
Rome, and were under a vow to wear their beards unshorn in memory of
their past sufferings. Yet the municipality and nobles of Bologna
exerted their utmost in these bad times to render the reception of the
Emperor worthy of the luster which his residence and coronation would
confer upon them. Gallant guests began to flock into the city. Among
these may be mentioned the brilliant Isabella d'Este, sister of Duke
Alfonso, and mother of the reigning Marquis of Mantua. She arrived on
November 1 with a glittering train of beautiful women, and took up her
residence in the Palazzo Manzoli. Her quarters obtained no good fame in
the following months; for the ladies of her suite were liberal of
favors. Jousts, masquerades, street-brawls, and duels were of frequent
occurrence beneath her windows--Spaniards and Italians disputing the
honor of those light amours. On November 3 came Andrea Doria with his
relative, the Cardinal Girolamo of that name. About the same time,
Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggi, Bishop of Bologna, returned from his legation
to England, where (as students of our history are well aware) he had
been engaged upon the question of Henry VIII.'s divorce from Katharine
of Aragon. Next day Charles arrived outside the gate, and took up his
quarters in the rich convent of Certosa, which now forms the Campo
Santo.
He was surrounded by a multitude of ambassadors and delegates from the
Bolognese magistracy, by Cardinals and ecclesiastics of all ranks, some
of whom had attended him from the frontier, while others were drawn up
to receive him. November 5 was a Friday, and this day was reckoned lucky
by Charles. He therefore passed the night of the 4th at the Certosa, and
on the following morning made his solemn entry into the city. A
bodyguard of Germans, Burgundians, Spaniards, halberdiers, lansknechts,
men at arms, and cannoneers, preceded him. High above these was borne
the captain-general of the imperial force in Italy, the fierce and cruel
Antonio de Leyva, under whose oppression Milan had been groaning. This
ruthless tyrant was a martyr to gout and rheumatism. He could not ride
or walk; and though he retained the whole vigor of his intellect and
will, it was with difficulty that he moved his hands or head. He
advanced in a litter of purple velvet, supported on the shoulders of his
slaves. Among the splendid crowd of Spanish grandees who followed the
troops, it is enough to mention the Grand Marshal, Don Alvaro Osorio,
Marquis of Astorga, who carried a naked sword aloft. He was armed, on
horseback; and his mantle of cloth of gold blazed with dolphins worked
in pearls and precious stones. Next came Charles, mounted on a bay
jennet, armed at all points, and holding in his hand the scepter.
Twenty-four pages, chosen from the nobles of Bologna, waited on his
bridle and stirrups. The train was brought up by a multitude of secular
and ecclesiastical princes too numerous to record in detail. Conspicuous
among them for the historian were the Count of Nassau, Albert of
Brandenburg, and the Marquis Bonifazio of Montferrat, the scion of the
Eastern Paleologi. As this procession defiled through the streets of
Bologna, it was remarked that Charles, with true Spanish haughtiness,
made no response to the acclamations of the people, except once when,
passing beneath a balcony of noble ladies, he acknowledged their salute
by lifting the cap from his head.
Clement, surrounded by a troop of prelates, was seated to receive him on
a platform raised before the church of San Petronio in the great piazza.
The king dismounted opposite the Papal throne, ascended the steps
beneath his canopy of gold and crimson, and knelt to kiss the Pontiff's
feet. When their eyes first met, it was observed that both turned pale;
for the memory of outraged Rome was in the minds of both; and Caesar,
while he paid this homage to Christ's Vicar, had the load of those long
months of suffering and insult on his conscience. Clement bent down, and
with streaming eyes saluted him upon the cheek. Then, when Charles was
still upon his knees, they exchanged a few set words referring to the
purpose of their meeting and their common desire for the pacification of
Christendom. After this the Emperor elect rose, seated himself for a
while beside the Pope, and next, at his invitation, escorted him to the
great portal of the church. On the way, he inquired after Clement's
health; to which the Pope replied somewhat significantly that, after
leaving Rome, it had steadily improved. He tempered this allusion to his
captivity, however, by adding that his eagerness to greet his Majesty
had inspired him with more than wonted strength and courage. At the
doorway they parted; and the Emperor, having paid his devotions to the
Sacrament and kissed the altar, was conducted to the apartments prepared
for him in the Palazzo Pubblico. These were adjacent to the Pope's
lodgings in the same palace, and were so arranged that the two
potentates could confer in private at all times. It is worthy of remark
that the negotiations for the settlement of Italy which took place
during the next six months in those rooms, were conducted personally by
the high contracting parties, and that none of their deliberations
transpired until the result of each was made public.
The whole of November 5 had been occupied in these ceremonies. It was
late evening when the Emperor gained his lodgings. The few next days
were ostensibly occupied in receiving visitors. Among the first of these
was the unfortunate ex-queen of Naples, Isabella, widow of Frederick of
Aragon, the last king of the bastard dynasty founded by Alfonso. She was
living in poverty at Ferrara, under the protection of her relatives, the
Este family, On the 13th came the Prince of Orange and Don Ferrante
Gonzaga, from the camp before Florence. The siege had begun, but had not
yet been prosecuted with the strictest vigor. During the whole time of
Charles's residence at Bologna, it must be borne in mind that the siege
of Florence was being pressed. Superfluous troops detached from garrison
duty in the Lombard towns were drafted across the hills to Tuscany.
Whatever else the Emperor might decide for his Italian subjects, this at
least was certain: Florence should be restored to the Medicean tyrants,
as compensation to the Pope for Roman sufferings. The Prince of Orange
came to explain the state of things at Florence, where government and
people seemed prepared to resist to the death. Gonzaga had private
business of his own to conduct, touching his engagement to the Pope's
ward, Isabella, daughter and heiress of the wealthy Vespasiano Colonna.
Meanwhile, ambassadors from all the States and lordships of Italy
flocked to Bologna. Great nobles from the South--Ascanio Colonna, Grand
Constable of Naples; Alfonso d'Avalos, Marquis of Vasto; Giovanni Luigi
Caraffa, Prince of Stigliano--took up their quarters in adjacent houses,
or in the upper story of the Public Palace. The Marquis of Vasto arrests
our graze for a moment. He was nephew to the Marquis of Pescara (husband
of Vittoria Colonna), who had the glory of taking Francis prisoner at
Pavia, and afterwards the infamy of betraying the unfortunate Girolamo
Morone and his master the Duke of Milan to the resentment of the Spanish
monarch. What part Pescara actually played in that dark passage of plot
and counterplot remains obscure. But there is no doubt that he employed
treachery, single if not double, for his own advantage. His arrogance
and avowed hostility to the Italians caused his very name to be
execrated; nor did his nephew, the Marquis of Vasto, differ in these
respects from the more famous chief of his house. This man was also
destined to obtain an evil reputation when he succeeded in 1532 to the
government of Milan. Here too may be noticed the presence at Bologna of
Girolamo Morone's son, who had been created Bishop of Modena in 1529.
For him a remarkable fate was waiting. Condemned to the dungeons of the
Inquisition as a heretic by Paul IV., rescued by Pius IV., and taken
into highest favor at that Pontiff's Court, he successfully manipulated
the closing of the Tridentine Council to the profit of the Papal See.
Negotiations for the settlement of Italian affairs were proceeding
without noise, but with continual progress, through this month. The
lodgings of ambassadors and lords were so arranged in the Palazzo
Pubblico that they, like their Imperial and Papal masters, could confer
at all times and seasons. Every day brought some new illustrious
visitor. On the 22nd arrived Federigo Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, who
took up his quarters in immediate proximity to Charles and Clement. His
business required but little management. The house of Gonzaga was
already well affected to the Spanish cause, and counted several captains
in the imperial army. Charles showed his favor by raising Mantua to the
rank of a Duchy. It was different with the Republic of Venice and the
Duke of Milan. The Emperor elect had reasons to be strongly prejudiced
against them both--against Venice as the most formidable of the French
allies in the last war; against Francesco Maria Sforza, as having been
implicated, though obscurely, in Morone's conspiracy to drive the
Spaniards from Italy and place the crown of Naples on Pescara's head.
Clement took both under his protection. He had sufficient reasons to
believe that the Venetians would purchase peace by the cession of their
recent acquisitions on the Adriatic coast, and he knew that the
pacification of Italy could not be accomplished without their aid. In
effect, the Republic agreed to relinquish Cervia and Ravenna to the
Pope, and their Apulian ports to Charles, engaging at the same time to
pay a sum of 300,000 ducats and stipulating for an amnesty to all their
agents and dependents. It is not so clear why Clement warmly espoused
the cause of Sforza. That he did so is certain. He obtained a
safe-conduct for the duke, and made it a point of personal favor that he
should be received into the Emperor's grace. This stipulation appears to
have been taken into account when the affairs of Ferrara were decided
at a later date against the Papal interests.
Francesco Maria Sforza appeared in Bologna on the 22nd. This unfortunate
bearer of one of the most coveted titles in Europe had lately lived a
prisoner in his own Castello, while the city at his doors and the
fertile country round it were being subjected to cruelest outrage and
oppression from Spanish, French, Swiss, and German mercenaries. He was a
man ruined in health as well as fortune. Six years before this date, one
of his chamberlains, Bonifazio Visconti, had given him a slight wound in
the shoulder with a poisoned dagger. From this wound he never recovered;
and it was pitiable to behold the broken man, unable to move or stand
without support, dragging himself upon his knees to Caesar's footstool.
Charles appears to have discerned that he had nothing to fear and much
to gain, if he showed clemency to so powerless a suitor. Franceso was
the last of his line. His health rendered it impossible that he should
expect heirs; and although he subsequently married a princess of the
House of Denmark, he died childless in the autumn of 1535. It was
therefore determined, in compliance with the Pope's request, that Sforza
should be confirmed in the Duchy of Milan. Pavia, however, was detached
and given to the terrible Antonio de Leyva for his lifetime. The
garrisons of Milan and Como were left in Spanish hands; and the duke
promised to wring 400,000 ducats as the price of his investiture, with
an additional sum of 500,000 ducats to be paid in ten yearly
instalments, from his already blood-sucked people. It will be observed
that money figured largely in all these high political transactions.
Charles, though lord of many lands, was, even at this early stage of his
career, distressed for want of cash. He rarely paid his troops, but
commissioned the captains in his service to levy contributions on the
provinces they occupied. The funds thus raised did not always reach the
pockets of the soldiers, who subsisted as best they could by marauding.
Having made these terms, Francesco Maria Sforza was received into the
Imperial favor. He returned to Milan, in no sense less a prisoner than
he had previously been, and with the heart-rending necessity of
extorting money from his subjects at the point of Spanish swords. In
exchange for the ducal title, he thus had made himself a tax-collector
for his natural enemies. Secluded in the dreary chambers of his castle,
assailed by the execrations of the Milanese, he may well have groaned,
like Marlowe's Edward--
But what are Kings, when regiment is gone,
But perfect shadows in a sunshine day?
My foemen rule; I bear the name of King;
I wear the crown; but am controlled by them.
When he died he bequeathed his duchy to the crown of Spain. It was
detached from the Empire, and became the private property of Charles and
of his son, Philip II.
During the month of December negotiations for the terms of peace in
Italy went briskly forward. On the part of Venice, two men of the
highest distinction arrived as orators. These were Pietro Bembo and
Gasparo Contarini, both of whom received the honors of the Cardinalate
from Paul III. on his accession. Of Bembo's place in Italian society, as
the dictator of literature at this epoch, I have already sufficiently
spoken in another part of my work on the Renaissance. Contarini will
more than once arrest our notice in the course of this volume. Of all
the Italians of the time, he was perhaps the greatest, wisest, and most
sympathetic. Had it been possible to avert the breach between
Catholicism and Protestantism, to curb the intolerance of Inquisitors
and the ambition of Jesuits, and to guide the reform of the Church by
principles of moderation and liberal piety, Contarini was the man who
might have restored unity to the Church in Europe. Once, indeed, at
Regensburg in 1541, he seemed upon the very point of effecting a
reconciliation between the parties that were tearing Christendom
asunder. But his failure was even more conspicuous than his momentary
semblance of success. It was not in the temper of the times to accept a
Concordat founded on however philosophical, however politic,
considerations. Contarini will be remembered as a 'beautiful soul,' born
out of the due moment, and by no means adequate to cope with the fierce
passions that raged round him. Among Protestants he was a Catholic, and
they regarded his half measures with contempt. Among Catholics he passed
for a suspected Lutheran, and his writings were only tolerated after
they had been subjected to rigorous castration at the hands of Papal
Inquisitors.[4]
On Christmas eve the ambassadors and representatives of the Italian
powers met together in the chambers of Cardinal Gattinara, Grand
Chancellor of the Empire, to subscribe the terms of a confederation and
perpetual league for the maintenance of peace. From this important
document the Florentines were excluded, as open rebels to the will of
Charles and Clement. There was no justice in the rigor with which
Florence was now treated. Her republican independence had hitherto been
recognized, although her own internal discords exposed her to a virtual
despotism. But Clement stipulated and Charles conceded, as a _sine qua
non_ in the project of pacification, that Florence should be converted
into a Medicean duchy. For the Duke of Ferrara, whom the Pope regarded
as a contumacious vassal, and whose affairs were still the subject of
debate, a place was specially reserved in the treaty. He, as I have
already observed, had been taken under the Imperial protection; and a
satisfactory settlement of his claims was now a mere question of time.
On the evening of the same day, the Pope bestowed on Charles the Sword
of the Spirit, which it was the wont of Rome to confer on the
best-beloved of her secular sons at this festival. The peace was
publicly proclaimed, amid universal plaudits, on the last day of the
year 1529.
[Footnote 4: See Ranke, vol. i. p. 153, note.]
The chief affairs to be decided in the new year were the reduction of
Florence to submission and the coronation of the Emperor. The month of
January was passed in jousts and pastimes; ceremonial privileges were
conferred on the University of Bologna; magnificent embassies from the
Republic of S. Mark, glowing in senatorial robes of crimson silk, were
entertained; and a singular deputation from the African court of Prester
John obtained audience of the Roman Pontiff. Amid these festivities
there arrived, on January 16, three delegates from Florence, who spent
some weeks in fruitless efforts to obtain a hearing from the arbiters of
Italy. Clement refused to deal with them, because their commonwealth was
still refractory. Charles repelled them, because he wished to gratify
the Pope, and knew that Florence remained staunch in her devotion to the
French crown. The old proverb, 'Lilies with lilies,' the white lily of
Florence united with the golden fleur-de-lys of France, had still
political significance in this day of Italian degradation. Meanwhile
Francis I. treated his faithful allies with lukewarm tolerance. The
smaller fry of Italian potentates, worshipers of the rising sun of
Spain, curried favor with their masters by insulting the republic's
representatives. On their return to Florence, the ambassadors had to
report a total diplomatic failure. But this, far from breaking the
untamable spirit of the Signory and people, prompted them in February to
new efforts of resistance and to edicts of outlawry against citizens
whom they regarded as traitors to the State. Among the proscribed were
Francesco Guicciardini, Roberto Acciaiuoli, Francesco Vettori, and
Baccio Valori. Of these men Francesco Guicciardini, Francesco Vettori,
and Baccio Valori were attendant at Bologna upon the Pope. They all
adhered with fidelity to the Medicean party at this crisis of their
country's fate, and all paid dearly for their loyalty. When Cosimo I.,
by their efforts, was established in the duchy, he made it one of his
first cares to rid himself of these too faithful servants. Baccio Valori
was beheaded after the battle of Montemurlo in 1537 for practice with
the exiles of Filippo Strozzi's party. Francesco Guicciardini, Francesco
Vettori, and Roberto Acciaiuoli died in disgrace before the year
1543--their only crime being that they had made themselves the ladder
whereby a Medici had climbed into his throne, and which it was his
business to upset when firmly seated. For the heroism of Florence at
this moment it would be difficult to find fit words of panegyric. The
republic stood alone, abandoned by France to the hot rage of Clement and
the cold contempt of Charles, deserted by the powers of Italy, betrayed
by lying captains, deluged on all sides with the scum of armies pouring
into Tuscany from the Lombard pandemonium of war. The situation was one
of impracticable difficulty. Florence could not but fall. Yet every
generous heart will throb with sympathy while reading the story of that
final stand for independence, in which a handful of burghers persisted,
though congregated princes licked the dust from feet of Emperor and
Pontiff.
Charles had come to assume the iron and the golden crowns in Italy. He
ought to have journeyed to Monza or to S. Ambrogio at Milan for the
first, and to the Lateran in Rome for the second of these investitures.
An Emperor of the Swabian House would have been compelled by precedent
and superstition to observe this form. It is true that the coronation of
a German prince as the successor of Lombard kings and Roman Augusti, had
always been a symbolic ceremony rather than a rite which ratified
genuine Imperial authority. Still the ceremony connoted many mediaeval
aspirations. It was the outward sign of theories that had once exerted
an ideal influence. To dissociate the two-fold sacrament from Milan and
from Rome was the same as robbing it of its main virtue, the virtue of a
mystical conception. It was tantamount to a demonstration that the
belief in Universal Monarchy had passed away. By breaking the old rules
of his investiture, Charles notified the disappearance of the mediaeval
order, and proclaimed new political ideals to the world. When asked
whether he would not follow custom and seek the Lombard crown in Monza,
he brutally replied that he was not wont to run after crowns, but to
have crowns running after him. He trampled no less on that still more
venerable _religio loci_ which attached imperial rights to Rome.
Together with this ancient piety, he swept the Holy Roman Empire into
the dust-heap of archaic curiosities. By declaring his will to be
crowned where he chose, he emphasized the modern state motto of _L'etat,
c'est moi_, and prepared the way for a Pope's closing of a General
Council by the word _L'Eglise, c'est moi_. Charles had sufficient
reasons for acting as he did. The Holy Roman Empire ever since the first
event of Charles the Great's coronation, when it justified itself as a
diplomatical expedient for unifying Western Christendom, had existed
more or less as a shadow. Charles violated the duties which alone gave
the semblance of a substance to that shadow. As King of Italy, he had
desolated the Lombard realm of which he sought the title. As Emperor
elect, he had ravished his bride, the Eternal City. As suitor to the
Pope for both of his expected crowns, he stood responsible for the
multiplied insults to which Clement had been so recently exposed. No
Emperor had been more powerful since Charles the Great than this Charles
V., the last who took his crowns in Italy. It was significant that he
man in whose name Rome had suffered outrage, and who was about to detach
Lombardy from the Empire, was by his own will invested at Bologna. The
citizens of Monza were accordingly bidden to send the iron crown to
Bologna. It arrived on February 20, and on the 22nd Charles received it
from the hands of Clement in the chapel of the palace. The Cardinal who
performed the ceremony of unction was a Fleming, William Hencheneor, who
in the Sack of Rome had bought his freedom for the large sum of 40,000
crowns. On this auspicious occasion he cut off half the beard which he
still wore in sign of mourning!
The Duke and Duchess of Urbino made their entrance into Bologna on the
same day. Francesco Maria della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, Prefect of Rome,
and Captain General of the armies of the Church, was one of the most
noted warriors of that time. Yet victory had rarely crowned his brows
with laurels. Imitating the cautious tactics of Braccio, and emulating
the fame of Fabius Cunctator, he reduced the art of war to a system of
manoeuvres, and rarely risked his fortune in the field. It was chiefly
due to his dilatory movements that the disaster of the Sack of Rome was
not averted. He had been expelled by Leo X. from his duchy to make room
for Lorenzo de'Medici, and report ran that a secret desire to witness
the humiliation of a Medicean Pontiff caused him to withhold his forces
from attacking the tumultuary troops of Bourbon. Francesco Maria was a
man of violent temper; nineteen years before, he had murdered the Pope's
Legate, Cardinal Francesco Alidosi, with his dagger, in the open
streets of Bologna. His wife, Eleanora Ippolita Gonzaga, presided with
grace over that brilliant and cultivated Court which Castiglione made
famous by his _Cortegiano_. The Duke and Duchess survive to posterity in
two masterpieces of portraiture by the hand of Titian which now adorn
the Gallery of the Uffizzi.
February 24, which was the anniversary of Charles's birthday, had been
fixed for his coronation as Emperor in San Petronio. This church is one
of the largest Gothic buildings in Italy. Its facade occupies the
southern side of the piazza. The western side, on the left of the
church, is taken up by the Palazzo Pubblico. In order to facilitate the
passage of the Pope and Emperor with their Courts and train of princes
from the palace to the cathedral, a wooden bridge wide enough to take
six men abreast was constructed from an opening in the Hall of the
Ancients. The bridge descended by a gradual line to the piazza,
broadened out into a platform before the front of San Petronio, and then
again ascended through the nave to the high altar. It was covered with
blue draperies, and so arranged that the vast multitudes assembled in
the square and church to see the ceremony had free access to it on all
sides. On the morning of the 24th, the solemn procession issued from the
palace, and defiled in order down the gangway. Clement was borne aloft
by Pontifical grooms in their red liveries. He wore the tiara and a cope
of state fastened by Cellini's famous stud, in which blazed the
Burgundian diamond of Charles the Bold. Charles walked in royal robes
attended by the Count of Nassau and Don Pietro di Toledo, the Viceroy of
Naples, who afterwards gave his name to the chief street in that city.
Before him went the Marquis of Montferrat, bearing the scepter; Philip,
Duke of Bavaria, carrying the golden orb; the Duke of Urbino, with the
sword; and the Duke of Savoy, holding the imperial diadem. This Duke of
Savoy was uncle to Francis I. and brother-in-law to Charles--- his wife,
Beatrice, being a sister of the Empress, and his sister, Louise, mother
of the French king. This double relationship made his position during
the late wars a difficult one. Yet his territory had been regarded as
neutral, and in the pacification of Italy he judged it wise to adhere
without reserve to the victorious King of Spain. It was noticed that
Ferrante di Sanseverino, Prince of Salerno, though known to be in
Bologna, occupied no post of distinction in the imperial train. He was
closely related to the Emperor by his mother, Maria of Aragon, and had
done good service in the recent campaigns against Lautrec. The reason
for this neglect does not appear. But it may be mentioned that some
years later he espoused the French cause, and was deprived of his vast
hereditary fiefs. In his ruin the poet Bernardo, father of Torquato
Tasso, was involved.
To enumerate all the nobles of Spain, Italy and Germany, with the
ambassadors from England, France, Scotland, Hungary, Bohemia and
Portugal; who swelled the Imperial _cortege_; to describe the series of
ceremonies by which Charles was first consecrated as a deacon, anointed,
dressed and undressed, and finally conducted to the Pope for coronation;
to narrate the breaking of the bridge at one point, and the squabbles
between the Genoese and Sienese delegates for precedence, would be
superfluously tedious. The day was well-nigh over when at length Charles
received the Imperial insignia from the Pope's hands. _Accipe gladium
sanctum, Accipe virgam, Accipe pomum, Accipe signum gloriae_! As Clement
pronounced these sentences, he gave the sword, the scepter, the globe,
and the diadem in succession to the Emperor, who knelt before him.
Charles bent and kissed the Papal feet. He then rose and took his throne
beside the Pope. It was placed two steps lower than that of Clement. The
ceremony of coronation and enthronization being now complete, Charles
was proclaimed: _Romanorum Imperator semper augustus, mundi totius
Dominus, universis Dominis, universis Principibus et Populis semper
venerandus_. When Mass was over, Pope and Emperor shook hands. At the
church-door, Charles held Clement's stirrup, and when the Pope had
mounted, he led his palfrey for some paces, in sign of filial
submission.
The month of March was distinguished by the arrival of illustrious
visitors. The Duchess of Savoy, with an escort of eighteen lovely maids
of honor, made her pompous entry on the 4th, and took up her quarters in
the Palazzo Pepoli. On the 6th came the Duke of Ferrara, for whom
Charles had procured a safe-conduct from the Pope. During the Emperor's
stay at Bologna, Alfonso d'Este had been assiduous in paying him and his
Court small attentions, sending excellent provisions for the household
and furnishing the royal table with game and every kind of delicacy. The
settlement of his dispute with the Holy See was the only important
business that remained to be transacted. Charles prevailed upon both
Clement and Alfonso to state their cases in writing and to place them in
the hands of jurisconsults, to report upon. There is little doubt that
his own mind was already made up in favor of the duke; but he did not
pass sentence until the following December, nor was the decision
published before April in the year 1531. The substance of the final
agreement was as follows. Modena, Reggio and Rubbiera were declared
fiefs of the Empire, seeing that they had not been included in Pepin's
gift of the Exarchate. Charles confirmed their investiture to Alfonso,
in return for a considerable payment to the Imperial Chancery. He had
previously conferred the town of Carpi, forfeited by Alberto Pio as a
French adherent, on the Duke. Ferrara remained a fief of the Church, and
Clement consented to acknowledge Alfonso's tenure, upon his disbursement
of 100,000 ducats. This decision saved Modena to the bastard line of
Este, when Pope Clement VIII. seized Ferrara as a lapsed fief in 1598.
In the sixty-seven years which passed between the date of Charles's
coronation and the extinction of the duchy, Ferrara enjoyed the fame of
the most brilliant Court in Italy, and shone with the luster conferred
on it by men like Tasso and Guarini.
The few weeks which now remained before Charles left Bologna were spent
for the most part in jousts and tournaments, visits to churches, and
social entertainments. Veronica Gambara threw her apartments open to the
numerous men of letters who crowded from all parts of Italy to witness
the ceremony, of Charles's coronation. This lady was widow to the late
lord of Correggio, and one of the two most illustrious women of her
time.[5] She dwelt with princely state in a palace of the Marsili; and
here might be seen the poets Bembo, Mauro, and Molza in conversation
with witty Berni, learned Vida, stately Trissino, and noble-hearted
Marcantonio Flaminio. Paolo Giovio and Francesco Guicciardini, the chief
historians of their time, were also to be found there, together with a
host of literary and diplomatic worthies attached to the Courts of
Urbino and Ferrara or attendant on the train of cardinals, who, like
Ippolito de'Medici, made a display of culture. Meanwhile the
Dowager-Marchioness of Mantua and the Duchess of Savoy entertained
Italian and Spanish nobles with masqued balls and carnival processions
in the Manzoli and Pepoli palaces. Frequent quarrels between hot-blooded
youths of the rival nations added a spice of chivalrous romance to
love-adventures in which the ladies of these Courts played a too
conspicuous part. What still remained to Italy of Renaissance splendor,
wit, and fashion, after the Sack of Rome and the prostration of her
wealthiest cities, was concentrated in this sunset blaze of sumptuous
festivity at Bologna. Nor were the arts without illustrious
representatives. Francesco Mazzola, surnamed Il Parmigianino, before
whose altar-piece in his Roman studio the rough soldiers of Bourbon's
army were said to have lately knelt in adoration, commemorated the hero
of the day by painting Charles attended by Fame who crowned his
forehead, and an infant Hercules who handed him the globe. Titian, too,
was there, and received the honor of several sittings from the Emperor.
His life-sized portrait of Charles in full armor, seated on a white
war-horse, has perished. But it gave such satisfaction at the moment
that the fortunate master was created knight and count palatine, and
appointed painter to the Emperor with a fixed pension. Titian also
painted portraits of Antonio de Leyva and Alfonso d'Avalos, but whether
upon this occasion or in 1532, when he was again summoned to the
Imperial Court at Bologna, is not certain. From this assemblage of
eminent personages we notice the absence of Pietro Aretino. He was at
the moment out of favor with Clement VII. But independently of this
obstacle, he may well have thought it imprudent to quit his Venetian
retreat and expose himself to the resentment of so many princes whom he
had alternately loaded with false praises and bemired with loathsome
libels.
[Footnote 5: See _Ren. in It._ vol. v. p. 289.]
People observed that the Emperor in his excursions through the streets
of Bologna usually wore the Spanish habit. He was dressed in black
velvet, with black silk stockings, black shoes, and a black velvet cap
adorned with black feathers. This somber costume received some relief
from jewels used for buttons; and the collar of the Golden Fleece shone
upon the monarch's breast. So slight a circumstance would scarcely
deserve attention, were it not that in a short space of time it became
the fashion throughout Italy to adopt the subdued tone of Spanish
clothing. The upper classes consented to exchange the varied and
brilliant dresses which gave gayety to the earlier Renaissance for the
dismal severity conspicuous in Morone's masterpieces, in the magnificent
gloom of the Genoese Brignoli, and in the portraits of Roman
inquisitors. It is as though the whole race had put on mourning for its
loss of liberty, its servitude to foreign tyrants and ecclesiastical
hypocrites. Nor is it fanciful to detect a note of moral sadness and
mental depression corresponding to these black garments in the faces of
that later generation. How different is Tasso's melancholy grace from
Ariosto's gentle joyousness; the dried-up precision of Baroccio's
Francesco Maria della Rovere from the sanguine joviality of Titian's
first duke of that name! One of the most acutely critical of
contemporary poets felt the change which I have indicated, and ascribed
it to the same cause. Campanella wrote as follows:
Black robes befit our age. Once they were white;
Next many-hued; now dark as Afric's Moor,
Night-black, infernal, traitorous, obscure,
Horrid with ignorance and sick with fright.
For very shame we shun all colors bright,
Who mourn our end--the tyrants we endure,
The chains, the noose, the lead, the snares, the lure--
Our dismal heroes, our souls sunk in night.
In the midst of this mirth-making there arrived on March 20 an embassy
from England, announcing Henry VIII.'s resolve to divorce himself at any
cost from Katharine of Aragon. This may well have recalled both Pope and
Emperor to a sense of the gravity of European affairs. The schism of
England was now imminent. Germany was distracted by Protestant
revolution. The armies of Caesar were largely composed of mutinous
Lutherans. Some of these soldiers had even dared to overthrow a colossal
statue of Clement VII. and grind it into powder at Bologna; and this
outrage, as it appears, went unpunished. The very troops employed in
reducing rebellious Florence were commanded by a Lutheran general; and
Clement began to fear that, after Charles's departure, the Prince of
Orange might cross the Apennines and expose the Papal person to the
insults of another captivity in Bologna. Nor were the gathering forces
of revolutionary Protestants alone ominous. Though Soliman had been
repulsed before Vienna, the Turks were still advancing on the eastern
borders of the Empire. Their fleets swept the Levantine waters, while
the pirate dynasties of Tunis and Algiers threatened the whole
Mediterranean coast with ruin. Charles, still uncertain what part he
should take in the disputes of Germany, left Bologna for the Tyrol on
March 23. Clement, on the last day of the month, took his journey by
Loreto to Rome.
It will be useful, at this point, to recapitulate the net results of
Charles's administration of Italian affairs in 1530. The kingdom of the
Two Sicilies, with the Island of Sardinia and the Duchy of Milan, became
Spanish provinces, and were ruled henceforth by viceroys. The House of
Este was confirmed in the Duchy of Ferrara, including Modena and Reggio.
The Duchies of Savoy and Mantua and the Marquisate of Montferrat, which
had espoused the Spanish cause, were undisturbed. Genoa and Siena, both
of them avowed allies of Spain, the former under Spanish protection, the
latter subject to Spanish coercion, remained with the name and empty
privileges of republics. Venice had made her peace with Spain, and
though she was still strong enough to pursue an independent policy, she
showed as yet no inclination, and had, indeed, no power, to stir up
enemies against the Spanish autocrat. The Duchy of Urbino, recognized
by Rome and subservient to Spanish influence, was permitted to exist.
The Papacy once more assumed a haughty tone, relying on the firm
alliance struck with Spain. This league, as years went by, was destined
to grow still closer, still more fruitful of results.
Florence alone had been excepted from the articles of peace. It was
still enduring the horrors of the memorable siege when Clement left
Bologna at the end of May. The last hero of the republic, Francesco
Ferrucci, fell fighting at Gavignana on August 2. Their general,
Malatesta Baglioni, broke his faith with the citizens. Finally, on
August 12, the town capitulated. Alessandro de'Medici, who had received
the title of Duke of Florence from Charles at Bologna, took up his
residence there in July, 1531, and held the State by help of Spanish
mercenaries under the command of Alessandro Vitelli. When he was
murdered by his cousin in 1537, Cosimo de'Medici, the scion of another
branch of the ruling family, was appointed Duke. Charles V. recognized
his title, and Cosimo soon showed that he was determined to be master in
his own duchy. He crushed the exiled party of Filippo Strozzi, who
attempted a revolution of the State, exterminated its leaders, and
contrived to rid himself of the powerful adherents who had placed him on
the throne. But he remained a subservient though not very willing ally
of Spain; and when he expelled Alessandro Vitelli from the fortress that
commanded Florence, he admitted a Spaniard, Don Juan de Luna, in his
stead. During the petty wars of 1552-56 which Henri II. carried on with
Charles V. in Italy, Siena attempted to shake off the yoke of a Spanish
garrison established there in 1547 under the command of Don Hurtado de
Mendoza. The citizens appealed to France, who sent them the great
Marshal, Piero Strozzi, brother of Cosimo's vanquished enemy Filippo.
Cosimo through these years supported the Spanish cause with troops and
money, hoping to guide events in his own interest. At length, by the aid
of Gian Giacomo Medici, sprung from an obscure Milanese family, who had
been trained in the Spanish methods of warfare, he succeeded in subduing
Siena. He now reaped the fruits of his Spanish policy. In 1557 Philip
II. conceded the Sienese territory, reserving only its forts, to the
Duke of Florence, who in 1569 obtained the title of Grand Duke of
Tuscany from Pope Pius V. This title was confirmed by the Empire in 1575
to his son Francesco.
Thus the republics of Florence and Siena were extinguished. The Grand
Duchy of Tuscany was created. It became an Italian power of the first
magnitude, devoted to the absolutist principles of Spanish and Papal
sovereignty. The further changes which took place in Italy after the
year 1530, turned equally to the profit of Spain and Rome. These were
principally the creation of the Duchy of Parma for the Farnesi
(1545-1559), of which I shall have to speak in the next chapter; the
resumption of Ferrara by the Papacy in 1597, which reduced the House of
Este to the smaller fiefs of Modena and Reggio; the acquisition of
Montferrat by Mantua in 1536; the cession of Saluzzo to Savoy in 1598,
and the absorption of Urbino into the Papal domains in 1631.
It was hoped when Charles and Clement proclaimed the pacification of
Italy at Bologna on the last day of 1529, that the peninsula would no
longer be the theater of wars for supremacy between the French and
Spaniards. This expectation proved delusive; for the struggle soon broke
out again. The people, however, suffered less extensively than in former
years; because the Spanish party, supported by Papal authority, was
decidedly predominant. The Italian princes, whether they liked it or
not, were compelled to follow in the main a Spanish policy. At length,
in 1559, by the Peace of Cateau Cambresis signed between Henri II. and
Philip II., the French claims were finally abandoned, and the Spanish
hegemony was formally acknowledged. The later treaty of Vervins, in
1598, ceded Saluzzo to the Duchy of Savoy, and shut the gates of Italy
to French interference.
Though the people endured far less misery from foreign armies in the
period between 1630 and 1600 than they had done in the period from 1494
to 1527, yet the state of the country grew ever more and more
deplorable. This was due in the first instance to the insane methods of
taxation adopted by the Spanish viceroys, who held monopolies of corn
and other necessary commodities in their hands and who invented imposts
for the meanest articles of consumption. Their example was followed by
the Pope and petty princes. Alfonso II. of Ferrara, for instance, levied
a tenth on all produce which passed his city gates, and on the capital
engaged in every contract. He monopolized the sale of salt, flour,
bread; and imposed a heavy tax on oil. Sixtus V. by exactions of a like
description and by the sale of numberless offices, accumulated a vast
sum of money, much of which bore heavy interest. He was so ignorant of
the first principle of political economy as to lock up the accruing
treasure in the Castle of S. Angelo. The rising of Masaniello in Naples
was simply due to the exasperation of the common folk at having even
fruit and vegetables taxed. In addition to such financial blunders, we
must take into account the policy pursued by all princes at this epoch,
of discouraging commerce and manufactures. Thus Cosimo I. of Tuscany
induced the old Florentine families to withdraw their capital from
trade, sink it in land, create entails in perpetuity on eldest sons, and
array themselves with gimcrack titles which he liberally supplied. Even
Venice showed at this epoch a contempt for the commerce which had
brought her into a position of unrivaled splendor. This wilful
depression of industry was partly the result of Spanish aristocratic
habits, which now invaded Italian society. But it was also deliberately
chosen as a means of extinguishing freedom. Finally, if war proved now
less burdensome, the exhaustion of Italy and the decay of military
spirit rendered the people liable to the scourge of piracy. The whole
sea-coast was systematically plundered by the navies of Barbarossa and
Dragut. The inhabitants of the ports and inland villages were carried
off into slavery, and many of the Italians themselves drove a brisk
trade in the sale of their compatriots. Brigandage, following in the
wake of agricultural depression and excessive taxation, depopulated the
central provinces. All these miseries were exacerbated by frequent
recurrences of plagues and famines.
It is characteristic of the whole tenor of Italian history that, in
spite of the virtual hegemony which the Spaniards now exercised in the
peninsula, the nation continued to exist in separate parcels, each of
which retained a certain individuality. That Italy could not have been
treated as a single province by the Spanish autocrat will be manifest,
when we consider the European jealousy to which so summary an exhibition
of force would have given rise. It is also certain that the Papacy,
which had to be respected, would have resisted an openly declared
Spanish despotism. But more powerful, I think, than all these
considerations together, was the past prestige of the Italian States.
Europe was not prepared to regard that brilliant and hitherto respected
constellation of commonwealths, from which all intellectual culture,
arts of life, methods of commerce, and theories of political existence
had been diffused, as a single province of the Spanish monarchy. The
Spaniards themselves were scarcely in a position to entertain the
thought of reducing the peninsula to bondage _vi et armis_. And if they
had attempted any measure tending to this result, they would undoubtedly
have been resisted by an alliance of the European powers. What they
sought, and what they gained, was preponderating influence in each of
the parcels which they recognized as nominally independent.
The intellectual and social life of the Italians, though much reduced in
vigor, was therefore still, as formerly, concentrated in cities marked
by distinct local qualities, and boastful of their ancient glories. The
Courts of Ferrara and Urbino continued to form centers for literary and
artistic coteries. Venice remained the stronghold of mental unrestraint
and moral license, where thinkers uttered their thoughts with tolerable
freedom, and libertines indulged their tastes unhindered. Rome early
assumed novel airs of piety, and external conformity to austere patterns
became the fashion here. Yet the Papal capital did not wholly cease to
be the resort of students and of artists. The universities maintained
themselves in a respectable position--- far different, indeed, from that
which they had held in the last century, yet not ignoble. Much was
being learned on many lines of study divergent from those prescribed by
earlier humanists. Padua, in particular, distinguished itself for
medical researches. This was the flourishing time, moreover, of
Academies, in which, notwithstanding nonsense talked and foolish tastes
indulged, some solid work was done for literature and science. The names
of the Cimento, Delia Crusca, and Palazzo Vernio at Florence, remind us
of not unimportant labors in physics, in the analysis of language, and
in the formation of a new dramatic style of music. At the same time the
resurgence of popular literature and the creation of popular theatrical
types deserve to be particularly noticed. It is as though the Italian
nation at this epoch, suffocated by Spanish etiquette, and poisoned by
Jesuitical hypocrisy, sought to expand healthy lungs in free spaces of
open air, indulging in dialectical niceties and immortalizing
street-jokes by the genius of masqued comedy.
This most ancient and intensely vital race had given Europe the Roman
Republic, the Roman Empire, the system of Roman law, the Romance
languages, Latin Christianity, the Papacy, and, lastly, all that is
included in the art and culture of the Renaissance. It was time,
perhaps, that it should go to rest a century or so, and watch uprising
nations--the Spanish, English, French, and so forth--stir their stalwart
limbs in common strife and novel paths of pioneering industry.
After such fashion let us, then, if we can contrive to do so, regard
the Italians during their subjection to the Church and Austria. Were it
not for these consolatory reflections, and for the present reappearance
of the nation in a new and previously unapprehended form of unity, the
history of the Counter-Reformation period would be almost too painful
for investigation. What the Italians actually accomplished during this
period in art, learning, science, and literature, was indeed more than
enough to have conferred undying luster on such races as the Dutch or
Germans at the same epoch. But it would be ridiculous to compare
Italians with either Dutchmen or Germans at a time when Italy was still
so incalculably superior. Compared with their own standard, compared
with what they might have achieved under more favorable conditions of
national independence, the products of this age are saddening. The
tragic elements of my present theme are summed up in the fact that Italy
during the Counter-Reformation was inferior to Italy during the
Renaissance, and that this inferiority was due to the interruption of
vital and organic processes by reactionary forces.
It would not be just to condemn Spain and the Papacy because, being
reactionary powers, they quenched for three centuries the genial light
of Italy. We must rather bear in mind that both Spain and the Papacy
were at that time cosmopolitan factors of the first magnitude, with
perplexing world-problems confronting them. Charles bore upon his
shoulders the concerns of the Empire, the burden of the German
revolution, and the distracting anxiety of a duel with Islam. When his
son bowed to the yoke of government, he had to meet the same
perplexities, complicated with Netherlands in revolt, England in
antagonism, and France in dubious ferment. A succession of Popes were
hampered by painful European questions, which the instinct of
self-preservation taught them to regard as paramount. They were fighting
for existence; for the Catholic creed; for their own theocratic
sovereignty. They held strong cards. But against them were drawn up the
battalions of heresy, free thought, political insurgence in the modern
world. The _Zeitgeist_ that has made us what we are, had begun to
organize stern opposition to the Church. It was natural enough that both
the Spanish autocrat and the successor of S. Peter should at this crisis
have regarded Italian affairs as subordinate in importance to wider
matters which demanded their attention. Yet if we shift our point of
view from this high vantage-ground of Imperial and Papal anxieties, and
place ourselves in the center of Italy as our post of observation, it
will be apparent that nothing more ruinous for the prosperity of the
Italian people could have been devised than the joint autocracy accorded
at Bologna to two cosmopolitan but non-national forces in their midst.
An alien monarchy greedy for gold, a panic-stricken hierarchy in terror
for its life, warped the tendencies and throttled the energies of the
most artistically sensitive, the most heroically innovating of the
existing races. However we may judge the merits of the Spaniards, they
were assuredly not those which had brought Italy into the first rank of
European nations. The events of a single century proved that, far from
being able to govern other peoples, Spain was incapable of
self-government on any rational principle. Whatever may have been the
policy thrust upon the chief of Latin Christianity in the desperate
struggle with militant rationalism, the repressive measures which it
felt bound to adopt were eminently pernicious to a race like the
Italians, who showed no disposition for religious regeneration, and who
were yet submitted to the tyranny of ecclesiastical discipline and
intellectual intolerance at every point.
The settlement made by Charles V. in 1530, and the various changes which
took place in the duchies between that date and the end of the century,
had then the effect of rendering the Papacy and Spain omnipotent in
Italy. These kindred autocrats were joined in firm alliance, except
during the brief period of Paul IV.'s French policy, which ended in the
Pope's complete discomfiture by Alva in 1557. They used their aggregated
forces for the riveting of spiritual, political, and social chains upon
the modern world. What they only partially effected in Europe at large,
by means of S. Bartholomew massacres, exterminations of Jews in Toledo
and of Mussulmans in Granada, holocausts of victims in the Low
Countries, wars against French Huguenots and German Lutherans, naval
expeditions and plots against the state of England, assassinations of
heretic princes, and occasional burning of free thinkers, they achieved
with plenary success in Italy. The center of the peninsula, from Ferrara
to Terracina, lay at the discretion of the Pope. The Two Sicilies,
Sardinia and the Duchy of Milan, were absolute dependencies of the
Spanish crown. Tuscany was linked by ties of interest, and by the
stronger bonds of terrorism, to Spain. The insignificant principalities
of Mantua, Modena, Parma could not do otherwise than submit to the same
predominant authority. It is not worth while to take into account the
tiny republics of Genoa and Lucca. Their history through this period,
though not so uneventful, is scarcely less insignificant than that of
San Marino. Venice alone stood independent, still powerful enough to
extinguish Bedmar's Spanish conspiracy in silence, still proud enough to
resist the encroachments of Paul V. with spirit, yet sensible of her
decline and spending her last energies on warfare with the Turk.
At the close of the century, by the Peace of Vervins in 1598 and two
subsequent treaties, Spain and France settled their long dispute. France
was finally excluded from Italy by the cession of Saluzzo to Savoy,
while Savoy at the same moment, through the loss of its Burgundian
provinces, became an Italian power. The old antagonism which, dating
from the Guelf and Ghibelline contentions of the thirteenth century,
had taken a new form after the Papal investiture of Charles of Anjou
with the kingdoms of Sicily and Naples, now ceased. That antique
antagonism of parties, alien to the home interests of Italy, had been
exasperated by the rivalry of Angevine and Aragonese princes; had
assumed formidable intensity after the invasion of Charles VIII. in
1494; and had expanded under the reigns of Louis XII. and Francis I.
into an open struggle between France and Spain for the supremacy of
Italy. It now was finally terminated by the exclusion of the French and
the acknowledged overlordship of the Spaniard. But though peace seemed
to be secured to a nation tortured by so many desolating wars of foreign
armies, the Italians regarded the cession of Saluzzo with despondency.
The partisans of national independence and political freedom had become,
however illogically, accustomed to consider France as their ally.[6]
They now beheld the gates of Italy closed against the French; they saw
the extinction of their ancient Guelf policy of calling French arms into
Italy. They felt that rest from strife was dearly bought at the price of
prostrate servitude beneath Spanish and Austrian Hapsburgs, Spanish
Bourbons, and mongrel princelings bred by crossing these stocks with
decaying scions of Italian nobility. As a matter of fact, this was the
destiny which lay before them for nearly two centuries after the
signing of the Peace of Vervins.
[Footnote 6: See, for instance, temp. Henri IV., _Sarpi's Letters_, vol.
i. p. 233.]
Yet the cession of Saluzzo was really the first dawn of hope for Italy.
It determined the House of Savoy as an Italian dynasty, and brought for
the first time into the sphere of purely Italian interests that province
from which the future salvation of the nation was to come. From 1598
until 1870 the destinies of Italy were bound up with the advance of
Savoy from a duchy to a kingdom, with its growth in wealth, military
resources and political self-consciousness, and with its ultimate
acceptance of the task, accomplished in our days, of freeing Italy from
foreign tyranny and forming a single nation out of many component
elements. Those component elements by their diversity had conferred
luster on the race in the Middle Ages, by their jealousies had wrecked
its independence in the Renaissance, and by their weakness had left it
at the period of the Counter-Reformation a helpless prey to Papal and
Spanish despotism.
The leveling down of the component elements of the Italian race beneath
a common despotism, which began in the period I have chosen for this
work, was necessary perhaps before Italy could take her place as a
united nation gifted with constitutional self-government and
independence. Except, therefore, for the sufferings and the humiliations
inflicted on her people; except for their servitude beneath the most
degrading forms of ecclesiastical and temporal tyranny; except for the
annihilation of their beautiful Renaissance culture; except for the
depression of arts, learning, science, and literature, together with the
enfeeblement of political energy and domestic morality; except for the
loathsome domination of hypocrites and persecutors and informers; except
for the Jesuitical encouragement of every secret vice and every servile
superstition which might emasculate the race and render it subservient
to authority;--except for these appalling evils, we have no right
perhaps to deplore the settlement of Italy by Charles V. in 1530, or the
course of subsequent events. For it is tolerably certain that some such
leveling down as then commenced was needed to bring the constituent
States of Italy into accord; and it is indubitable, as I have had
occasion to point out, that the political force which eventually
introduced Italy into the European system of federated nations, was
determined in its character, if not created, then. None the less, the
history of this period (1530-1600) in Italy is a prolonged, a solemn, an
inexpressibly heart-rending tragedy.
It is the tragic history of the eldest and most beautiful, the noblest
and most venerable, the freest and most gifted of Europe's daughters,
delivered over to the devilry that issued from the most incompetent and
arrogantly stupid of the European sisterhood, and to the cruelty,
inspired by panic, of an impious theocracy. When we use these terms to
designate the Papacy of the Counter-Reformation, it is not that we
forget how many of those Popes were men of blameless private life and
serious views for Catholic Christendom. When we use these terms to
designate the Spanish race in the sixteenth century, it is not that we
are ignorant of Spanish chivalry and colonizing enterprise, of Spanish
romance, or of the fact that Spain produced great painters, great
dramatists, and one great novelist in the brief period of her glory. We
use them deliberately, however, in both cases; because the Papacy at
this period committed itself to a policy of immoral, retrograde, and
cowardly repression of the most generous of human impulses under the
pressure of selfish terror; because the Spaniards abandoned themselves
to a dark fiend of religious fanaticism; because they were merciless in
their conquests and unintelligent in their administration of subjugated
provinces; because they glutted their lusts of avarice and hatred on
industrious folk of other creeds within their borders; because they
cultivated barren pride and self-conceit in social life; because at the
great epoch of Europe's reawakening they chose the wrong side and
adhered to it with fatal obstinacy. This obstinacy was disastrous to
their neighbors and ruinous to themselves. During the short period of
three reigns (between 1598 and 1700) they sank from the first to the
third grade in Europe, and saw the scepter passing in the New World from
their hands to those of more normally constituted races. That the
self-abandonment to sterilizing passions and ignoble persecutions which
marked Spain out for decay in the second half of the sixteenth century,
and rendered her the curse of her dependencies, can in part be ascribed
to the enthusiasm aroused in previous generations by the heroic conflict
with advancing Islam, is a thesis capable of demonstration. Yet none the
less is it true that her action at that period was calamitous to herself
and little short of destructive to Italy.
After the year 1530 seven Spanish devils entered Italy. These were the
devil of the Inquisition, with stake and torture-room, and war declared
against the will and soul and heart and intellect of man; the devil of
Jesuitry, with its sham learning, shameless lying, and casuistical
economy of sins; the devil of vice-royal rule, with its life-draining
monopolies and gross incapacity for government; the devil of an insolent
soldiery, quartered on the people, clamorous for pay, outrageous in
their lusts and violences; the devil of fantastical taxation, levying
tolls upon the bare necessities of life, and drying up the founts of
national well-being at their sources; the devil of petty-princedom,
wallowing in sloth and cruelty upon a pinchbeck throne; the devil of
effeminate hidalgoism, ruinous in expenditure, mean and grasping,
corrupt in private life, in public ostentatious, vain of titles,
cringing to its masters, arrogant to its inferiors. In their train these
brought with them seven other devils, their pernicious offspring:
idleness, disease, brigandage, destitution, ignorance, superstition,
hypocritically sanctioned vice. These fourteen devils were welcomed,
entertained, and voluptuously lodged in all the fairest provinces of
Italy. The Popes opened wide for them the gates of outraged and
depopulated Rome. Dukes and marquises fell down and worshiped the golden
image of the Spanish Belial-Moloch--that hideous idol whose face was
blackened with soot from burning human flesh, and whose skirts were
dabbled with the blood of thousands slain in wars of persecution. After
a tranquil sojourn of some years in Italy, these devils had everywhere
spread desolation and corruption. Broad regions, like the Patrimony of
S. Peter and Calabria, were given over to marauding bandits; wide tracks
of fertile country, like the Sienese Maremma, were abandoned to malaria;
wolves prowled through empty villages round Milan; in every city the
pestilence swept off its hundreds daily; manufactures, commerce,
agriculture, the industries of town and rural district, ceased; the
Courts swarmed with petty nobles, who vaunted paltry titles; and
resigned their wives to cicisbei and their sons to sloth: art and
learning languished; there was not a man who ventured to speak out his
thought or write the truth; and over the Dead Sea of social putrefaction
floated the sickening oil of Jesuitical hypocrisy.
CHAPTER II.
THE PAPACY AND THE TRIDENTINE COUNCIL.
The Counter-Reformation--Its Intellectual and Moral
Character--Causes of the Gradual Extinction of Renaissance
Energy--Transition from the Renaissance to the Catholic
Revival--New Religious Spirit in Italy--Attitude of Italians toward
German Reformation--Oratory of Divine Love--Gasparo Contarini and
the Moderate Reformers--New Religious Orders--Paul III.--His early
History and Education--Political Attitude between France and
Spain--Creation of the Duchy of Parma--Imminence of a General
Council--Review of previous Councils--Paul's Uneasiness--Opens a
Council at Trent in 1542--Protestants virtually excluded, and
Catholic Dogmas confirmed in the first Sessions--Death of Paul in
1549--Julius III.--Paul IV.--Character and Ruling Passions of G.P.
Caraffa--His Futile Opposition to Spain--Tyranny of his
Nephews--Their Downfall--Paul Devotes himself to Church Reform and
the Inquisition--Pius IV.--His Minister Morone--Diplomatic Temper
of this Pope--His Management of the Council--Assistance rendered by
his nephew Carlo Borromeo--Alarming State of Northern Europe--The
Council reopened at Trent in 1562--Subsequent History of the
Council--It closes with a complete Papal Triumph in 1563--Place of
Pius IV. in History--Pius V.--The Inquisitor Pope--Population of
Rome--Social Corruption--Sale of Offices and Justice--Tridentine
Reforms depress Wealth--Ascetic Purity of Manners becomes
fashionable--- Piety--The Catholic Reaction generates the
Counter-Reformation--Battle of Lepanto--Gregory XIII.--His
Relatives--Policy of Enriching the Church at Expense of the
Barons--Brigandage in States of the Church--Sixtus V.--His Stern
Justice--Rigid Economy--Great Public Works--Taxation--The City of
Rome assumes its present form--Nepotism in the Counter-Reformation
Period--Various Estimates of the Wealth accumulated by Papal
Nephews--Rise of Princely Roman Families.
It is not easy to define the intellectual and moral changes which passed
over Italy in the period of the Counter-Reformation[7]; it is still
less easy to refer those changes to distinct causes. Yet some analysis
tending toward such definition is demanded from a writer who has
undertaken to treat of Italian culture and manners between the years
1530 and 1600.
In the last chapter I attempted to describe the depth of servitude to
which the States of Italy were severally reduced at the end of the wars
between France and Spain. The desolation of the country, the loss of
national independence, and the dominance of an alien race, can be
counted among the most important of those influences which produced the
changes in question. Whatever opinions we may hold regarding the
connection between political autonomy and mental vigor in a people, it
can hardly be disputed that a sudden and universal extinction of liberty
must be injurious to arts and studies that have grown up under free
institutions.
But there were other causes at work. Among these a prominent place
should be given to an alteration in the intellectual interests of the
Italians themselves. The original impulses of the Renaissance, in
scholarship, painting, sculpture, architecture, and vernacular poetry,
had been exhausted.
[Footnote 7: I may here state that I intend to use this term
Counter-Reformation to denote the reform of the Catholic Church, which
was stimulated by the German Reformation, and which, when the Council of
Trent had fixed the dogmas and discipline of Latin Christianity, enabled
the Papacy to assume a militant policy in Europe, whereby it regained a
large portion of the provinces, that had previously lapsed to Lutheran
and Calvinistic dissent.]
Humanism, after recovering the classics and forming a new ideal of
culture, was sinking into pedantry and academic erudition. Painting and
sculpture, having culminated in the great work of Michelangelo, tended
toward a kind of empty mannerism. Architecture settled down into the
types fixed by Palladio and Barozzi. Poetry seemed to have reached its
highest point of development in Ariosto. The main motives supplied to
art by mediaeval traditions and humanistic enthusiasm were worked out.
Nor was this all. The Renaissance had created a critical spirit which
penetrated every branch of art and letters. It was not possible to
advance further on the old lines; yet painters, sculptors, architects,
and poets of the rising generation had before their eyes the
masterpieces of their predecessors, in their minds the precepts of the
learned. All alike were rendered awkward and self-conscious by the sense
of laboring at a disadvantage, and by the dread of academical
censorship.
In truth, this critical spirit, which was the final product of the
Renaissance in Italy, favored the development of new powers in the
nation: it hampered workers in the elder spheres of art, literature, and
scholarship; but it set thinkers upon the track of those investigations
which we call scientific. I shall endeavor, in a future chapter, to show
how the Italians were now upon the point of carrying the ardor of the
Renaissance into fresh fields of physical discovery and speculation,
when their evolution was suspended by the Catholic Reaction. But here
it must suffice to observe that formalism had succeeded by the operation
of natural influences to the vigor and inventiveness of the national
genius in the main departments of literature and fine art.
If we study the development of other European races, we shall find that
each of them in turn, at its due season, passed through similar phases.
The mediaeval period ends in the efflorescence of a new delightful
energy, which gives a Rabelais, a Shakspere, a Cervantes to the world.
The Renaissance riots itself away in Marinism, Gongorism, Euphuism, and
the affectations of the Hotel Rambouillet. This age is succeeded by a
colder, more critical, more formal age of obedience to fixed canons,
during which scholarly efforts are made to purify style and impose laws
on taste. The ensuing period of sense is also marked by profounder
inquiries into nature and more exact analysis of mental operations. The
correct school of poets, culminating in Dryden and Pope, holds sway in
England; while Newton, Locke, and Bentley extend the sphere of science.
In France the age of Rabelais and Montaigne yields place to the age of
Racine and Descartes. Germany was so distracted by religious wars, Spain
was so down-trodden by the Inquisition, that they do not offer equally
luminous examples.[8] It may be added that in all these nations the end
of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries are
marked by a similar revolt against formality and common sense, to which
we give the name of the Romantic movement.
[Footnote 8: With regard to Germany, see Mr. T. S. Perry's acute and
philosophical study, entitled _From Opitz to Lessing_ (Boston).]
Quitting this sphere of speculation, we may next point out that the
European system had undergone an incalculable process of transformation.
Powerful nationalities were in existence, who, having received their
education from Italy, were now beginning to think and express thought
with marked originality. The Italians stood no longer in a relation of
uncontested intellectual superiority to these peoples, while they met
them under decided disadvantages at all points of political efficiency.
The Mediterranean had ceased to be the high road of commercial
enterprise and naval energy. Charles V.'s famous device of the two
columns, with its motto _Plus Ultra_, indicated that illimitable
horizons had been opened, that an age had begun in which Spain, England
and Holland should dispute the sovereignty of the Atlantic and Pacific
oceans. Italy was left, with diminished forces of resistance, to bear
the brunt of Turk and Arab depredations. The point of gravity in the
civilized world had shifted. The Occidental nations looked no longer
toward the South of Europe.
While these various causes were in operation, Catholic Christianity
showed signs of re-wakening. The Reformation called forth a new and
sincere spirit in the Latin Church; new antagonisms were evoked, and
new efforts after self-preservation had to be made by the Papal
hierarchy. The center of the world-wide movement which is termed the
Counter-Reformation was naturally Rome. Events had brought the Holy See
once more into a position of prominence. It was more powerful as an
Italian State now, through the support of Spain and the extinction of
national independence, than at any previous period of history. In
Catholic Christendom its prestige was immensely augmented by the Council
of Trent. At the same epoch, the foreigners who dominated Italy, threw
themselves with the enthusiasm of fanaticism into this Revival. Spain
furnished Rome with the militia of the Jesuits and with the engines of
the Inquisition. The Papacy was thus able to secure successes in Italy
which were elsewhere only partially achieved. It followed that the
moral, social, political and intellectual activities of the Italians at
this period were controlled and colored by influences hostile to the
earlier Renaissance. Italy underwent a metamorphosis, prescribed by the
Papacy and enforced by Spanish rule. In the process of this
transformation the people submitted to rigid ecclesiastical discipline,
and adopted, without assimilating, the customs of a foreign troop of
despots.
At first sight we may wonder that the race which had shone with such
incomparable luster from Dante to Ariosto, and which had done so much to
create modern culture for Europe, should so quietly have accepted a
retrogressive revolution. Yet, when we look closer, this is not
surprising. The Italians were fatigued with creation, bewildered by the
complexity of their discoveries, uncertain as to the immediate course
before them. The Renaissance had been mainly the work of a select few.
It had transformed society without permeating the masses of the people.
Was it strange that the majority should reflect that, after all, the old
ways are the best? This led them to approve the Catholic Revival. Was it
strange that, after long distracting aimless wars, they should hail
peace at any price? This lent popular sanction to the Spanish hegemony,
in spite of its obvious drawbacks.
These may be reckoned the main conditions which gave a peculiar but not
easily definable complexion of languor, melancholy, and dwindling
vitality to nearly every manifestation of Italian genius in the second
half of the sixteenth century, and which well nigh sterilized that
genius during the two succeeding centuries. In common with the rest of
Europe, and in consequence of an inevitable alteration of their mental
bias, they had lost the blithe spontaneity of the Renaissance. But they
were at the same time suffering from grievous exhaustion, humiliated by
the tyranny of foreign despotism, and terrorized by ecclesiastical
intolerance. In their case, therefore, a sort of moral and intellectual
atrophy becomes gradually more and more perceptible. The clear artistic
sense of rightness and of beauty yields to doubtful taste. The frank
audacity of the Renaissance is superseded by cringing timidity,
lumbering dulness, somnolent and stagnant acquiescence in accepted
formulae. At first the best minds of the nation fret and rebel, and meet
with the dungeon or the stake as the reward of contumacy. In the end
everybody seems to be indifferent, satisfied with vacuity, enamored of
insipidity. The brightest episode in this dreary period is the emergence
of modern music with incomparable sweetness and lucidity.
It must not be supposed that the change which I have adumbrated, passed
rapidly over the Italian spirit. When Paul III. succeeded Clement on the
Papal throne in 1534, some of the giants of the Renaissance still
survived, and much of their great work was yet to be accomplished.
Michelangelo had neither painted the Last Judgment nor planned the
cupola which crowns S. Peter's. Cellini had not cast his Perseus for the
Loggia de'Lanzi, nor had Palladio raised San Giorgio from the sea at
Venice. Pietro Aretino still swaggered in lordly insolence; and though
Machiavelli was dead, the 'silver histories' of Guicciardini remained to
be written. Bandello, Giraldi and Il Lasca had not published their
Novelle, nor had Cecchi given the last touch to Florentine comedy. It
was chiefly at Venice, which preserved the ancient forms of her
oligarchical independence, that the grand style of the Renaissance
continued to flourish. Titian was in his prime; the stars of Tintoretto
and Veronese had scarcely risen above the horizon. Sansovino was still
producing masterpieces of picturesque beauty in architecture.
In order to understand the transition of Italy from the Renaissance to
the Counter-Reformation manner, it will be well to concentrate attention
on the history of the Papacy during the eight reigns of Paul III.,
Julius III., Paul IV., Pius IV., Pius V., Gregory XIII., Sixtus V., and
Clement VIII.[9] In the first of these reigns we hardly notice that the
Renaissance has passed away. In the last we are aware of a completely
altered Italy. And we perceive that this alteration has been chiefly due
to the ecclesiastical policy which brought the Council of Trent to a
successful issue in the reign of Pius IV.
[Footnote 9: These eight reigns cover a space of time from 1534 to
1605.]
Before engaging in this review of Papal history, I must give some brief
account of the more serious religious spirit which had been developed
within the Italian Church; since the determination of this spirit toward
rigid Catholicism in the second half of the sixteenth century decided
the character of Italian manners and culture. Protestantism in the
strict sense of the term took but little hold upon Italian society. It
is true that the minds of some philosophical students were deeply
stirred by the audacious discussion of theological principles in
Germany. Such men had been rendered receptive of new impressions by the
Platonizing speculations of Ficino and Pico della Mirandola, as well as
by the criticism of the Bible in its original languages which formed a
subordinate branch of humanistic education. They had, furthermore, been
powerfully affected by the tribulations of Rome at the time of Bourbon's
occupation, and had grown to regard these as a divine chastisement
inflicted on the Church for its corruption and ungodliness. Lutheranism
so far influenced their opinions that they became convinced of the
necessity of a return to the simpler elements of Christianity in creed
and conduct. They considered a thorough-going reform of the hierarchy
and of all Catholic institutions to be indispensable. They leant,
moreover, with partiality to some of the essential tenets of the
Reformation, notably to the doctrines of justification by faith and
salvation by the merits of Christ, and also to the principle that
Scripture is the sole authority in matters of belief and discipline.
Thus both the Cardinals Morone and Contarini, the poet Flaminio, and the
nobles of the Colonna family in Naples who imbibed the teaching of
Valdes, fell under the suspicion of heterodoxy on these points. But it
was characteristic of the members of this school that they had no will
to withhold allegiance from the Pope as chief of Christendom. They
shrank with horror from the thought of encouraging a schism or of
severing themselves from the communion of Catholics. The essential
difference between Italian and Teutonic thinkers on such subjects at
this epoch seems to have been this: Italians could not cease to be
Catholics without at the same time ceasing to be Christians. They could
not accommodate their faith to any of the compromises suggested by the
Reformation. Even when they left their country in a spirit of rebellion,
they felt ill at ease both with Lutherans and Calvinists. Like
Bernardino Ochino and the Anti-Trinitarians of the Socinian sect, they
wandered restlessly through Europe, incapable of settling down in
communion with any one of the established forms of Protestantism. Calvin
at Geneva instituted a real crusade against Italian thinkers, who
differed from his views. He drove Valentino Gentile to death on the
scaffold; and expelled Gribaldi, Simone, Biandrata, Alciati, Negro. Most
of these men found refuge in Poland, Transylvania, even Turkey.[10]
There were bold speculators in Italy enough, who had practically
abandoned the Catholic faith. But the majority of these did not think it
worth their while to make an open rupture with the Church. Theological
hair-splitting reminded them only of the mediaeval scholasticism from
which they had been emancipated by classical culture. They were less
interested in questions touching the salvation of the individual or the
exact nature of the sacraments, than in metaphysical problems suggested
by the study of antique philosophers, or new theories of the material
universe.
[Footnote 10: See Berti's _Vita di G. Bruno_, pp. 105-108.]
The indifference of these men in religion rendered it easy for them to
conform in all external points to custom. Their fundamental axiom was
that a scientific thinker could hold one set of opinions as a
philosopher, and another set as a Christian. Their motto was the
celebrated _Foris ut moris, intus ut libet_.[11] Nor were ecclesiastical
authorities dissatisfied with this attitude during the ascendancy of
humanistic culture. It was, indeed, the attitude of Popes like Leo,
Cardinals like Bembo. And it only revealed its essential weakness when
the tide of general opinion, under the blast of Teutonic revolutionary
ideas, turned violently in favor of formal orthodoxy. Then indeed it
became dangerous to adopt the position of a Pomponazzo.
[Footnote 11: This maxim is ascribed to the materialistic philosopher
Cremonini.]
The mental attitude of such men is so well illustrated by a letter
written by Celio Calcagnini to Peregrino Morato, that I shall not
hesitate to transcribe it here. It seems that Morato had sent his
correspondent some treatise on the theological questions then in
dispute; and Calcagnini replies:
'I have read the book relating to the controversies so much agitated at
present. I have thought on its contents, and weighed them in the balance
of reason. I find in it nothing which may not be approved and defended,
but some things which, as mysteries, it is safer to suppress and conceal
than to bring before the common people, inasmuch as they pertained to
the primitive and infant state of the Church. Now, when the decrees of
the fathers and long usage have introduced other modes, what necessity
is there for reviving antiquated practices which have long fallen into
desuetude, especially as neither piety nor the salvation of the soul is
concerned with them? Let us, then, I pray you, allow these things to
rest. Not that I disapprove of their being embraced by scholars and
lovers of antiquity; but I would not have them communicated to the
common people and those who are fond of innovations, lest they give
occasion to strife and sedition. There are unlearned and unqualified
persons who having, after long ignorance, read or heard certain new
opinions respecting baptism, the marriage of the clergy, ordination, the
distinction of days and food, and public penitence, instantly conceive
that these things are to be stiffly maintained and observed. Wherefore,
in my opinion, the discussion of these points ought to be confined to
the initiated, that so the seamless coat of our Lord may not be rent and
torn.... Seeing it is dangerous to treat such things before the
multitude and in public discourses, I must deem it safest to "speak with
the many and think with the few," and to keep in mind the advice of
Paul, "Hast thou faith? Have it to thyself before God."'[12]
[Footnote 12: _C. Calcagnini Opera_, p. 195. I am indebted for the above
version to McCrie's _Reformation in Italy_, p. 183.]
The new religious spirit which I have attempted to characterize as
tinctured by Protestant opinions but disinclined for severance from
Rome, manifested itself about the same time in several groups. One of
them was at Rome, where a society named the Oratory of Divine Love,
including from fifty to sixty members, began to meet as early as the
reign of Leo X. in the Trastevere. This pious association included men
of very various kinds. Sadoleto, Giberto, and Contarini were here in
close intimacy with Gaetano di Thiene, the sainted founder of the
Theatines, and with his friend Caraffa, the founder of the Roman
Inquisition. Venice was the center of another group, among whom may be
mentioned Reginald Pole, Gasparo Contarini, Luigi Priuli, and Antonio
Bruccioli, the translator of the Bible from the original tongues into
Italian. The poet Marcantonio Flaminio became a member of both
societies; and was furthermore the personal friend of the Genoese
Cardinals Sauli and Fregoso, whom we have a right to count among
thinkers of the same class. Flaminio, though he died in the Catholic
communion, was so far suspected of heresy that his works were placed
upon the Index of 1559. In Naples Juan Valdes made himself the leader of
a similar set of men. His views, embodied in the work of a disciple, and
revised by Marcantonio Flaminio, _On the Benefits of Christ's Death_,
revealed strong Lutheran tendencies, which at a later period would
certainly have condemned him to perpetual imprisonment or exile. This
book had a wide circulation in Italy, and was influential in directing
the minds of thoughtful Christians to the problems of Justification. It
was ascribed to Aonio Paleario, who suffered martyrdom at Rome for
maintaining doctrines similar to those of Valdes.[13] Round him gathered
several members of the great Colonna family, notably Vespasiano, Duke of
Palliano, and his wife, the star of Italian beauty, Giulia Gonzaga.
Vittoria Colonna, Marchioness of Pescara, imbibed the new doctrines in
the same circle; and so did Bernardino Ochino. Modena could boast
another association, which met in the house of Grillenzone; while
Ferrara became the headquarters of a still more pronounced reforming
party under the patronage of the Duchess, Renee of France, daughter of
Louis XII. These various societies and coteries were bound together by
ties of friendship and literary correspondence, and were indirectly
connected with less fortunate reforming theologians; with Aonio
Paleario, Bernardino Ochino, Antonio dei Pagliaricci, Carnesecchi, and
others, whose tragic history will form a part of my chapter on the
Inquisition.
[Footnote 13: Though as many as 40,000 copies were published, this book
was so successfully stamped out that it seemed to be irrecoverably lost.
The library of St. John's College at Cambridge, however, contains two
Italian copies and one French copy. That of Laibach possesses an Italian
and a Croat version. Cantu, _Gli Eretici_, vol. i. p. 360.]
It does not fall within the province of this chapter to write an account
of what has, not very appropriately, been called the Reformation in
Italy. My purpose in the present book is, not to follow the fortunes of
Protestantism, but to trace the sequel of the Renaissance, the merging
of its impulse in new phases of European development. I shall therefore
content myself with pointing out that at the opening of Paul III.'s
reign, there was widely diffused throughout the chief Italian cities a
novel spirit of religious earnestness and enthusiasm, which as yet had
taken no determinate direction. This spirit burned most highly in
Gasparo Contarini, who in 1541 was commissioned by the Pope to attend a
conference at Rechensburg for the discussion of terms of reconciliation
with the Lutherans. He succeeded in drawing up satisfactory articles on
the main theological points regarding human nature, original sin,
redemption and justification. These were accepted by the Protestant
theologians at Rechensburg and might possibly have been ratified in
Rome, had not the Congress been broken up by Contarini's total failure
to accommodate differences touching the Pope's supremacy and the
conciliar principle.[14] He made concessions to the Reformers, which
roused the fury of the Roman Curia. At the same time political intrigues
were set on foot in France and Germany to avert a reconciliation which
would have immeasurably strengthened the Emperor's position. The
moderate sections of both parties, Lutheran and Catholic, failed at
Rechensburg. Indeed, it was inevitable that they should fail; for the
breach between the Roman Church and the Reformation was not of a nature
to be healed over at this date. Principles were involved which could not
now be harmonized, and both parties in the dispute were on the point of
developing their own forces with fresh internal vigor.
[Footnote 14: It should be observed, however, that Luther rejected the
article on justification, and that Caraffa in Rome used his influence to
prevent its acceptance by Paul III.]
The Italians who desired reform of the Church were now thrown back upon
the attempt to secure this object within the bosom of Catholicism. At
the request of Paul III. they presented a memorial on ecclesiastical
abuses, which was signed by Contarini, Caraffa, Sadoleto, Pole, Fregoso,
Giberto, Cortese and Aleander. These Cardinals did not spare plain
speech upon the burning problem of Papal misgovernment.
Meanwhile, the new spirit began to manifest itself in the foundation of
orders and institutions tending to purification of Church discipline.
The most notable of these was the order of Theatines established by
Thiene and Caraffa. Its object was to improve the secular priesthood,
with a view to which end seminaries were opened for the education of
priests, who took monastic vows and devoted themselves to special
observance of their clerical duties, as preachers, administrators of the
sacraments, visitors of the poor and sick.
A Venetian, Girolamo Miani, at the same period founded a congregation,
called the Somascan, for the education of the destitute and orphaned,
and for the reception of the sick and infirm into hospitals. The
terrible state in which Lombardy had been left by war rendered this
institution highly valuable. Of a similar type was the order of the
Barnabites, who were first incorporated at Milan, charged with the
performance of acts of mercy, education, preaching, and other forms of
Christian ministration. It may be finally added that the Camaldolese and
Franciscan orders had been in part reformed by a spontaneous movement
within their bodies.
If we compare the spirit indicated by these efforts in the first half of
the sixteenth century with that of the earlier Renaissance, it will be
evident that the Italians were ready for religious change. They sink,
however, into insignificance beside two Spanish institutions which about
the same period added their weight and influence to the Catholic
revival. I mean, of course, the Inquisition and the Jesuit order. Paul
III. empowered Caraffa in 1542 to re-establish the Inquisition in Rome
upon a new basis resembling that of the Spanish Holy Office. The same
Pope sanctioned and confirmed the Company of Jesus between the years
1540 and 1543. The establishment of the Inquisition gave vast
disciplinary powers to the Church at the moment when the Council of
Trent fixed her dogmas and proclaimed the absolute authority of the
Popes. At the same time the Jesuits, devoted by their founder in blind
obedience--_perinde ac cadaver_--to the service of the Papacy,
penetrated Italy, Spain, France, Germany, and the transatlantic
colonies.
The Pope who succeeded Clement VII. in 1534 was in all ways fitted to
represent the transition which I have indicated. Alessandro Farnese
sprang from an ancient but decayed family in the neighborhood of
Bolsena, several of whose members had played a foremost part in the
mediaeval revolutions of Orvieto. While still a young man of
twenty-five, he was raised to the Cardinalate by Alexander VI. This
advancement he owed to the influence of his sister Giulia, surnamed La
Bella, who was then the Borgia's mistress. It is characteristic of an
epoch during which the bold traditions of the fifteenth century still
lingered, that the undraped statue of this Giulia (representing Vanity)
was carved for the basement of Paul III.'s monument in the choir of S.
Peter's. The old stock of the Farnesi, once planted in the soil of Papal
corruption at its most licentious period, struck firm roots and
flourished. Alessandro was born in 1468, and received a humanistic
education according to the methods of the earlier Renaissance. He
studied literature with Pomponius Laetus in the Roman Academy, and
frequented the gardens of Lorenzo de'Medici at Florence. His character
and intellect were thus formed under the influences of the classical
revival and of the Pontifical Curia, at a time when pagan morality and
secular policy had obliterated the ideal of Catholic Christianity. His
sister was the Du Barry of the Borgian Court. He was himself the father
of several illegitimate children, whom he acknowledged, and on whose
advancement by the old system of Papal nepotism he spent the best years
of his reign. Both as a patron of the arts and as an elegant scholar in
the Latin and Italian languages, Alessandro showed throughout his life
the effects of this early training. He piqued himself on choice
expression, whenever he was called upon to use the pen in studied
documents, or to answer ambassadors in public audiences. To his taste
and love of splendor Rome owes the Farnese palace. He employed Cellini,
and forced Michelangelo to paint the Last Judgment. On ascending the
Papal throne he complained that this mighty genius had been too long
occupied for Delia Roveres and Medici. When the fresco was finished, he
set the old artist upon his last great task of completing S. Peter's.
So far there was nothing to distinguish Alessandro Farnese from other
ecclesiastics of the Renaissance. As Cardinal he seemed destined, should
he ever attain the Papal dignity, to combine the qualities of the
Borgian and Medicean Pontiffs. But before his elevation to that supreme
height, he lived through the reigns of Julius II., Leo X., Adrian VI.,
and Clement VII. Herein lies the peculiarity of his position as Paul
III. The pupil of Pomponius Laetus, the creature of Roderigo Borgia, the
representative of Italian manners and culture before the age of foreign
invasion had changed the face of Italy, Paul III. was called at the age
of sixty-six to steer the ship of the Church through troubled waters and
in very altered circumstances. He had witnessed the rise and progress of
Protestant revolt in Germany. He had observed the stirrings of a new and
sincere spirit of religious gravity, an earnest desire for
ecclesiastical reform in his own country. He had watched the duel
between France and Spain, during the course of which his predecessors
Alexander V. and Julius II. restored the secular authority of Rome. He
had seen that authority humbled to the dust in 1527, and miraculously
rehabilitated at Bologna in 1530. He had learned by the example of the
Borgias how difficult it was for any Papal family to found a substantial
principality; and the vicissitudes of Florence and Urbino had confirmed
this lesson. Finally, he had assisted at the coronation of Charles V.;
and when he took the reins of power into his hands, he was well aware
with what a formidable force he had to cope in the great Emperor.
Paul III. knew that the old Papal game of pitting France against Spain
in the peninsula could not be played on the same grand scale as
formerly. This policy had been pursued with results ruinous to Italy but
favorable to the Church, by Julius. It had enabled Leo and Clement to
advance their families at the hazard of more important interests. But in
the reign of the latter Pope it had all but involved the Papacy itself
in the general confusion and desolation of the country. Moreover, France
was no longer an effective match for Spain; and though their struggle
was renewed, the issue was hardly doubtful. Spain had got too firm a
grip upon the land to be cast off.
Yet Paul was a man of the elder generation. It could not be expected
that a Pope of the Renaissance should suddenly abandon the mediaeval
policy of Papal hostility to the Empire, especially when the Empire was
in the hands of so omnipotent a master as Charles. It could not be
expected that he should recognize the wisdom of confining Papal ambition
to ecclesiastical interests, and of forming a defensive and offensive
alliance with Catholic sovereigns for the maintenance of absolutism. It
could not be expected that he should forego the pleasures and apparent
profits of creating duchies for his bastards, whereby to dignify his
family and strengthen his personal authority as a temporal sovereign. It
is true that the experience of the last half century had pointed in the
direction of all these changes; and it is certain that the series of
events connected with the Council of Trent, which began in Paul III.'s
reign, rendered them both natural and necessary. Yet Paul, as a man of
the elder generation filling the Papal throne for fifteen years during a
period of transition, adhered in the main to the policy of his
predecessors. It was fortunate for him and for the Holy See that the
basis of his character was caution combined with tough tenacity of
purpose, capacity for dilatory action, diplomatic shiftiness and a
political versatility that can best be described by the word trimming.
These qualities enabled him to pass with safety through perils that
might have ruined a bolder, a hastier, or a franker Pope, and to achieve
the object of his heart's desire, where stronger men had failed, in the
foundation of a solid duchy for his heirs.
Paul's jealousy of the Spanish ascendancy in Italian affairs caused him
to waver between the Papal and Imperial, Guelf and Ghibelline, parties.
These names had lost much of their significance; but the habit of
distinction into two camps was so rooted in Italian manners, that each
city counted its antagonistic factions, maintained by various forms of
local organization and headed by the leading families.[15] Burigozzo,
under the year 1517, tells how the whole population of Milan was divided
between Guelfs and Ghibellines, wearing different costumes; and it is
not uncommon to read of petty nobles in the country at this period, who
were styled Captains of one or the other party.
[Footnote 15: See Bruno's _Cena delle Ceneri_, ed. Wagner, vol. i. p.
133, for a humorous story illustrative of the state of things ensuing
among the lower Italian classes.]
The wars between France and Spain revived the almost obsolete dispute,
which the despots of the fifteenth century and the diplomatic
confederation of the five great powers had tended in large measure to
erase. The Guelfs and Ghibellines were now partisans of France and
Spain respectively. Thus a true political importance was regained for
the time-honored factions; and in the distracted state of Italy they
were further intensified by the antagonism between exiles and the ruling
families in cities. If Cosimo de'Medici, for example, was a Ghibelline
or Spanish partisan, it followed as a matter of course that Filippo
Strozzi was a Guelf and stood for France. Paul III. managed to maintain
himself by manipulating these factions and holding the balance between
them for the advantage of his family and of the Church.
He thus succeeded in creating the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza for his
son, Pier Luigi Farnese, that outrageous representative of the worst
vices and worst violences of the Renaissance. It will be remembered that
Julius had detached these two cities from the Duchy of Milan, and
annexed them to the Papal States, on the plea that they formed part of
the old Exarchate of Ravenna. When Charles decided against this plea in
the matter of Modena and Reggio, he left the Church in occupation of
Parma and Piacenza. Paul created his son Duke of Nepi and Castro in
1537, and afterwards conferred the Duchy of Camerino on his grandson,
Ottavio, who was then married to Margaret of Austria, daughter of
Charles V., and widow of the murdered Alessandro de'Medici. The usual
system of massacre, exile, and confiscation had reduced the signorial
family of the Varani at Camerino to extremities. The fief reverted to
the Church, and Paul induced the Cardinals to sanction his investiture
of Ottavio Farnese with its rights and honors. He subsequently explained
to them that it would be more profitable for the Holy See to retain
Camerino and to relinquish Parma and Piacenza to the Farnesi in
exchange. There was sense in this arrangement; for Camerino formed an
integral part of the Papal States, while Parma and Piacenza were held
under a more than doubtful title. Pier Luigi did not long survive his
elevation to the dukedom of Parma. He was murdered by his exasperated
subjects in 1547. His son, Ottavio, with some difficulty, maintained his
hold upon this principality, until in 1559 he established himself and
his heirs, with the approval of Philip II., in its perpetual enjoyment.
The Farnesi repaid Spanish patronage by constant service, Alessandro,
Prince of Parma, and son of Ottavio, being illustrious in the annals of
the Netherlands. It would not have been worth while to enlarge on this
foundation of the Duchy of Parma, had it not furnished an excellent
example of my theme. By this act Paul III. proved himself a true and
able inheritor of those political traditions by which all Pontiffs from
Sixtus IV. to Clement VII. had sought to establish their relatives in
secular princedoms. It was the last eminent exhibition of that policy,
the last and the most brilliant display of nepotistical ambition in a
Pope. A new age had opened, in which such schemes became
impossible--when Popes could no longer dare to acknowledge and
legitimize their bastards, and when they had to administer their
dominions exclusively for the temporal and ecclesiastical aggrandizement
of the tiara.
Nevertheless, Paul was living under the conditions which brought this
modern attitude of the Papacy into potent actuality. He was surrounded
by intellectual and moral forces of recent growth but of incalculable
potency. One of the first acts of his reign was to advance six members
of the moderate reforming party--Sadoleto, Pole, Giberto, Federigo,
Fregoso, Gasparo Contarini, and G.M. Caraffa--to the Cardinalate. By
this exercise of power he showed his willingness to recognize new
elements of very various qualities in the Catholic hierarchy. Five of
these men represented opinions which at the moment of their elevation to
the purple had a fair prospect of ultimate success. Imbued with a
profound sense of the need for ecclesiastical reform, and tinctured more
or less deeply with so-called Protestant opinions, they desired nothing
more intensely than a reconstitution of the Catholic Church upon a basis
which might render reconciliation with the Lutherans practicable. They
had their opportunity during the pontificate of Paul III. It was a
splendid one; and, as I have already shown, the Conference of
Rechensburg only just failed in securing the end they so profoundly
desired. But the Papacy was not prepared to concede so much as they were
anxious to grant: the German Reformers proved intractable; they were
themselves impeded by their loyalty to antique Catholic traditions, and
by their dread of a schism; finally, the militant expansive force of
Spanish orthodoxy, expressing itself already in the concentrated energy
of the Jesuit order, rendered attempts at fusion impossible. The victory
in Rome remained with the faction of _intransigeant_ Catholics; and
this was represented, in Paul III.'s first creation of Cardinals, by
Caraffa. Caraffa was destined to play a singular part in the transition
period of Papal history which I am reviewing. He belonged as essentially
to the future as Alessandro Farnese belonged to the past. He embodied
the spirit of the Inquisition, and upheld the principles of
ecclesiastical reform upon the narrow basis of Papal absolutism. He
openly signalized his disapproval of Paul's nepotism; and when his time
for ruling came, he displayed a remorseless spirit of justice without
mercy in dealing with his own family. Yet he hated the Spanish
ascendancy with a hatred far more fierce and bitter than that of Paul
III. His ineffectual efforts to shake off the yoke of Philip II. was the
last spasm of the older Papal policy of resistance to temporal
sovereigns, the last appeal made in pursuance of that policy to France
by an Italian Pontiff.[16]
[Footnote 16: Paul IV. as Pope was feeble compared with his
predecessors, Julius II. and Leo X.; the Guises, on whom he relied for
resuscitating the old French party in the South, were but
half-successful adventurers, mere shadows of the Angevine invaders whom
they professed to represent.]
The object of this excursion into the coming period is to show in how
deep a sense Paul III. may be regarded as the beginner of a new era,
while he was at the same time the last continuator of the old. The
Cardinals whom he promoted on his accession included the chief of those
men who strove in vain for a concordat between Rome and Reformation; it
also included the man who stamped Rome with the impress of the
Counter-Reformation. Yet Caraffa would not have had the fulcrum needed
for this decisive exertion of power, had it not been for another act of
Paul's reign. This was the convening of a Council at Trent. Paul's
attitude toward the Council, which he summoned with reluctance, which he
frustrated as far as in him lay, and the final outcome of which he was
far from anticipating, illustrates in a most decisive manner his destiny
as Pope of the transition.
The very name of a Council was an abomination to the Papacy. This will
be apparent if we consider the previous history of the Church during the
first half of the fifteenth century, when the conciliar authority was
again invoked to regulate the Papal See and to check Papal encroachments
on the realms and Churches of the Western nations. The removal of the
Papal Court to Avignon, the great schism which resulted from this
measure, and the dissent which spread from England to Bohemia at the
close of the fourteenth century, rendered it necessary that the
representative powers of Christendom should combine for the purpose of
restoring order in the Church. Four main points lay before the powers of
Europe, thus brought for the first time into deliberative and
confederated congress to settle questions that vitally concerned them.
The most immediately urgent was the termination of the schism, and the
appointment of one Pope, who should represent the mediaeval idea of
ecclesiastical face to face with imperial unity. The second was the
definition of the indeterminate and ever-widening authority which the
Popes asserted over the kingdoms and the Churches of the West. The third
was the eradication of heresies which were rending Christendom asunder
and threatening to destroy that ideal of unity in creed to which the
Middle Ages clung with not unreasonable passion. The fourth was a reform
of the Church, considered as a vital element of Western Christendom, in
its head and in its members.
The programme, very indistinctly formulated by the most advanced
thinkers of the age, and only gradually developed by practice into
actuality, was a vast one. It involved the embitterment of national
jealousies, the accentuation of national characteristics, and the
complication of antagonistic principles regarding secular and
ecclesiastical government, which rendered a complete and satisfactory
solution well-nigh impracticable. The effort to solve these problems
had, however, important influence in creating conditions under which the
politico-religious struggles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
were conducted.[17]
The first Council, opened at Pisa in 1409, was a congress of prelates
summoned by Cardinals for the conclusion of the schism. It deposed two
Popes, who still continued to assert their titles; it elected a third,
Alexander V., who had no real authority. For the rest, it effected no
reform, and cannot be said to have done much more than to give effect to
those aspirations after Church-government by means of Councils which had
been slowly forming during the continuance of the schism.
The second Council, opened at Constance in 1414, was a Council not
convened by Cardinals, but by the universal demand of Europe that the
advances of the Papacy toward tyranny should be checked, and that the
innumerable abuses of the Church and Papal Curia should be reformed. It
received a different complexion from that of Pisa, through the
presidency of the Emperor and the attendance of representatives from the
chief nations. At Constance the Papacy and the Roman Curia stood
together, exposed to the hostile criticism of Europe. The authority of a
General Council was, after a sharp conflict, decreed superior to that of
the Bishop of Rome. Three Popes were forced to abdicate; and a fourth,
Martin V., was elected.
[Footnote 17: The best account of the Councils will be found in
Professor Creighton's admirable _History of the Papacy during the
Reformation_, 2 vols. Longmans.]
The Council further undertook to deal with heresy and with the reform of
the Church. It discharged the first of these offices by condemning Hus
and Jerome of Prague to the stake. It left the second practically
untouched. Yet the question of reform had been gravely raised, largely
discussed, and fundamentally examined. Two methods were posed at
Constance for the future consideration of earnest thinkers throughout
Europe. One was the way suggested by John Hus; that the Church should be
reconstituted, after a searching analysis of the real bases of Christian
conduct, an appeal to Scripture as the final authority, and a loyal
endeavor to satisfy the spiritual requirements of individual souls and
consciences. The second plan was that of inquiry into the existing order
of the Church and detailed amendment of its flagrant faults, with
preservation of the main system. The Council adopted satisfactory
measures of reform on neither of these methods. It contented itself with
stipulations and concordats, guaranteeing special privileges to the
Churches of the several nations. But in the following century it became
manifest that the Teutonic races had declared for the method suggested
by Hus; while the Latin races, in the Council of Trent, undertook a
purgation of the Church upon the second of the two plans. The
Reformation was the visible outcome of the one, the Counter-Reformation
of the other method.
The Council of Constance was thus important in causing the recognition
of a single Pope, and in ventilating the divergent theories upon which
the question of reform was afterwards to be disputed. But perhaps the
most significant fact it brought into relief was the new phase of
political existence into which the European races had entered.
Nationality, as the main principle of modern history, was now
established; and the diplomatic relations of sovereigns as the
representatives of peoples were shown to be of overwhelming weight. The
visionary mediaeval polity of Emperor and Pope faded away before the
vivid actuality of full-formed individual nations, federally connected,
controlled by common but reciprocally hostile interests.[18]
The Council of Basel, opened in 1431, was in appearance a continuation
of the Council of Constance. But its method of procedure ran counter to
the new direction which had been communicated to European federacy by
the action of the Constance congress. There the votes had been taken by
nations. At Basel they were taken by men, after the questions to be
decided had been previously discussed by special congregations and
committees deputed for preliminary deliberations. It soon appeared that
the fathers of the Basel Council aimed at opposing a lawfully-elected
Pope, and sought to assume the, administration of the Church into their
own hands.
[Footnote 18: See above, p. 2, for the special sense in which I apply
the word federation to Italy before 1530, and to Europe at large in the
modern period.]
Their struggle with Eugenius IV., their election of an antipope, Felix
V., and their manifest tendency to substitute oligarchical for Papal
tyranny in the Church, had the effect of bringing the conciliar
principle itself into disfavor with the European powers. The first
symptom of this repudiation of the Council by Europe was shown in the
neutrality proclaimed by Germany. The attitude of other Courts and
nations proved that the Western races were for the moment prepared to
leave the Papal question open on the basis supplied by the Council of
Constance.
The result of this failure of the conciliar principle at Basel was that
Nicholas V. inaugurated a new age for the Papacy in Rome. I have already
described the chief features of the Papal government from his election
to the death of Clement VII. It was a period of unexampled splendor for
the Holy See, and of substantial temporal conquests. The second Council
of Pisa, which began its sittings, in 1511 under French sanction and
support, exercised no disastrous influence over the restored powers and
prestige of the Papacy. On the contrary, it gave occasion for a
counter-council, held at the Lateran under the auspices of Julius II.
and Leo X., in which the Popes established several points of
ecclesiastical discipline that were not without value to their
successors. But the leaven which had been scattered by Wyclif and Hus,
of which the Council of Constance had taken cognizance, but which had
not been extirpated, was spreading in Germany throughout this period.
The Popes themselves were doing all in their power to propagate dissent
and discontent. Well aware of the fierce light cast by the new learning
they had helped to disseminate, upon the dark places of their own
ecclesiastical administration, they still continued to raise money by
the sale of pardons and indulgences, to bleed their Christian flocks by
monstrous engines of taxation, and to offend the conscience of an
intelligent generation by their example of ungodly living. The
Reformation ran like wild-fire through the North. It grew daily more
obvious that a new Council must be summoned for carrying out measures of
internal reform, and for coping with the forces of belligerent
Protestantism. When things had reached this point, Charles V. declared
his earnest desire that the Pope should summon a General Council. Paul
III. now showed in how true a sense he was the man of a transitional
epoch. So long as possible he resisted, remembering to what straits his
predecessors had been reduced by previous Councils, and being deeply
conscious of scandals in his own domestic affairs which might expose him
to the fate of a John XXIII. Reviewing the whole series of events which
have next to be recorded, we are aware that Paul had no great cause for
agitation. The Council he so much dreaded was destined to exalt his
office, and to recombine the forces of Catholic Christendom under the
absolute supremacy of his successors. The Inquisition and the Company
of Jesus, both of which he sanctioned at this juncture, were to guard,
extend, and corroborate that supreme authority. But this was by no means
apparent in 1540. It is a character of all transitional periods that in
them the cautious men regard past precedents of peril rather than
sanguine expectations based on present chances. A hero, in such passes,
goes to meet the danger armed with his own cause and courage. A genius
divines the future, and interprets it, and through interpretation tries
to govern it. Paul was neither a hero nor a man of genius. Yet he did as
much as either could have done; and he did it in a temper which perhaps
the hero and the genius could not have commanded. He sent Legates to
publish the opening of a Council at Trent in the spring of 1545; and he
resolved to work this Council on the principles of diplomatical
conservatism, reserving for himself the power of watching events and of
enlarging or restricting its efficiency as might seem best to him.[19]
[Footnote 19: The first official opening of the Council at Trent was in
November 1542, by Cardinals Pole and Morone as Legates. It was adjourned
in July, 1543, on account of insufficient attendance. When it again
opened in 1545, Pole reappeared as Legate. With him were associated two
future Popes, Giov. Maria del Monte (Julius III.), and Marcello Cervini
(Marcellus II.) The first session of the Council took place in December,
1545, four Cardinals, four Archbishops, twenty-one Bishops, and five
Generals of Orders attending. Among these were only five Spanish and two
French prelates; no German, unless we count Cristoforo Madrazzo, the
Cardinal Bishop of Trent, as one. No Protestants appeared; for Paul III.
had successfully opposed their ultimatum, which demanded that final
appeal on all debated points should be made to the sole authority of
Holy Scripture.]
It is singular that the Council thus reluctantly conceded by Paul III.
should, during its first sessions and while he yet reigned, have
confirmed the dogmatic foundations of modern Catholicism, made
reconciliation with the Teutonic Reformers impossible, and committed the
secular powers which held with Rome to a policy that rendered the Papal
supremacy incontestable.[20] Face to face with the burning question of
the Protestant rebellion, the Tridentine fathers hastened to confirm the
following articles. First, they declared that divine revelation was
continuous in the Church of which the Pope was head; and that the chief
written depository of this revelation--namely, the Scriptures--had no
authority except in the version of the Vulgate.
[Footnote 20: Throughout the sessions of the Council, Spanish, French,
and German representatives, whether fathers or ambassadors, maintained
the theory of Papal subjection to conciliar authority. The Spanish and
French were unanimous in zeal for episcopal independence. The French and
German were united in a wish to favor Protestants by reasonable
concessions. Thus the Papal supremacy had to face serious antagonism,
which it eventually conquered by the numerical preponderance of the
Italian prelates, by the energy of the Jesuits, by diplomatic intrigues,
and by manipulation of discords in the opposition. Though the Spanish
fathers held with the French and German on the points of episcopal
independence and conciliar authority, they disagreed whenever it became
a question of compromise with Protestants upon details of dogma or
ritual. The Papal Court persuaded the Catholic sovereigns of Spain and
France, and the Emperor, that episcopal independence would be dangerous
to their own prerogatives; and at every inconvenient turn in affairs, it
was made clear that Catholic sovereigns, threatened by the Protestant
revolution, could not afford to separate their cause from that of the
Pope.]
Secondly, they condemned the doctrine of Justification by Faith, adding
such theological qualifications and reservations as need not, at this
distance of time, and on a point devoid of present actuality, be
scrupulously entertained. Thirdly, they confirmed the efficacy and the
binding authority of the Seven Sacraments. It is thus clear that, on
points of dogma, the Council convened by Pope and Emperor committed
Latin Christianity to a definite repudiation of the main articles for
which Luther had contended. Each of these points they successively
traversed, foreclosing every loophole for escape into accommodation. It
was in large measure due to Caraffa's energy and ability that these
results were attained.
The method of procedure adopted by the Council, and the temper in which
its business was conducted, were no less favorable to the Papacy than
the authoritative sanction which it gave to dogmas. From the first, the
presidency and right of initiative in its sessions were conceded to the
Papal Legates; and it soon became customary to refer decrees, before
they were promulgated, to his Holiness in Rome for approval. The decrees
themselves were elaborated in three congregations, one appointed for
theological questions, the second for reforms, the third for supervision
and ratification. They were then proposed for discussion and acceptance
in general sessions of the Council. Here each vote told; and as there
was a standing majority of Italian prelates, it required but little
dexterity to secure the passing of any measure upon which the Court of
Rome insisted. The most formidable opposition to the Papal prerogatives
during these manoeuvres proceeded from the Spanish bishops, who urged
the introduction of reforms securing the independence of the episcopacy.
We find a remarkable demonstration of Paul III.'s difficulties as Pope
of the transition, in the fact that while the Council of Trent was
waging this uncompromising war against Reformers, his dread of Charles
V. compelled him to suspend its sessions, transfer it to Bologna, and
declare himself the political ally of German Protestants. This
transference took place in 1547. His Legates received orders to invent
some decent excuse for a step which would certainly be resisted, since
Bologna was a city altogether subject to the Holy See. The Legates, by
the connivance of the physicians in Trent, managed to create a panic of
contagious epidemic.[21] Charles had won victories which seemed to place
Germany at his discretion. His preponderance in Italy was thereby
dangerously augmented. Paul, following the precedents of policy in which
he had been bred, thought it at this crisis necessary to subordinate
ecclesiastical to temporal interests. He interrupted the proceedings of
the Council in order to hamper the Emperor in Germany. He encouraged the
Northern Protestants in order that he might maintain an open issue in
the loins of his Spanish rival. Nothing could more delicately illustrate
the complications of European politics than the inverted attitude
assumed by the Roman Pontiff in his dealings with a Catholic Emperor at
this moment of time.[22]
[Footnote 21: See Sarpi, p. 249.]
[Footnote 22: Charles, at this juncture, was checkmated by Paul through
his own inability to dispense with the Pope's co-operation as chief of
the Catholic Church. So long as he opposed the Reformation, it was
impossible for him to assume an attitude of violent hostility to Rome.]
The opposition of the Farnesi to Paul's scheme for restoring Parma to
the Holy See in 1549, broke Paul III.'s health and spirits. He died on
November 10, and was succeeded by the Cardinal Giovanni Maria del Monte,
of whose reign little need be said. Julius III. removed the Council from
Bologna to Trent in 1551, where it made some progress in questions
touching the Eucharist and the administration of episcopal sees; but in
the next year its sessions were suspended, owing to the disturbed state
of Southern Germany and the presence of a Protestant army under Maurice
of Saxony in the Tyrol.[23] This Pope passed his time agreeably and
innocently enough in the villa which he built near the Porta del Popolo.
His relatives were invested with several petty fiefs--that of their
birthplace, Monte Sansovino, by Cosimo de'Medici; that of Novara by the
Emperor, and that of Camerino by the Church. The old methods of Papal
nepotism were not as yet abandoned. His successor, Marcello II.,
survived his elevation only three weeks; and in May 1555, Giovanni
Pietro Caraffa was elected, with the title of Paul IV. We have already
made the acquaintance of this Pope as a member of the Oratory of Divine
Love, as a co-founder of the Theatines, as the organizer of the Roman
Inquisition, and as a leader in the first sessions of the Tridentine
Council. Paul IV. sprang from a high and puissant family of Naples. He
was a man of fierce, impulsive and uncompromising temper, animated by
two ruling passions--burning hatred for the Spaniards who were trampling
on his native land, and ecclesiastical ambition intensified by rigid
Catholic orthodoxy. The first act of his reign was a vain effort to
expel the Spaniards from Italy by resorting to the old device of French
assistance. The abdication of Charles V. had placed Philip II. on the
throne of Spain, and the settlement whereby the Imperial crown passed to
his brother Ferdinand had substituted a feeble for a powerful Emperor.
But Philip's disengagement from the cares of Germany left him more at
liberty to maintain his preponderance in Southern Europe. It was
fortunate for Paul IV. that Philip was a bigoted Catholic and a
superstitiously obedient son of the Church. These two potentates,
who began to reign in the same year, were destined, after the
settlement of their early quarrel, to lead and organize the Catholic
Counter-Reformation. The Duke of Guise at the Pope's request marched a
French army into Italy. Paul raised a body of mercenaries, who were
chiefly German Protestants[24]; and opened negotiations with Soliman,
entreating the Turk to make a descent on Sicily by sea. Into such a
fantastically false position was the Chief of the Church, the most
Catholic of all her Pontiffs, driven by his jealous patriotism. We seem
to be transported back into the times of a Sixtus IV. or an Alexander
VI. And in truth, Paul's reversion to the antiquated Guelf policy of his
predecessors was an anachronism. That policy ceased to be efficient when
Francis I. signed the Treaty of Cambray; the Church, too, had gradually
assumed such a position that armed interference in the affairs of
secular sovereigns was suicidal. This became so manifest that Paul's
futile attack on Philip in 1556 may be reckoned the last war raised by a
Pope. From it we date the commencement of a new system of Papal
co-operation with Catholic powers.
[Footnote 23: During the brief and unimportant sessions at Bologna,
Jesuit influences began to make themselves decidedly felt in the
Council, where Lainez and Salmeron attended as Theologians of the Papal
See. Up to this time the Dominicans had shaped decrees. Dogmatic
orthodoxy was secured by their means. Now the Jesuits were to fight and
win the battle of Papal Supremacy.]
[Footnote 24: Sarpi, quoted in his Life by Fra Fulgenzio, p. 83, says
Paul called his Grisons mercenaries 'Angels sent from Heaven.']
The Duke of Alva put the forces at his disposal in the Two Sicilies into
motion, and advanced to meet the Duke of Guise. But while the campaign
dragged on, Philip won the decisive battle of S. Quentin. The Guise
hurried back to France, and Alva marched unresisted upon Rome. There was
no reason why the Eternal City should not have been subjected to another
siege and sack. The will was certainly not wanting in Alva to humiliate
the Pope, who never spoke of Spaniards but as renegade Jews, Marrani,
heretics, and personifications of pride. Philip, however, wrote
reminding his general that the date of his birth (1527) was that of
Rome's calamity, and vowing that he would not signalize the first year
of his reign by inflicting fresh miseries upon the capital of
Christendom. Alva was ordered to make peace on terms both honorable and
advantageous to his Holiness; since the King of Spain preferred to lose
the rights of his own crown rather than to impair those of the Holy See
in the least particular. Consequently, when Alva entered Rome in
peaceful pomp, he did homage for his master to the Pope, who was
generously willing to absolve him for his past offences. Paul IV.
publicly exulted in the abasement of his conquerors, declaring that it
would teach kings in future the obedience they owed to the Chief of the
Church. But Alva did not conceal his discontent. It would have been
better, he said, to have sent the Pope to sue for peace and pardon at
Brussels, than to allow him to obtain the one and grant the other on
these terms.
Paul's ambition to expel the Spaniards from Italy exposed him to the
worst abuses of that Papal nepotism which he had denounced in others. He
judged it necessary to surround himself with trusty and powerful agents
of his own kindred.[25]
[Footnote 25: New men--and Popes were always _novi homines_--are
compelled to take this course, and suffer when they take it. We might
compare their difficulties with those which hampered Napoleon when he
aspired to the Imperial tyranny over French conquests in Europe.]
With that view he raised one of his nephews, Carlo, to the Cardinalate,
and bestowed on two others the principal fiefs of the Colonna family.
The Colonnas were by tradition Ghibelline. This sufficed for depriving
them of Palliano and Montebello. Carlo Caraffa, who obtained the
scarlet, had lived a disreputable life which notoriously unfitted him
for any ecclesiastical dignity. In the days of Sixtus and Alexander this
would have been no bar to his promotion. But the Church was rapidly
undergoing a change; and Carlo, complying with the hypocritical spirit
of his age, found it convenient to affect a thorough reformation, and to
make open show of penitence. Rome now presented the singular spectacle
of an inquisitorial Pope, unimpeachable in moral conduct and zealous for
Church reform, surrounded by nephews who were little better than
Borgias. The Caraffas began to dream of principalities and scepters. It
was their ambition to lay hold on Florence, where Cosimo de'Medici, as
a pronounced ally of Spain, had gained the bitter hatred of their uncle.
But their various misdoings, acts of violence and oppression, avarice
and sensuality, gradually reached the ears of the Pope. In an assembly
of the Inquisition, held in January 1559, he cried aloud, 'Reform!
reform! reform!' Cardinal Pacheco, a determined foe of the Caraffeschi,
raised his voice, and said, 'Holy Father! reform must first begin with
us.' Pallavicini adds the remark that Paul understood well who was meant
by _us_. He immediately retired to his apartments, instituted a
searching inquiry into the conduct of his nephews, and, before the month
was out, deprived them of all their offices and honors, and banished
them from Rome. He would not hear a word in their defence; and when
Cardinal Farnese endeavored to procure a mitigation of their sentence,
he brutally replied, 'If Paul III. had shown the same justice, your
father would not have been murdered and mutilated in the streets of
Piacenza.' In open consistory, before the Cardinals and high officials
of his realm, with tears streaming from his eyes, he exposed the evil
life of his relatives, declared his abhorrence of them, and protested
that he had dwelt in perfect ignorance of their crimes until that time.
This scene recalls a similar occasion, when Alexander VI. bewailed
himself aloud before his Cardinals after the murder of the Duke of
Gandia by Cesare. But Alexander's repentance was momentary; his grief
was that of a father for Absalom; his indignation gave way to paternal
weakness for the fratricide. Paul, though his love for his relatives
seems to have been fervent, never relaxed his first severity against
them. They were buried in oblivion; no one uttered their names in the
Pope's presence. The whole secular administration of the Papal States
was changed; not an official kept his place. For the first time Rome was
governed by ministers in no way related to the Holy Father.
Paul now turned his attention, with the fiery passion that
distinguished him, to the reformation of ecclesiastical abuses. On his
accession he had published a Bull declaring that this would be a
principal object of his reign. Nor had he in the midst of other
occupations forgotten his engagement. A Congregation specially appointed
for examining, classifying, and remedying such abuses had been
established. It was divided into three committees, consisting of eight
Cardinals, fifteen prelates, and fifty men of learning. At the same time
the Inquisition was rigorously maintained. Paul extended its
jurisdiction, empowered it to use torture, and was constant in his
attendance on its meetings and _autos da fe_.[26] But now that his plans
for the expulsion of the Spaniards had failed, and his nephews had been
hurled from their high station into the dust, there remained no other
interest to distract his mind. Every day witnessed the promulgation of
some new edict touching monastic discipline, simony, sale of offices,
collation to benefices, church ritual, performance of clerical duties,
and appointment to ecclesiastical dignities. It was his favorite boast
that there would be no need of a Council to restore the Church to
purity, since he was doing it.[27]
[Footnote 26: Pallavicini, in his history of the Council of Trent (Lib.
xiv. ix. 5), specially commends Paul's zeal for the Holy Office:--'Fra
esse d'eterna lode lo fa degno il tribunal dell'inquisizione, che dal
zelo di lui e prima in autorita di consigliero e poscia in podesta di
principe riconosce il presente suo vigor nell'Italia, e dal quale
riconosce l'Italia la sua conservata integrita della fede: e per quest'
opera salutare egli rimane ora tanto piu benemerito ed onorabile quantao
piu allora ne fu mal rimerilato e disonorato.']
[Footnote 27: See Luigi Mocenigo in _Rel. degli Amb. Veneti_, vol. x. p.
25.] And indeed his measures formed the nucleus of the Tridentine
decrees upon this topic in the final sessions of the Council. Under this
government Rome assumed an air of exemplary behavior which struck
foreigners with mute astonishment. Cardinals were compelled to preach in
their basilicas. The Pope himself, who was vain of his eloquence,
preached. Gravity of manners, external signs of piety, a composed and
contrite face, ostentation of orthodoxy by frequent confession and
attendance at the Mass, became fashionable; and the Court adopted for
its motto the _Si non caste tamen caute_ of the Counter-Reformation.[28]
Aretino, with his usual blackguardly pointedness of expression, has
given a hint of what the new _regime_ implied in the following satiric
lines:--
Carafla, ipocrita infingardo,
Che tien per coscienza spirituale
Quando si mette del pepe in sul cardo.
Paul IV. brought the first period of the transition to an end. There
were no attempts at dislodging the Spaniard, no Papal wars, no tyranny
of Papal nephews converted into feudal princes, after his days. He
stamped Roman society with his own austere and bigoted religion. That he
was in any sense a hypocrite is wholly out of the question. But he made
Rome hypocritical, and by establishing the Inquisition on a firm basis,
he introduced a reign of spiritual terror into Italy.
[Footnote 28: 'Roma a paragone delli tempi degli altri pontefici si
poteva riputar come un onesto monasterio di religiosi' (_op. cit._ p.
41).]
At his death the people rose in revolt, broke into the dungeons of the
Inquisition, released the prisoners, and destroyed the archives. The
Holy Office was restored, however; and its higher posts of trust soon
came to be regarded as stepping-stones to the Pontifical dignity.
The successor of Paul IV. was a man of very different quality and
antecedents. Giovanni Angelo Medici sprang, not from the Florentine
house of Medici, but from an obscure Lombard stem. His father acquired
some wealth by farming the customs in Milan; and his eldest brother,
Gian Giacomo, pushed his way to fame, fortune, and a title by piracy
upon the lake of Como.[29] Gian Giacomo established himself so securely
in his robber fortress of Musso that he soon became a power to reckon
with. He then entered the imperial service, was created Marquis of
Marignano by the Duke of Milan, and married a lady of the Orsini house,
the sister of the Duchess of Parma. At a subsequent period he succeeded
in subduing Siena to the rule of Cosimo de'Medici, who then
acknowledged a pretended consanguinity between the two families.[30] The
younger brother, Giovanni Angelo, had meanwhile been studying law,
practising as a jurist, and following the Court at Rome in the place of
prothonotary which, as the custom then was, he purchased in 1527. Paul
III. observed him, took him early into favor, and on the marriage of
Gian Giacomo, advanced him to the Cardinalate. This was the man who
assumed the title of Pius IV. on his election to the Papacy in 1559.
[Footnote 29: In my _Sketches and Studies in Italy_ I have narrated the
romantic history of this filibuster.]
[Footnote 30: Soranzo: Alberi, vol. x. p. 67. Pius IV. adopted the arms
of the Florentine Medici, and spent 30,000 scudi on carving them about
through Rome. See P. Tiepolo, _Ib._ p. 174.]
Paul IV. hated Cardinal Medici, and drove him away from Rome. It is
probable that this antipathy contributed something to Giovanni Angelo's
elevation. Of humble Lombard blood, a jurist and a worldling, pacific in
his policy, devoted to Spanish interests, cautious and conciliatory in
the conduct of affairs, ignorant of theology and indifferent to niceties
of discipline, Pius IV. was at all points the exact opposite of the
fiery Neapolitan noble, the Inquisitor and fanatic, the haughty trampler
upon kings, the armed antagonist of Alva, the brusque, impulsive
autocrat, the purist of orthodoxy, who preceded him upon the Papal
throne.[31] His trusted counselor was Cardinal Morone, whom Paul had
thrown into the dungeons of the Inquisition on a charge of favoring
Lutheran opinions, and who was liberated by the rabble in their
fury.[32]
[Footnote 31: 'Veramente quasi in ogni parte si puo chiamare il rovescio
dell' altro' (_op. cit._ p. 50).]
[Footnote 32: Luigi Mocenigo says of him that Pius 'averlo per un angelo
di paradiso, e adoperandolo per consiglio in tutte le sue cose
importanti.' Alberi, vol. x. p. 40. The case made out against Morone
during the pontificate of Paul IV. may be studied in Cantu, _op. cit._
vol. ii. pp. 171-192, together with his defence in full. It turned
mainly on these articles:--unsound opinions regarding justification by
faith, salvation by Christ's blood, good works, invocation of saints,
reliques; dissemination of the famous book on the _Benefits of Christ's
Death_; practice with heretics. He was imprisoned in the Castle of S.
Angelo from June, 1557 till August, 1559. Suspicions no doubt fell on
him through his friendship with several of the moderate reformers, and
from the fact that his diocese of Modena was a nest of liberal
thinkers--the Grillenzoni, Castelvetro, Filippo Valentini, Faloppio,
Camillo Molza, Francesco da Porto, Egidio Foscarari, and others, all of
whom are described by Cantu, _op. cit._ Disc, xxviii. The charges
brought against these persons prove at once the mainly speculative and
innocuous character of Italian heresy, and the implacable enmity which a
Pope of Caraffa's stamp exercised against the slightest shadow of
heterodoxy.]
This in itself was significant of the new _regime_ which now began in
Rome. Morone, like his master, understood that the Church could best be
guided by diplomacy and arts of peace. The two together brought the
Council of Trent to that conclusion which left an undisputed sovereignty
in theological and ecclesiastical affairs to the Papacy. It would have
been impossible for a man of Caraffa's stamp to achieve what these
sagacious temporizers and adroit managers effected.
Without advancing the same arrogant claims to spiritual supremacy as
Paul had made, Pius was by no means a feeble Pontiff. He knew that the
temper of the times demanded wise concessions; but he also knew how to
win through these concessions the reality of power. It was he who
initiated and firmly followed the policy of alliance between the Papacy
and the Catholic sovereigns.[33] Instead of asserting the interests of
the Church in antagonism to secular potentates, he undertook to prove
that their interests were identical. Militant Protestantism threatened
the civil no less than the ecclesiastical order. The episcopacy
attempted to liberate itself from monarchical and pontifical authority
alike. Pius proposed to the autocrats of Europe a compact for mutual
defence, divesting the Holy See of some of its privileges, but requiring
in return the recognition of its ecclesiastical absolutism. In all
difficult negotiations he was wont to depend upon himself; treating his
counselors as agents rather than as peers, and holding the threads of
diplomacy in his own hands. Thus he was able to transact business as a
sovereign with sovereigns, and came to terms with them by means of
personal correspondence. The reconstruction of Catholic Christendom,
which took visible shape in the decrees of the Tridentine Council, was
actually settled in the Courts of Spain, Austria, France and Rome. The
Fathers of the Council were the mouthpieces of royal and Papal cabinets.
The Holy Ghost, to quote a profane satire of the time, reached Trent in
the despatch-bags of couriers, in the sealed instructions issued to
ambassadors and legates.
[Footnote 33: Soranzo, _op. cit._ p. 75, says: 'Con li principi tiene
modo affatto contrario al suo predecessore; perche mentre quello usava
dire, il grado dei pontefici esser per mettersi sotto i piedi
gl'imperatori e i re, questo dice che senza l'autorita dei principi non
si puo conservare quella dei pontefici.']
We observe throughout the negotiations which crowned the policy of this
Pope with success, the operation not only of a pacific and far-seeing
character, but also of the temper of a lawyer. Pius drew up the
Tridentine decrees as an able conveyancer draws up a complicated deed,
involving many trusts, recognizing conflicting rights, providing for
distant contingencies. It was in fact the marriage contract of
ecclesiastical and secular absolutism, by which the estates of Catholic
Christendom were put in trust and settlement for posterity. In
formulating its terms the Pope granted points to which an obstinate or
warlike predecessor, a Julius II. or a Paul IV., would never have
subscribed his signature. In purely theological matters, such as the
concession of the chalice to the laity and the marriage of the clergy,
he was even willing to yield more for the sake of peace than his Court
and clergy would agree to. But for each point he gave, he demanded a
substantial equivalent, and showed such address in bargaining, that Rome
gained far more than it relinquished. When the contract had been
drafted, he ratified it by a full and ready recognition, and lawyer-like
was punctual in executing all the terms to which he pledged himself.
We must credit Pius IV. with keen insight into the new conditions of
Catholic Europe, and recognize him as the real founder of the modern as
distinguished from the mediaeval Papacy. That transition which I have
been describing in the present chapter remained uncertain in its issue
up to his pontificate. Before his death the salvation of Catholicism,
the integrity of the Catholic Church, the solidity of the Roman
hierarchy, and the possibility of a vigorous Counter-Reformation were
placed beyond all doubt.
It is noticeable that these substantial successes were achieved, not by
a religious fanatic, but by a jurist; not by a saint, but by a genial
man of the world; not by force of intellect and will, but by adroitness;
not by masterful authority, but by pliant diplomacy; not by forcing but
by following the current of events. Since Gregory VII., no Pope had done
so much as Pius IV. for bracing the ancient fabric of the Church and
confirming the Papal prerogative. But what a difference there is between
a Hildebrand and a Giovanni Angelo Medici! How Europe had changed, when
a man of the latter's stamp was the right instrument of destiny for
starting the weather-beaten ship of the Church upon a new and prosperous
voyage.
Pius IV. was greatly assisted in his work by circumstances, of which he
knew how to avail himself. Had it not been for the renewed spiritual
activity of Catholicism to which I have alluded in this chapter, he
might not have been able to carry that work through. He took no interest
in theology, and felt no sympathy for the Inquisition.[34] But he
prudently left that institution alone to pursue its function of policing
the ecclesiastical realm. The Jesuits rendered him important assistance
by propagating their doctrine of passive obedience to Rome. Spain
supported him with the massive strength of a nation Catholic to the
core; and when the Spanish prelates gave him trouble, he could rely for
aid upon the Spanish crown. His own independence, as a prudent man of
business, uninfluenced by bigoted prejudices or partialities for any
sect, enabled him to manipulate all resources at his disposal for the
main object of uniting Catholicism and securing Papal supremacy. He was
also fortunate in his family relations, having no occasion to complicate
his policy by nepotism. One of the first acts of his reign had been to
condemn four of the Caraffeschi--Cardinal Caraffa, the Duke of Palliano,
Count Aliffe and Leonardo di Cardine--to death; and this act of justice
ended forever the old forms of domestic ambition which had hampered the
Popes of the Renaissance in their ecclesiastical designs. His brother,
the Marquis of Marignano, died in 1555; and this event opened for him
the path to the Papacy, which he would never have attained in the
lifetime of so grasping and ambitious a man.[35] With his next brother,
Augusto, who succeeded to the marquisate, he felt no sympathy.[36] His
nephew Federigo Borromeo died in youth. His other nephew, Carlo
Borromeo, the sainted Archbishop of Milan, remained close to his person
in Rome.[37] But Carlo Borromeo was a man who personified the new spirit
of Catholicism. Sincerely pious, zealous for the faith, immaculate in
conduct, unwearied in the discharge of diocesan duties, charitable to
the poor, devoted to the sick, he summed up all the virtues of the
Counter-Reformation. Nor had he any of the virtues of the Renaissance. A
Venetian Ambassador described him as cold of political temperament,
little versed in worldly affairs, and perplexed when he attempted to
handle matters of grave moment.[38] His presence at the Papal Court, so
far from being perilous, as that of an ambitious Cardinal Nipote would
have been, or scandalous as that of former Riarios, Borgias, and
Caraffas had undoubtedly been, was a source of strength to Pius. It
imported into his immediate surroundings just what he himself lacked,
and saved him from imputations of worldliness which in the altered
temper of the Church might have proved inconvenient.[39] Truly, among
all Pontiffs who have occupied St. Peter's Chair, Pius IV. deserved in
the close of his life to be called fortunate. He had risen from
obscurity, had entered Rome in humble office at the moment of Rome's
deepest degradation. He had lived through troubled times, and for some
years had felt the whole weight of Catholic concerns upon his shoulders.
At the last, he was conscious of having opened a new era for the Church,
and of being able to transmit a scepter of undisputed authority to his
successors. His death-bed was troubled with no remorse, with no
ingratitude of relatives, with no political complications produced by
family ambition or by the sacrifice of his official duties to personal
aggrandizement.
[Footnote 34: Soranzo, _op. cit._ p. 74.]
[Footnote 35: Soranzo, _op. cit._ p. 71, says: 'II marchese suo fratello
con la moglie gli diede il cappello, e con la morte il papato.']
[Footnote 36: Mocenigo, _op. cit._ p. 52. Soranzo, _op. cit._ p. 93.]
[Footnote 37: Margherita Medici, sister of the Pope, had married
Gilberto Borromeo.]
[Footnote 38: See Mocenigo, _op. cit._ p. 53. Soranzo, _op. cit._ p.
91.]
[Footnote 39: Gia. Soranzo (_op. cit._ p. 133) says of Carlo Borromeo,
'ch'egli solo faccia piu profitto nella Corte di Roma che tutti i
decreti del Concilio insieme.']
Soon after the election of Pope Pius IV. the state of Europe made the
calling of a General Council indispensable. Paul's impolitic pretensions
had finally alienated England from the Roman Church. Scotland was upon
the point of declaring herself Protestant. The Huguenots were growing
stronger every year in France, the Queen Mother, Catherine de'Medici,
being at that time inclined to favor them. The Confession of Augsburg
had long been recognized in Germany. The whole of Scandinavia, with
Denmark, was lost to Catholicism. The Low Countries, in spite of Philip,
Alva, and the Inquisition, remained intractable. Bohemia, Hungary, and
Poland were alienated, ripe for open schism. The tenets of Zwingli had
taken root in German Switzerland. Calvin was gaining ground in the
French cantons. Geneva had become a stationary fortress, the stronghold
of belligerent reformers, whence heresy sent forth its missionaries and
promulgated subversive doctrines through the medium of an ever-active
press. Transformed by Calvin from its earlier condition of a
pleasure-loving and commercial city, it was now what Deceleia under
Spartan discipline had been to Athens in the Peloponnesian war--a
permanent _epiteichismos_, perpetually garrisoned and on guard to harry
the flanks of Catholics. Faithful to the Roman See in a strict sense of
the term, there remained only Spain, Portugal, and Italy. As the events
of the next century proved, the disaffected nations still offered
rallying-points for the Catholic cause, from which the tide of conquest
was rolled back upon the Reformation. But in 1559 the outlook for the
Church was very gloomy; no one could predict whether a General Council
might not increase her difficulties by weakening the Papal power and
sowing further seeds of discord among her few faithful adherents. Yet
Pius, after an attempt to combine the Catholic nations in a crusade
against Geneva, which was frustrated by the jealousy of Spain, the
internal weakness of France and the respect inspired by Switzerland,[40]
determined to cast his fortunes on the Council. He had several strong
points in his favor. The reigning Emperor, Ferdinand, wielded a power
insignificant when compared with that of Charles V. The Protestants,
though formally invited, were certain not to attend a Council which had
already condemned the articles of their Confession. The cardinal dogmas
of Catholicism had been confirmed in the sessions of 1545-1552. It was
to be hoped that, with skillful management, existing differences of
opinion with regard to doctrine, church-management, and reformation of
abuses, might be settled to the satisfaction of the Catholic powers.
[Footnote 40: See Sarpi, vol. ii. pp. 43, 44.]
The Pope accordingly sent four Legates, the Cardinals Gonzaga,
Seripando, Simoneta, Hosius, and Puteo, to Trent, who opened the
Council on January 15, 1562.[41] As had been anticipated, the
Protestants showed strong disinclination to attend. The French prelates
were unable to appear, pending negotiations with the Huguenots at Poissy
and Pontoise. The German prelates intimated their reluctance to take
part in the proceedings. The Court of France demanded that the chalice
for the laity and the use of the vulgar tongue in religious services
should be conceded. The Emperor also insisted on these points, making a
further demand for the marriage of the clergy. Circumstances both in
France and Germany seemed to render these conditions imperative, if the
rapid spread of Protestant dissent were to be checked and the remnant of
the Catholic population to be kept in obedience. Of ecclesiastics, only
Spaniards and Italians, the latter in a large majority, appeared at
Trent. The Courts of other nations were represented by ambassadors, who
took no part in the deliberations of the Council.[42]
[Footnote 41: Cardinal Puteo was soon replaced by a Papal nephew, the
Cardinal d'Altemps (Mark of Hohen Embs).]
[Footnote 42: At the first session there were five Cardinals, one
hundred and four prelates, including Patriarchs, Archbishops and
Bishops, four Abbots, and four Generals of Orders. These were all
Italians, Spaniards and Portuguese. And yet this Conciliabulum called
itself a General Council, inspired by the Holy Ghost to legislate for
the whole of Latin and Teutonic Christianity.]
In spite of this inauspicious commencement, Pius declared the Council a
General Council, and further decreed that it should be recognized as a
continuation of that Council which had begun at Trent in 1545. This
rendered co-operation of the Protestants impossible, since they would
have been compelled to accept the earlier dogmatic resolutions of the
Fathers. It was decided that no proxies should be allowed to absentees;
that the questions of doctrine and reform should be prepared for
discussion in two separate congregations, and should be taken into
consideration in full sessions simultaneously; finally that the Papal
Legates should alone have the privilege of proposing resolutions to the
fathers. This last point, by which the Court of Rome reserved to itself
the control of all proceedings in the Council, was carried by a clever
ruse. Until too late the Spanish prelates do not seem to have been aware
of the immense power they had conferred on Rome by passing the words
_Legatis proponentibus_.[43] The principle involved in this phrase
continued to be hotly disputed all through the sessions of the Council.
But Pius knew that so long as he stuck fast to it he always held the ace
of trumps, and nothing would induce him to relinquish it.
[Footnote 43: See Sarpi, vol. ii. p. 87.]
Fortified in this position of superiority, Pius now proceeded to
organize his forces and display his tactics. All through the sessions of
the Council they remained the same; and as the method resulted in his
final victory, it deserves to be briefly described. At any cost he
determined to secure a numerical majority in the Synod. This was
effected by drafting Italian prelates, as occasion required, to Trent.
Many of the poorer sort were subsidized, and placed under the
supervision of Cardinal Simoneta, who gave them orders how to vote. A
small squadron of witty bishops was told off to throw ridicule on
inconvenient speakers by satirical interpolations, or to hamper them by
sophistical arguments. Spies were introduced into the opposite camps,
who kept the Legates informed of what the French or Spaniards
deliberated in their private meetings. The Legates meanwhile established
a daily post of couriers, who carried the minutest details of the
Council to the Vatican. When the resolutions of the congregations on
which decrees were to be framed had been drawn up, they referred them to
his Holiness. Without his sanction they did not propose them in a
general session. In this fashion, by means of his standing majority, the
exclusive right of his Legates to propose resolutions, and the previous
reference of these resolutions to himself, Pius was enabled to direct
the affairs of the Council. It soon became manifest that while the
fathers were talking at Trent their final decisions were arranged in
Rome. This not unnaturally caused much discontent. It began to be
murmured that the Holy Ghost was sent from Rome to Trent in carpet-bags.
A man of more imperious nature than Pius might, by straining his
prerogatives, have produced an irreconcilable rupture. But he was aware
that the very existence of the Papacy depended on circumspection. He
therefore used all his advantages with caution, and resolved to win the
day by diplomacy. With this object in view he introduced the further
system of negotiating with the Catholic Courts through special agents.
Instead of framing the decrees upon the information furnished by his
Legates, he in his turn submitted them to Philip, Catherine de'Medici,
and Ferdinand, agreed on terms of mutual concession, persuaded the
princes that their interests were identical with his own, and then
returned such measures to the Council as could be safely passed. In
course of time the Holy Ghost was not packed up at Rome for Trent in
carpet-bags before he had gone round of Europe and made his bow in all
cabinets.
It must not, however, be thought that matters went smoothly for the Pope
at first, or that so novel a method as that which I have described,
whereby the faith and discipline of Christendom were settled by
negotiations between sovereigns, came suddenly into existence. In its
first sessions the Council, to quote the Pope's own words, resembled the
Tower of Babel rather than a Synod of Fathers. The Spanish prelates
contended fiercely for two principles touching the episcopacy: one was
that the residence of bishops in their dioceses had been divinely
commanded; the other, that their authority is derived from Christ
immediately. The first struck at the Pope's power to dispense from the
duty of residence; and if it had been established, it would have ruined
his capital. The second would have rendered the episcopacy independent
of Rome, and have made the Holy Father one of a numerous oligarchy
instead of the absolute chief of a hierarchy. Pius was able to show
Philip that the independence of the bishops must inflict deep injuries
on the crown of Spain. Philip therefore wrote to forbid insistance on
this point. But the Spanish prelates, though coerced, were not silenced,
and the storm which they had raised went grumbling on.
Difficulties of a no less serious nature arose when the French and
Imperial ambassadors arrived at Trent in the spring. They demanded, as I
have already stated, that the chalice should be conceded to the laity;
nor is it easy to understand why this point might not have been granted.
Pius himself was ready to make the concession; and the only valid
argument against it was that it imperiled the uniformity of ritual
throughout all Catholic countries. The Germans further stipulated for
the marriage of the clergy, which the Pope was also disposed to
entertain, until he reflected that celibacy alone retained the clergy
faithful to his interests and regardless of those of their own nations.
At this juncture of affairs, the Roman Court, which was strongly opposed
to both concessions, received material aid from the dissensions of the
Council. The Spaniards would hear nothing of the Eucharist under both
forms. The marriage of the clergy was opposed by French and Spaniards
alike. On the point of episcopal independence, the French supported the
Spaniards; but Pius used the same arguments in France which he had used
in Spain, with similar success. Thus there was no agreement on any of
the disputed questions between Spaniards, Frenchmen and Germans; and
since the ambassadors could neither propose nor vote, and the Italian
prelates were in a permanent majority, Pius was able to defer and
temporize at leisure.
Nevertheless, he began to feel the gravity of the situation. He saw that
the embassies constituted dangerous centers of intrigue and national
organization at Trent. He was not entirely satisfied with his own
Legate, the Cardinal Gonzaga, who supported the divine right of the
episcopacy, and quarreled with his colleagues. The Spaniards, infuriated
at having sacrificed the right of proposing measures, began to talk
openly about the reform of the Papacy. Disagreeable messages reached
Rome from France, and Spain, and Germany, complaining of the Pope's
absolutism in Council, and demanding that the reform of the Church
should be taken into serious and instant consideration. His devoted
adherent, Lainez, General of the Jesuits, embittered opposition by
passionately preaching the doctrine of passive obedience. Two dangers
lay before him. One was that the Council should break up in confusion,
with discredit to Rome, and anarchy for the Catholic Church. The other
was that it should be prolonged in its dissensions by the princes, with
a view of depressing and enfeebling the Papal authority. Other perils
of an incalculable kind threatened him in the announced approach of the
mighty Cardinal of Lorraine, brother to the Duke of Guise, with a
retinue of French bishops released from the Conference at Poissy. Though
he kept on packing the Council with fresh relays of Italians, it was
much to be apprehended that they might be unable to oppose a coalition
between French and Spanish prelates, should that be now effected.
Pius, at this crisis, resolved on two important lines of policy, the
energetic pursuit of which speedily brought the Council of Trent to a
peaceful termination. The first was to meet the demand for a searching
reformation of the Church with cheerful acquiescence; but to oppose a
counter-demand that the secular States in all their ecclesiastical
relations should at the same time be reformed. This implied a threat of
alienating patronage and revenue from the princes; it also indicated
plainly that the tiara and the crowns had interests in common. The
second was to develop the diplomatic system upon which he had already
tentatively entered.
The events of the spring, 1563, hastened the adoption of these measures
by the Pope. Cardinal Lorraine had arrived with his French bishops[44];
and the Papal Legates found themselves involved at once in intricate
disputes on questions touching the Huguenots and the interests of the
Gallican Church. The Italians were driven in despair to epigrams: _Dalla
scabie Spagnuola siamo caduti nel mal Francese_. Somewhat later, the
Emperor dispatched a bulky and verbose letter, announcing his intention
to play the part which Sigismund had assumed at the Council of
Constance. He complained roundly of the evils caused by the reference of
all resolutions to Rome, by the exclusive rights of the Legates to
propose decrees, and by the intrigues of the Italian majority in the
Synod. He wound up by declaring that the reformation of the Church must
be accomplished in Trent, not left to the judgment of the Papal Curia;
and threatened to arrive from Innsbruck by the Brenner. Though Ferdinand
was in a position of ecclesiastical and political weakness, such an
Imperial rescript could not be altogether contemned; especially as
Cardinal Lorraine, soon after his arrival, had made the journey to
Innsbruck on purpose to confer with the Emperor. It therefore behoved
the Pope to act with decision; and an important event happened in the
first days of March, which materially assisted him in doing so. This was
the death of Cardinal Gonzaga, whom Pius determined to replace by the
moderate and circumspect Morone.[45]
[Footnote 44: He reached Trent, November 13, 1562, with eighteen
Bishops, and three Abbots of France, charged by Charles IX. to demand
purified ritual, reformed discipline of clergy, use of vernacular in
church services, and finally, if possible, the marriage of the clergy.]
[Footnote 45: The confusion at Trent in the spring of 1563 is thus
described by the Bishop of Alife: 'Methinks Antichrist has come, so
greatly confounded are the perturbations of the holy Fathers here.'
Phillipson, p. 525.]
Through Ippolito d'Este, Cardinal of Ferrara, he opened negotiations
with the French Court, showing that the wishes of the prelates in the
Council on the question of episcopacy were no less opposed to the crown
than to his own interests. Cardinal Simoneta urged the same point on the
Marquis of Pescara, who governed Milan for Philip, and was well inclined
to the Papal party. Cardinal Morone was sent on a special embassy to the
Emperor.[46] By wise concessions, in which the prerogatives of the
Imperial ambassadors at Trent were considerably enlarged, and a
searching reformation of the Church was promised, Morone succeeded in
establishing a good working basis for the future. It came to be
understood that while the Pope would allow no further freedom to the
bishops, he was well disposed to let his Legates admit the envoys of the
Catholic powers into their counsels. From this time forward the Synod
may be said to have existed only as a mouthpiece for uttering the terms
agreed on by the Pope and potentates. Morone returned to Trent, and the
Emperor withdrew from Innsbruck toward the north.
[Footnote 46: When Morone set out, he told the Venetian envoy in Rome
that he was going on a forlorn hope. 'L'illmo Morone, quando parti per
il Concilio, mi disse che andava a cura disperata e che _nulla speserat_
della religione Cattolica.' Soranzo, _op. cit._ p. 82. The Jesuit
Canisius, by his influence with Ferdinand, secured the success of
Morone's diplomacy.]
The difficulty with regard to France and Germany consisted in this, that
politics forced both King and Emperor to consider the attitude of their
Protestant subjects. Yet both alike were unable to maintain their
position as Catholic sovereigns, if they came to open rupture with the
Papacy. Ferdinand, as we have just seen, had expressed himself contented
with the situation of affairs at Trent. But the French prelates still
remained in opposition, and the French Court was undecided. Cardinal
Morone, upon his arrival at Trent, began to flatter the Cardinal of
Lorraine, affecting to take no measures of importance without consulting
him. This conduct, together with timely compliments to several Frenchmen
of importance, smoothed the way for future agreement; while the couriers
who arrived from France, brought the assurance that Ippolito d'Este's
representations had not been fruitless. Pius, meanwhile, was playing the
same conciliatory game in Rome, where Don Luigi d'Avila arrived as a
special envoy from Philip. The ambassador obtained a lodging in the
Vatican, and was seen in daily social intercourse with his Holiness.[47]
But the climax of this policy was reached when Lorraine accepted the
Pope's invitation, and undertook a journey to Rome. This happened in
September. The French Cardinal was pompously received, entertained in
the palace, and honored with personal visits in his lodgings by the
Pope. Weary of Trent and the tiresome intrigues of the Council, this
unscrupulous prelate was still further inclined to negotiation after the
murder of his brother, Duke of Guise. It must be remembered that the
Guises in France were after all but a potent faction of semi-royal
adventurers, who had risen to eminence by an alliance with Diane de
Poitiers. The murder of the duke shook the foundations of their power;
and the Cardinal was naturally anxious to be back again in France. For
the moment he basked in the indolent atmosphere of Rome, surrounded by
those treasures of antique and Renaissance luxury which still remained
after the Sack of 1527. Pius held out flattering visions of succession
to the Papacy, and proved convincingly that nothing could sustain the
House of Guise or base the Catholic faith in France except alliance with
the Papal See. Lorraine, who had probably seen enough of episcopal
_canaillerie_ in the Council, and felt his inner self expand in the rich
climate of pontifical Rome, allowed his ambition to be caressed,
confessed himself convinced, and returned to Trent intoxicated with his
visit, the devoted friend of Rome.
[Footnote 47: Sarpi says that Don Luigi resided in the lodgings of Count
Federigo Borromeo, a deceased nephew of the Pope.]
Menaces, meanwhile, had been astutely mingled with cajoleries. The
French and the Imperial Courts were growing anxious on the subject of
reform in secular establishments. Pius had threatened to raise the whole
question of national Churches and the monarch's right of interfering in
their administration. This was tantamount to flinging a burning torch
into the powder-magazine of Huguenot and Lutheran grievances. In order
to save themselves from the disaster of explosion, they urged harmonious
action with the Papacy upon their envoys. The Spanish Court, through
Pescara, De Luna, and D'Avalos, wrote dispatches of like tenor. It was
now debated whether a congress of Crowned heads should not be held to
terminate the Council in accordance with the Papal programme. This would
have suited Pius. It was the point to which his policy had led. Yet no
such measure could be lightly hazarded. A congress while the Council was
yet sitting, would have been too palpable and cynical a declaration of
the Papal game. As events showed, it was not even necessary. When
Lorraine returned to Trent, the French opposition came to an end. The
Spanish had been already neutralized by the firm persistent exhibition
of Philip's will to work for Roman absolutism.[48] There was nothing
left but to settle details, to formulate the terms of ecclesiastical
reform, and to close the Council of Trent with a unanimous vote of
confidence in his Holiness. The main outlines of dogma and discipline
were quickly drawn. Numerous details were referred to the Pope for
definition. The Council terminated in December with an act of
submission, which placed all its decrees at the pleasure of the Papal
sanction. Pius was wise enough to pass and ratify the decrees of the
Tridentine fathers by a Bull dated on December 26, 1563, reserving to
the Papal sovereign the sole right of interpreting them in doubtful or
disputed cases. This he could well afford to do; for not an article had
been penned without his concurrence, and not a stipulation had been made
without a previous understanding with the Catholic powers. The very
terms, moreover, by which his ratification was conveyed, secured his
supremacy, and conferred upon his successors and himself the privileges
of a court of ultimate appeal. At no previous period in the history of
the Church had so wide, so undefined, and so unlimited an authority been
accorded to the See of Rome. Thus Pius IV. was triumphant in obtaining
conciliar sanction for Pontifical absolutism, and in maintaining the
fabric of the Roman hierarchy unimpaired, the cardinal dogmas of Latin
Christianity unimpeached and after formal inquisition reasserted in
precise definitions. A formidable armory had been placed at the disposal
of the Popes, who were fully empowered to use it, and who had two mighty
engines for its application ready in the Holy Office and the Company of
Jesus.[49]
[Footnote 48: Yet the Spanish bishops fought to the end, under the
leadership of their chief Guerrero, for the principle of conciliar
independence and the episcopal prerogatives. 'We had better not have
come here, than be forced to stand by as witnesses,' says the Bishop of
Orense. Phillipson, p. 577.]
[Footnote 49: The vague reference of all decrees passed by the
Tridentine Council to the Pope for interpretation enabled him and his
successors to manipulate them as they chose. It therefore happened, as
Sarpi says ('Tratt. delle Mat. Ben.' _Opere_, vol. iv. p. 161), that no
reform, with regard to the tenure of benefices, residence, pluralism,
etc., which the Council had decided, was adopted without qualifying
expedients which neutralized its spirit. If the continuance of benefices
_in commendam_ ceased, the device of _pensions_ upon benefices was
substituted; and a thousand pretexts put colossal fortunes extracted
from Church property, now as before, into the hands of Papal nephews.
Witness the contrivances whereby Cardinal Scipione Borghese enriched
himself in the Papacy of Paul V. The Council had decreed the residence
of bishops in their sees; but it had reserved to the Pope a power of
dispensation; so that those whom he chose to exile from Rome were bound
to reside, and those whom he desired to have about him were released
from this obligation. On each and all delicate points the Papacy was
more autocratic after than before the Council. One of Sarpi's letters
(vol. i. p. 371) to Jacques Leschassier, dated December 22, 1609, should
be studied by those who wish to penetrate the '_reserve ed altre arcane
arti_,' the '_renunzie_', '_pensioni_' and '_altri stratagemmi_,' by
means of which the Papal Curia, during the half-century after the
Tridentine Council, managed to evade its decrees, and to get such
control over Church property in Italy that 'out of 500 benefices not one
is conferred legally.' Compare the passage in the 'Trattato delle
Materie Beneficiarie,' p. 163. There Sarpi says that five-sixths of
Italian benefices are at the Pope's disposal, and that there is good
reason to suppose that he will acquire the remaining sixth.]
After the termination of the Council there was nothing left for Pius but
to die. He stood upon a pinnacle which might well have made him
nervous--lest haply the Solonian maxim, 'Call no man fortunate until his
death,' should be verified in his person. During the two years of peace
and retirement which he had still to pass, the unsuccessful conspiracy
of Benedetto Accolti and Antonio Canossa against his life gave point to
this warning. But otherwise, withdrawn from cares of state, which he
committed to his nephew, Carlo Borromeo, he enjoyed the tranquillity
that follows successful labor, and sank with undiminished prestige into
his grave at the end of 1565. Those who believe in masterful and potent
leaders of humanity may be puzzled to account for the triumph achieved
by this common-place arbiter of destiny. Not by strength but by pliancy
of character he accomplished the transition from the mediaeval to the
modern epoch of Catholicism. He was no Cromwell, Frederick the Great, or
Bismarck; only a politic old man, contriving by adroit avoidance to
steer the ship of the Church clear through innumerable perils. This
scion of the Italian middle class, this moral mediocrity, placed his
successors in S. Peter's chair upon a throne of such supremacy that they
began immediately to claim jurisdiction over kings and nations.
Thirty-eight years before his death, when Clement VII. was shut up in S.
Angelo, it seemed as though the Papal power might be abolished.
Forty-five years after his death, Sarpi, writing to a friend in 1610,
expressed his firm opinion that the one, the burning question for Europe
was the Papal power.[50] Through him, poor product as he was of ordinary
Italian circumstances, elected to be Pope because of his easy-going
mildness by prelates worn to death in fiery Caraffa's reign, it happened
that the flood of Catholic reaction was rolled over Europe. In a certain
sense we may therefore regard him as a veritable _Flagellum Dei_,
wielded by inscrutable fate. It seems that at momentous epochs of
world-history no hero is needed to effect the purpose of the
Time-Spirit. A Gian Angelo Medici, agreeable, diplomatic, benevolent,
and pleasure-loving, sufficed to initiate a series of events which kept
the Occidental races in perturbation through two centuries.
[Footnote 50: _Lettere_, vol. ii. p. 167.]
A great step had been taken in the pontificate of Pius IV. That reform
of the Church, which the success of Protestantism rendered necessary,
and which the Catholic powers demanded, had been decreed by the Council
of Trent. Pius showed no unwillingness to give effect to the Council's
regulations; and the task was facilitated for him by his nephew, Carlo
Borromeo, and the Jesuits. It still remained, however, to be seen
whether a new Pope might not reverse the policy on which the
Counter-Reformation had been founded, and impede the beneficial inner
movement which was leading the Roman hierarchy into paths of sobriety.
Should this have happened, it would have been impossible for Romanism to
assume a warlike attitude of resistance toward the Protestants in
Europe, or to have rallied its own spiritual forces. The next election
was therefore a matter of grave import.
Nothing is more remarkable in the history of the Papacy at this epoch
than the singular contrast offered by each Pontiff in succession to his
predecessor. The conclave was practically uncontrolled in its choice by
any external force of the first magnitude. Though a Duke of Florence
might now, by intrigue, determine the nomination of a Pius IV., no
commanding Emperor or King of France, as in the times of Otto the Great
or Philip le Bel, could designate his own candidate. There was no
strife, so open as in the Renaissance period, between Cardinals
subsidized by Spain or Austria or France.[51] The result was that the
deliberations of the conclave were determined by motives of petty
interests, personal jealousies, and local considerations, to such an
extent that the election seemed finally to be the result of chance or
inspiration. We find the most unlikely candidates, Caraffa and Peretti,
attributing their elevation to the direct influence of the Holy Ghost,
in the consciousness that they had slipped into S. Peter's Chair by the
maladroitness of conflicting factions. The upshot, however, of these
uninfluenced elections generally was to promote a man antagonistic to
his predecessor. The clash of parties and the numerical majority of
independent Cardinals excluded the creatures of the last reign, and
selected for advancement one who owed his position to the favor of an
antecedent Pontiff. This result was further secured by the natural
desire of all concerned in the election to nominate an old man, since it
was for the general advantage that a pontificate should, if possible,
not exceed five years.
[Footnote 51: This does not mean that the Spanish crown had not a
powerful voice in the elections. See the history of the conclaves which
elected Urban VII., Gregory XIV., Innocent IX., Clement VIII., in Ranke,
vol. ii. pp. 31-39. Yet it was noticed by those close observers, the
Venetian envoys, that France and Spain had abandoned their former policy
of subsidizing the Cardinals who adhered to their respective factions.]
The personal qualities of Carlo Borromeo were of grave importance in
the election of a successor to his uncle. He had ruled the Church during
the last years of Pius IV.; and the newly-appointed Cardinals were his
dependents. Had he attempted to exert his power for his own election, he
might have met with opposition. He chose to use it for what he
considered the deepest Catholic interests. This unselfishness led to the
selection of a man, Michele Ghislieri, whose antecedents rendered him
formidable to the still corrupt members of the Roman hierarchy, but
whose character was precisely of the stamp required for giving solidity
to the new phase on which the Church had entered. As Pius IV. had been
the exact opposite to Paul IV., so Pius V. was a complete contrast to
Pius IV. He had passed the best years of his life as chief of the
Inquisition. Devoted to theology and to religious exercises, he lacked
the legal and mundane faculties of his predecessor. But these were no
longer necessary. They had done their duty in bringing the Council to a
favorable close, and in establishing the Catholic concordat. What was
now required was a Pope who should, by personal example and rigid
discipline, impress Rome with the principles of orthodoxy and reform.
Carlo Borromeo, self-conscious, perhaps, of the political incapacity
which others noticed in him, and fervently zealous for the Catholic
Revival, devolved this duty on Michele Ghislieri, who completed the work
of his two predecessors.
Paul IV. had laid a basis for the modern Roman Church by strengthening
the Inquisition and setting internal reforms on foot. Pius IV.,
externally, by his settlement of the Tridentine Council, and by the
establishment of the Catholic concordat, built upon this basis an
edifice which was not as yet massive. Carlo Borromeo and the Jesuits
during the last pontificate prepared the way for a Pope who should
cement and gird that building, so that it should be capable of resisting
the inroads of time and should serve as a fortress of attack on heresy.
That Pope was Michele Ghislieri, who assumed the title of Pius V. in
1566.
Before entering on the matter of his reign, it will be necessary to
review the state of Rome at this moment in the epoch of transition, when
the mediaeval and Renaissance phases were fast merging into the phase of
the Counter-Reformation. Old abuses which have once struck a deep root
in any institution, die slowly. It is therefore desirable to survey the
position in which the Papal Sovereign of the Holy City, as constituted
by the Council of Trent, held sway there.
The population of Rome was singularly fluctuating. Being principally
composed of ecclesiastics with their households and dependents;
foreigners resident in the city as suitors or ambassadors; merchants,
tradespeople and artists attracted by the hope of gain; it rose or fell
according to the qualities of the reigning Pope, and the greater or less
train of life which happened to be fashionable. Noble families were
rather conspicuous by their absence than by their presence; for those of
the first rank, Colonna and Orsini, dwelt upon their fiefs, and visited
the capital only as occasion served. The minor aristocracy which gave
solidity to social relations in towns like Florence and Bologna, never
attained the rank of a substantial oligarchy in Rome. Nor was there an
established dynasty round which a circle of peers might gather in
permanent alliance with the Court. On the other hand, the frequent
succession of Pontiffs chosen from various districts encouraged the
growth of an ephemeral nobility, who battened for a while upon the favor
of their Papal kinsmen, flooded the city with retainers from their
province, and disappeared upon the election of a new Pope, to make room
for another flying squadron. Instead of a group of ancient Houses,
intermarrying and transmitting hereditary rights and honors to their
posterity, Rome presented the spectacle of numerous celibate
establishments, displaying great pomp, it is true, but dispersing and
disappearing upon the decease of the patrons who assembled them. The
households of wealthy Cardinals were formed upon the scale of princely
Courts. Yet no one, whether he depended on the mightiest or the feeblest
prelate, could reckon on the tenure of his place beyond the lifetime of
his master. Many reasons, again--among which may be reckoned the
hostility of reigning Pontiffs to the creatures of their predecessors or
to their old rivals in the conclave--caused the residence of the chief
ecclesiastics in Rome to be precarious. Thus the upper stratum of
society was always in a state of flux, its elements shifting according
to laws of chronic uncertainty. Beneath it spread a rabble of inferior
and dubious gentlefolk, living in idleness upon the favor of the Court,
serving the Cardinals and Bishops in immoral and dishonest offices,
selling their wives, their daughters and themselves, all eager to rise
by indirect means to places of emolument.[52] Lower down, existed the
_bourgeoisie_ of artists, bankers, builders, shopkeepers, and artisans;
and at the bottom of the scale came hordes of beggars. Rome, like all
Holy Cities, entertained multitudes of eleemosynary paupers. Gregory
XIII. is praised for having spent more than 200,000 crowns a year on
works of charity, and for having assigned the district of San Sisto (in
the neighborhood of Trinita del Monte, one of the best quarters of the
present city) to the beggars.[53]
[Footnote 52: See Mocenigo, _op. cit._ p. 35; Aretino's _Dialogo della
Corte di Roma_; and the private history of the Farnesi.]
[Footnote 53: Giov. Carraro and Lor. Priuli, _op. cit._ pp. 275, 306.]
Such being the social conditions of Rome, it is not surprising to learn
that during the reign of so harsh a Pontiff as Paul IV., the population
sank to a number estimated at between 40,000 and 50,000. It rose rapidly
to 70,000, and touched 80,000 in the reign of Pius IV. Afterwards it
gradually ascended to 90,000, and during the popular pontificate of
Gregory XIII. it is said to have reached the high figure of 140,000.
These calculations are based upon the reports of the Venetian
ambassadors, and can be considered as impartial, although they may not
be statistically exact.[54]
What rendered Roman society rotten to the core was universal pecuniary
corruption. In Rome nothing could be had without payment; but men with
money in their purse obtained whatever they desired. The office of the
Datatario alone brought from ten to fourteen thousand crowns a month
into the Papal treasury in 1560.[55] This large sum accrued from the
composition of benefices and the sale of vacant offices. The Camera
Apostolica, or Chamber of Justice, was no less venal. A price was set on
every crime, for which its punishment could be commuted into
cash-payment. Even so severe a Pope as Paul IV. committed to his nephew,
by published and printed edict, the privilege of compounding with
criminals by fines.[56] One consequence of this vile system, rightly
called by the Venetian envoy 'the very strangest that could be witnessed
or heard of in such matters,' was that wealthy sinners indulged their
appetites at the expense of their families, and that innocent people
became the prey of sharpers and informers.[57] Rome had organized a vast
system of _chantage_.
[Footnote 54: Alberi, vol. x. pp. 35, 83, 277.]
[Footnote 55: Mocenigo's computation, _op. cit._ p. 29.]
[Footnote 56: _Ibid._ p. 31.]
[Footnote 57: The true history of the Cenci, as written by Bertolotti,
throws light upon these points.] Another consequence was that acts of
violence were frightfully common. Men could be hired to commit murders
at sums varying from ten to four scudi; and on the death of Paul IV.,
when anarchy prevailed for a short while in Rome, an eye-witness asserts
that several hundred assassinations were committed within the walls in a
few days.[58]
[Footnote 58: Mocenigo, _op. cit._ p. 38.]
It was not to be expected that a population so corrupt, accustomed for
generations to fatten upon the venality and vices of the hierarchy,
should welcome those radical reforms which were the best fruits of the
Tridentine Council. They specially disliked the decrees which enforced
the residence of prelates and the limitation of benefices held by a
single ecclesiastic. These regulations implied the withdrawal of wealthy
patrons from Rome, together with an incalculable reduction in the amount
of foreign money spent there. Nor were the measures for abolishing a
simoniacal sale of offices, and the growing demand for decency in the
administration of justice, less unpopular. The one struck at the root of
private speculation in lucrative posts, and deprived the Court of
revenues which had to be replaced by taxes. The other destroyed the arts
of informers, checked lawlessness and license in the rich, and had the
same lamentable effect of impoverishing the Papal treasury. In
proportion as the Curia ceased to subsist upon the profits of simony,
superstition, and sin, it was forced to maintain itself by imposts on
the people, and by resuming, as Gregory XIII. attempted to do, its
obsolete rights over fiefs and lands accorded on easy terms or held by
doubtful titles. Meanwhile the retrenchment rendered necessary in all
households of the hierarchy, and the introduction of severer manners,
threatened many minor branches of industry with extinction.
These changes began to manifest themselves during the pontificate of
Pius IV. The Pope himself was inclined to a liberal and joyous scale of
living. But he was not remarkable for generosity; and the new severity
of manners made itself felt by the example of his nephew Carlo
Borromeo--a man who, while living in the purple, practiced austerities
that were apparent in his emaciated countenance. The Jesuits ruled him;
and, through him, their influence was felt in every quarter of the
city.[59] 'The Court of Rome,' says the Venetian envoy in the year 1565,
'is no longer what it used to be either in the quality or the numbers of
the courtiers. This is principally due to the poverty of the Cardinals
and the parsimony of the Popes. In the old days, when they gave away
more liberally, men of ability flocked from all quarters. This reduction
of the Court dates from the Council; for the bishops and beneficed
clergy being now obliged to retire to their residences, the larger
portion of the Court has left Rome. To the same cause may be ascribed a
diminution in the numbers of those who serve the Pontiff, seeing that
since only one benefice can now be given, and that involves residence,
there are few who care to follow the Court at their own expense and
inconvenience without hope of greater reward. The poverty of the
Cardinals springs from two causes. The first is that they cannot now
obtain benefices of the first class, as was the case when England,
Germany, and other provinces were subject to the Holy See, and when
moreover they could hold three or four bishoprics apiece together with
other places of emolument, whereas they now can only have one apiece.
The second cause is that the number of the Cardinals has been increased
to seventy-five, and that the foreign powers have ceased to compliment
them with large presents and Benefices, as was the wont of Charles V.
and the French crown.' In the last of these clauses we find clearly
indicated one of the main results of the concordat established between
the Papacy and the Catholic sovereigns by the policy of Pius IV. It
secured Papal absolutism at the expense of the college. Soranzo proceeds
to describe the changes visible in Roman society. 'The train of life at
Court is therefore mean, partly through poverty, but also owing to the
good example of Cardinal Borromeo, seeing that people are wont to follow
the manners of their princes. The Cardinal holds in his hands all the
threads of the administration; and living religiously in the retirement
I have noticed, indulging in liberalities to none but persons of his
own stamp, there is neither Cardinal nor courtier who can expect any
favor from him unless he conform in fact or in appearance to his mode of
life. Consequently one observes that they have altogether withdrawn, in
public at any rate, from every sort of pleasures. One sees no longer
Cardinals in masquerade or on horseback, nor driving with women about
Rome for pastime, as the custom was of late; but the utmost they do is
to go alone in close coaches. Banquets, diversions, hunting parties,
splendid liveries and all the other signs of outward luxury have been
abolished; the more so that now there is at Court no layman of high
quality, as formerly when the Pope had many of his relatives or
dependents around him. The clergy always wear their robes, so that the
reform of the Church is manifested in their appearance. This state of
things, on the other hand, has been the ruin of the artisans and
merchants, since no money circulates. And while all offices and
magistracies are in the hands of Milanese, grasping and illiberal
persons, very few indeed can be still called satisfied with the present
reign.'[60]
[Footnote 59: Giac. Soranzo, _op. cit._ pp. 131-136]
[Footnote 60: Soranzo, _op. cit._ pp. 136-138.]
One chief defect of Pius IV., judged by the standard of the new party in
the Church, had been his coldness in religious exercises. Paolo Tiepolo
remarks that during the last seven months of his life he never once
attended service in his chapel.[61]
[Footnote 61: _Op. cit._ p. 171.]
This indifference was combined with lukewarmness in the prosecution of
reforms. The Datatario still enriched itself by the composition of
benefices, and the Camera by the composition of crimes. Pius V., on the
contrary, embodied in himself those ascetic virtues which Carlo Borromeo
and the Jesuits were determined to propagate throughout the Catholic
world. He never missed a day's attendance on the prescribed services of
the Church, said frequent Masses, fasted at regular intervals, and
continued to wear the coarse woolen shirt which formed a part of his
friar's costume. In his piety there was no hypocrisy. The people saw
streams of tears pouring from the eyes of the Pontiff bowed in ecstacy
before the Host. A rigid reformation of the churches, monasteries, and
clergy was immediately set on foot throughout the Papal States. Monks
and nuns complained, not without cause, that austerities were expected
from them which were not included in the rules to which they vowed
obedience. The severity of the Inquisition was augmented, and the Index
Expurgatorius began to exercise a stricter jurisdiction over books. The
Pope spent half his time at the Holy Office, inquiring into cases of
heresy of ten or twenty years' standing. From Florence he caused
Carnesecchi to be dragged to Rome and burned; from Venice the refugee
Guido Zanetti of Fano was delivered over to his tender mercies; and the
excellent Carranza, Archbishop of Toledo, was sent from Spain to be
condemned to death before the Roman tribunal. Criminal justice,
meanwhile, was administered with greater purity, and the composition of
crimes for money, if not wholly abolished, was moderated. In the
collation to bishoprics and other benefices the same spirit of equity
appeared; for Pius inquired scrupulously into the character and fitness
of aspirants after office.
The zeal manifested by Pius V. for a thorough-going reform of manners
may be illustrated by a curious circumstance related by the Venetian
ambassador in the first year of the pontificate.[62] On July 26, 1566,
an edict was issued, compelling all prostitutes to leave Rome within six
days, and to evacuate the States of the Church within twelve days. The
exodus began. But it was estimated that about 25,000 persons, counting
the women themselves with their hangers-on and dependents, would have to
quit the city if the edict were enforced.[63] The farmers of the customs
calculated that they would lose some 20,000 ducats a year in
consequence, and prayed the Pope for compensation. Meanwhile the roads
across the Campagna began to be thronged by caravans, which were exposed
to the attacks of robbers. The confusion became so great, and the public
discontent was so openly expressed, that on August 17 Pius repealed his
edict and permitted the prostitutes to reside in certain quarters of the
city.
[Footnote 62: Mutinelli, _Storia Arcana_, etc., vol. i. pp. 51-54.]
[Footnote 63: Assuming the population of Rome to have been about 90,000
at that date, this number appears incredible. Yet we have it on the best
of all evidences, that of a resident Venetian envoy.]
Pius IV. had wasted the greater part of his later life in bed,
neglecting business, entertaining his leisure with buffoons and good
companions, eating much and drinking more. Pius V., on the contrary,
carried the habits of the convent with him into the Vatican, and
bestowed the time he spared from devotion upon the transaction of
affairs. He was of choleric complexion, adust, lean, wasted, with sunken
eyes and snow-white hair, looking ten years older than he really was.
Such a Pope changed the face of Rome, or rather stereotyped the change
which had been instituted by Cardinal Borromeo. 'People, even if they
are not really better, seem at least to be so,' says the Venetian envoy,
who has supplied me with the details I have condensed.[64] Retrenchments
in the Papal establishment were introduced; money was scarce; the Court
grew meaner in appearance; and nepotism may be said to have been extinct
in the days of Pius V. He did indeed advance one nephew, Michele
Bonelli, to the Cardinalate; but he showed no inclination to enrich or
favor him beyond due measure. A worn man, without ears, marked by the
bastinado, frequented the palace, and stood near the person of the Pope,
as Captain of the Guard. This was Paolo Ghislieri, a somewhat distant
relative of Pius, who had passed his life in servitude to Barbary
corsairs and had been ransomed by a merchant upon the election of his
kinsman. No other members of the Papal family were invited to Rome.
[Footnote 64: Tiepolo, _op. cit._ p. 172.]
Pius V., while living this exemplary monastic life upon the Papal
throne, ruled Catholic Christendom more absolutely than any of his
predecessors. As the Papacy recognized its dependence on the sovereigns,
so the sovereigns in their turn perceived that religious conformity was
the best safeguard of their secular authority. Therefore the Catholic
States subscribed, one after the other, to the Tridentive Profession of
Faith, and adopted one system in matters of Church discipline. A new
Breviary and a new Missal were published with the Papal sanction.
Seminaries were established for the education of ecclesiastics, and the
Jesuits labored in their propaganda. The Inquisition and the
Congregation of the Index redoubled their efforts to stamp out heresy by
fire and iron, and by the suppression or mutilation of books. A rigid
uniformity was impressed on Catholicism. The Pope, to whom such power
had been committed by the Council, stood at the head of each section and
department of the new organization. To his approval every measure in the
Church was referred, and the Jesuits executed his instructions with
punctual exactness.
It is not, therefore, to be wondered that Pius V. should have opened the
era of active hostilities against Protestantism. Firmly allied with
Philip II., he advocated attacks upon the Huguenots in France, the
Protestants in Flanders, and the English crown. There is no evidence
that he was active in promoting the Massacre of S. Bartholomew, which
took place three months after his death; and the expedition of the
Invincible Armada against England was not equipped until another period
of fifteen years had elapsed. Yet the negotiations in which he was
engaged with Spain, involving enterprises to the detriment of the
English realm and the French Reformation, leave no doubt that both S.
Bartholomew and the Armada would have met with his hearty approval. One
glorious victory gave luster to the reign of Pius V. In 1571 the navies
of Spain, Venice and Rome inflicted a paralyzing blow upon the Turkish
power at Lepanto; and this success was potent in fanning the flame of
Catholic enthusiasm.
The pontificates of Paul IV., Pius IV., and Pius V., differing as they
did in very important details, had achieved a solid triumph for reformed
Catholicism, of which both the diplomatical and the ascetic parties in
the Church, Jesuits and Theatines, were eager to take advantage. A new
spirit in the Roman polity prevailed, upon the reality of which its
future force depended; and the men who embodied this spirit had no mind
to relax their hold on its administration. After the death of Pius V.
they had to deal with a Pope who resembled his penultimate predecessor,
Pius IV., more than the last Pontiff. Ugo Buoncompagno, the scion of a
_bourgeois_ family settled in Bologna, began his career as a jurist. He
took orders in middle life, was promoted to the Cardinalate, and
attained the supreme honor of the Holy See in 1572. The man responded to
his name. He was a good companion, easy of access, genial in manners,
remarkable for the facility with which he cast off care and gave himself
to sanguine expectations.[65] In an earlier period of Church history he
might have reproduced the Papacy of Paul II. or Innocent VIII. As it
was, Gregory XIII. fell at once under the potent influence of Jesuit
directors. His confessor, the Spanish Francesco da Toledo, impressed
upon him the necessity of following the footsteps of Paul IV. and Pius
V. It was made plain that he must conform to the new tendencies of the
Catholic Church; and in his neophyte's zeal he determined to outdo his
predecessors. The example of Pius V. was not only imitated, but
surpassed. Gregory XIII. celebrated three Masses a week, built churches,
and enforced parochial obedience throughout his capital. The Jesuits in
his reign attained to the maximum of their wealth and influence. Rome,
'abandoning her ancient license, displayed a moderate and Christian mode
of living: and in so far as the external observance of religion was
concerned, she showed herself not far removed from such perfection as
human frailties allow.'[66]
[Footnote 65: Paolo Tiepolo, _op. cit._ p. 312.]
[Footnote 66: _Ibid._ p. 214.]
While he was yet a layman, Gregory became the father of one son,
Giacomo. Born out of wedlock, he was yet acknowledged as a member of
the Buoncompagno family, and admitted under this name into the Venetian
nobility.[67] The Pope manifested paternal weakness in favor of his
offspring. He brought the young man to Rome, and made him Governatore di
Santa Chiesa with a salary of 10,000 ducats. The Jesuits and other
spiritual persons scented danger. They persuaded the Holy Father that
conscience and honor required the alienation of his bastard from the
sacred city. Giacomo was relegated to honorable exile in Ancona. But he
suffered so severely from this rebuff, that terms of accommodation were
agreed on. Giacomo received a lady of the Sforza family in marriage, and
was established at the Papal Court with a revenue amounting to about
25,000 crowns.[68] The ecclesiastical party now predominant in Rome,
took care that he should not acquire more than honorary importance in
the government. Two of the Pope's nephews were promoted to the
Cardinalate with provisions of about 10,000 crowns apiece. His old
brother abode in retirement at Bologna under strict orders not to seek
fortune or to perplex the Papal purity of rule in Rome.[69]
[Footnote 67: The Venetians, when they inscribed his name upon the Libro
d'Oro, called him 'a near relative of his Holiness.']
[Footnote 68: This lady was a sister of the Count of Santa Fiora. For a
detailed account of the wedding, see Mutinelli, _Stor. arc._
vol. i. p. 112.]
[Footnote 69: Tiepolo, _op. cit._ pp. 213, 219--221, 263, 266.]
I have introduced this sketch of Gregory's relations in order to show
how a Pope of his previous habits and personal proclivities was now
obliged to follow the new order of the Church. It was noticed that the
mode of life in Rome during his reign struck a just balance between
license and austerity, and that general satisfaction pervaded
society.[70] Outside the city this contentment did not prevail. Gregory
threw his States into disorder by reviving obsolete rights of the Church
over lands mortgaged or granted with obscure titles. The petty barons
rose in revolt, armed their peasants, fomented factions in the country
towns, and filled the land with brigands. Under the leadership of men
like Alfonso Piccolomini and Roberto Malatesta, these marauding bands
assumed the proportion of armies. The neighboring Italian
States--Tuscany, Venice, Naples, Parma, all of whom had found the Pope
arbitrary and aggressive in his dealings with them--encouraged the
bandits by offering them an asylum and refusing to co-operate with
Gregory for their reduction.
[Footnote 70: Giov. Corraro, op. cit. p. 277.]
His successor, Sixtus V., found the whole Papal dominion in confusion.
It was impossible to collect the taxes. Life and property were nowhere
safe. By a series of savage enactments and stern acts of justice, Sixtus
swept the brigands from his States. He then applied his powerful will to
the collection of money and the improvement of his provinces. In the
four years which followed his election he succeeded in accumulating a
round sum of four million crowns, which he stored up in the Castle of
S. Angelo. The total revenues of the Papacy at this epoch were roughly
estimated at 750,000 crowns, which in former reigns had been absorbed in
current costs and the pontifical establishment. By rigorous economy and
retrenchments of all kinds Sixtus reduced these annual expenses to a sum
of 250,000, thus making a clear profit of 500,000 crowns.[71] At the
same time he had already spent about a million and a half on works of
public utility, including the famous Acqua Felice, which brought
excellent water into Rome. Roads and bridges throughout the States of
the Church were repaired, The Chiana of Orvieto and the Pontine Marsh
were drained. Encouragement was extended, not only to agriculture, but
also to industries and manufactures. The country towns obtained wise
financial concessions, and the unpopular resumption of lapsed lands and
fiefs was discontinued. Rome meanwhile began to assume her present
aspect as a city, by the extensive architectural undertakings which
Sixtus set on foot. He loved building; but he was no lover of antiquity.
For pagan monuments of art he showed a monastic animosity, dispersing or
mutilating the statues of the Vatican and Capitol; turning a Minerva
into an image of the Faith by putting a cross in her hand; surmounting
the columns of Trajan and Antonine with figures of Peter and Paul;
destroying the Septizonium of Severus, and wishing to lay sacrilegious
hands on Caecilia Metella's tomb. To mediaeval relics he was hardly less
indifferent. The old buildings of the Lateran were thrown down to make
room for the heavy modern palace. But, to atone in some measure for
these acts of vandalism, Sixtus placed the cupola upon S. Peter's and
raised the obelisk in the great piazza which was destined to be circled
with Bernini's colonnades. This obelisk he tapped with a cross.
Christian inscriptions, signalizing the triumph of the Pontiff over
infidel emperors, the victory of Calvary over Olympus, the superiority
of Rome's saints and martyrs to Rome's old deities and heroes, left no
doubt that what remained of the imperial city had been subdued to Christ
and purged of paganism. Wandering through Rome at the present time, we
feel in every part the spirit of the Catholic Revival, and murmur to
ourselves those lines of Clough:
O ye mighty and strange, ye ancient divine ones of Hellas!
Are ye Christian too? To convert and redeem and renew you,
Will the brief form have sufficed, that a Pope has sat up on the apex
Of the Egyptian stone that o'ertops you, the Christian symbol?
And ye, silent, supreme in serene and victorious marble,
Ye that encircle the walls of the stately Vatican chambers,
Are ye also baptized; are ye of the Kingdom of Heaven?
Utter, O some one, the word that shall reconcile Ancient and Modern.
[Footnote 71: See Giov. Gritti, _op. cit._ p. 333.]
Nothing was more absent from the mind of Sixtus than any attempt to
reconcile Ancient and Modern. He was bent on proclaiming the ultimate
triumph of Catholicism, not only over antiquity, but also over the
Renaissance. His inscriptions, crosses, and images of saints are the
enduring badges of serfdom set upon the monuments of ancient and
renascent Italy, bearing which they were permitted by the now absolute
Pontiff to remain as testimonies to his power.
Retrenchment alone could not have sufficed for the accumulation of so
much idle capital, and for so extensive an expenditure on works of
public utility. Sixtus therefore had recourse to new taxation, new
loans, and the creation of new offices for sale. The Venetian envoy
mentions eighteen imposts levied in his reign; a sum of 600,000 crowns
accruing to the Camera by the sale of places; and extensive loans, or
Monti, which were principally financed by the Genoese.[72] It was
necessary for the Papacy, now that it had relinquished the larger part
of its revenues derived from Europe, to live upon the proceeds of the
Papal States. The complicated financial expedients on which successive
Popes relied for developing their exchequer, have been elaborately
explained by Ranke.[73] They were materially assisted in their efforts
to support the Papal dignity upon the resources of their realm, by the
new system of nepotism which now began to prevail. Since the Council of
Trent, it was impossible for a Pope to acknowledge his sons, and few, if
any, of the Popes after Pius IV. had sons to acknowledge.[74]
[Footnote 72: Giov. Gritti, _op. cit._ p. 337.]
[Footnote 73: _History of the Popes_, Book iv. section I.]
[Footnote 74: Giacomo Buoncompagno was born while Gregory XIII. was
still a layman and a lawyer.]
The tendencies of the Church rendered it also incompatible with the
Papal position that near relatives of the Pontiff should be advanced, as
formerly, to the dignity of independent princes. The custom was to
create one nephew Cardinal, with such wealth derived from office as
should enable him to benefit the Papal family at large. Another nephew
was usually ennobled, endowed with capital in the public funds for the
purchase of lands, and provided with lucrative places in the secular
administration. He then married into a Roman family of wealth and
founded one of the aristocratic houses of the Roman State. We possess
some details respecting the incomes of the Papal nephews at this period,
which may be of interest.[75] Carlo Borromeo was reasonably believed to
enjoy revenues amounting to 50,000 scudi. Giacomo Buoncompagno's whole
estate was estimated at 120,000 scudi; while the two Cardinal nephews of
Gregory XIII. had each about 10,000 a year. At the same epoch Paolo
Giordano Orsini, Duke of Bracciano, enjoyed an income of some 25,000,
his estate being worth 60,000, but being heavily encumbered. These
figures are taken from the Reports of the Venetian envoys. If we may
trust them as accurate, it will appear by a comparison of them with the
details furnished by Ranke, that Gregory's successors treated their
relatives with greater generosity.[76] Sixtus V. enriched the Cardinal
Montalto with an ecclesiastical income of 100,000 scudi. Clement VIII.
bestowed on two nephews--one Cardinal, the other layman--revenues of
about 60,000 apiece in 1599. He is computed to have hoarded altogether
for his family a round sum of 1,000,000 scudi. Paul V. was believed to
have given to his Borghese relatives nearly 700,000 scudi in cash,
24,600 scudi in funds, and 268,000 in the worth of offices.[77] The
Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi, nephew of Gregory XV., had a reputed income
of 200,000 scudi; and the Ludovisi family obtained 800,000 in _luoghi di
monte_ or funds. Three nephews of Urban VIII., the brothers Barberini,
were said to have enjoyed joint revenues amounting to half a million
scudi, and their total gains from the pontificate touched the enormous
sum of 105,000,000. These are the families, sprung from obscurity or
mediocre station, whose palaces and villas adorn Rome, and who now rank,
though of such recent origin, with the aristocracy of Europe.
Sixtus V. died in 1590. To follow the history of his successors would be
superfluous for the purpose of this book. The change in the Church which
began in the reign of Paul III. was completed in his pontificate. About
half a century, embracing seven tenures of the Holy Chair, had sufficed
to develop the new phase of the Papacy as an absolute sovereignty,
representing the modern European principle of absolutism, both as the
acknowledged Head of Catholic Christendom and also as a petty Italian
power.
[Footnote 75: Sarpi writes: 'In my times Pius V., during five years,
accumulated 25,000 ducats for the Cardinal nephew; Gregory XIII., in
thirteen years, 30,000 for one nephew, and 20,000 for another; Sixtus
V., for his only nephew, 9,000; Clement VIII., in thirteen years, for
one nephew, 8,000, and for the other, 3,000; and this Pope, Paul V., in
four years, for one nephew alone, 40,000. To what depths are we destined
to fall in the future?' (_Lettere_, vol. i. p. 281). This final question
was justified by the event; for, after the Borghesi, came the Ludovisi
and Barberini, whose accumulations equalled, if they did not surpass,
those of any antecedent Papal families.]
[Footnote 76: The details may be examined in Ranke, vol. ii. pp.
303-311.]
[Footnote 77: Sarpi's Letters supply some details relating to Paul V.'s
nepotism. He describes the pleasure which this Pope took on one day of
each week in washing his hands in the gold of the Datatario and the
Camera (vol. i. p. 281), and says of him, 'attende solo a far danari'
(vol. ii. p. 237). When Paul gave his nephew Scipione the Abbey of
Vangadizza, with 12,000 ducats a year, Sarpi computed that the Cardinal
held about 100,000 ducats of ecclesiastical benefices (vol. i. p. 219).
When the Archbishopric of Bologna, worth over 16,000 ducats a year, fell
vacant in 1610, Paul gave this to Scipione, who held it a short time
without residence, and then abandoned it to Alessandro Ludovisi
retaining all its revenues, with the exception of 2,000 ducats, for
himself as a _pension_ (vol. ii. pp. 158, 300). In the year 1610 Sarpi
notices the purchase of Sulmona and other fiefs by Paul for his family,
at the expenditure of 160,000 ducats (vol. ii. p. 70). In another place
he speaks of another sum of 100,000 spent upon the same object (vol. i.
p. 249, note). Well might he exclaim, 'Il pontefice e attesa ad arrichir
la sua casa' (vol. i. p. 294).]
CHAPTER III.
THE INQUISITION AND THE INDEX.
Different Spirit in the Holy Office and the Company of Jesus--Both
needed by the Counter-Reformation--Heresy in the Early
Church--First Origins of the Inquisition in 1203--S. Dominic--The
Holy Office becomes a Dominican Institution--Recognized by the
Empire--Its early Organization--The Spanish Inquisition--Founded in
1484--How it differed from the earlier Apostolical
Inquisition--Jews, Moors, New Christians--Organization and History
of the Holy Office in Spain--Torquemada and his Successors--The
Spanish Inquisition never introduced into Italy--How the Roman
Inquisition organized by Caraffa differed from it--_Autos da fe_ in
Rome--Proscription of suspected Lutherans--The Calabrian
Waldenses--Protestants at Locarno and Venice--Digression on the
Venetian Holy Office--Persecution of Free Thought in
Literature--Growth of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum--Sanction
given to it by the Council of Trent--The Roman Congregation of the
Index--Final Form of the Censorship of Books under Clement
VIII.--Analysis of its Regulations--Proscription of Heretical
Books--Correction of Texts--Purgation and Castration--Inquisitorial
and Episcopal Licenses--Working of the System of this Censorship in
Italy--Its long Delays--Hostility to Sound Learning--Ignorance of
the Censors--Interference with Scholars in their Work--Terrorism of
Booksellers--Vatican Scheme for the Restoration of Christian
Erudition--Frustrated by the Tyranny of the Index--Dishonesty of
the Vatican Scholars--Biblical Studies rendered nugatory by the
Tridentine Decree on the Vulgate--Decline of Learning in
Universities--Miserable Servitude of Professors--Greek dies
out--Muretus and Manutius in Rome--The Index and its Treatment of
Political Works--Machiavelli--_Ratio Status_--Encouragement of
Literature on Papal Absolutism--Sarpi's Attitude--Comparative
Indifference of Rome to Books of Obscene or Immoral
Tendency--Bandello and Boccaccio--Papal attempts to Control
Intercourse of Italians with Heretics.
In pursuing the plan of this book, which aims at showing how the spirit
of the Catholic revival penetrated every sphere of intellectual
activity in Italy, it will now be needful to consider the two agents,
both of Spanish origin, on whose assistance the Church relied in her
crusade against liberties of thought, speech, and action. These were the
Inquisition and the Company of Jesus. The one worked by extirpation and
forcible repression; the other by mental enfeeblement and moral
corruption. The one used fire, torture, imprisonment, confiscation of
goods, the proscription of learning, the destruction or emasculation of
books. The other employed subtle means to fill the vacuum thus created
with spurious erudition, sophistries, casuistical abominations and
false doctrines profitable to the Papal absolutism. Opposed in temper
and in method, the one fierce and rigid, the other saccharine and
pliant, these two bad angels of Rome contributed in almost equal measure
to the triumph of Catholicism.
In the earlier ages of the Church, the definition of heresy had been
committed to episcopal authority. But the cognizance of heretics and the
determination of their punishment remained in the hands of secular
magistrates. At the end of the twelfth century the wide diffusion of the
Albigensian heterodoxy through Languedoc and Northern Italy alarmed the
chiefs of Christendom, and furnished the Papacy with a good pretext for
extending its prerogatives. Innocent III. in 1203 empowered two French
Cistercians, Pierre de Castelnau and Raoul, to preach against the
heretics of Provence. In the following year he ratified this commission
by a Bull, which censured the negligence and coldness of the bishops,
appointed the Abbot of Citeaux Papal delegate in matters of heresy, and
gave him authority to judge and punish misbelievers. This was the first
germ of the Holy Office as a separate Tribunal. In order to comprehend
the facility with which the Pope established so anomalous an
institution, we must bear in mind the intense horror which heresy
inspired in the Middle Ages. Being a distinct encroachment of the Papacy
upon the episcopal jurisdiction and prerogatives, the Inquisition met at
first with some opposition from the bishops. The people for whose
persecution it was designed, and at whose expense it carried on its
work, broke into rebellion; the first years of its annals were rendered
illustrious by the murder of one of its founders, Pierre de Castelnau.
He was canonized, and became the first Saint of the Inquisition. Two
other Peters obtained the like honor through their zeal for the Catholic
faith: Peter of Verona, commonly called Peter Martyr, the Italian saint
of the Dominican order; and Peter Arbues, the Spanish saint, who sealed
with his blood the charter of the Holy Office in Aragon.
In spite of opposition, the Papal institution took root and flourished.
Philip Augustus responded to the appeals of Innocent; and a crusade
began against the Albigenses, in which Simon de Montfort won his
sinister celebrity. During those bloody wars the Inquisition developed
itself as a force of formidable expansive energy. Material assistance to
the cause was rendered by a Spanish monk of the Augustine order, who
settled in Provence on his way back from Rome in 1206. Domenigo de
Guzman, known to universal history as S. Dominic, organized a new
militia for the service of the orthodox Church between the years 1215
and 1219. His order, called the Order of the Preachers, was originally
designed to repress heresy and confirm the faith by diffusing Catholic
doctrine and maintaining the creed in its purity. It consisted of three
sections: the Preaching Friars; nuns living in conventual retreat; and
laymen, entitled the Third Order of Penitence or the Militia of Christ,
who in after years were merged with the congregation of S. Peter Martyr,
and corresponded to the familiars of the Inquisition. Since the
Dominicans were established in the heat and passion of a crusade against
heresy, by a rigid Spaniard who employed his energies in persecuting
misbelievers, they assumed at the outset a belligerent and inquisitorial
attitude. Yet it is not strictly accurate to represent S. Dominic
himself as the first Grand Inquisitor. The Papacy proceeded with caution
in its design of forming a tribunal dependent on the Holy See and
independent of the bishops. Papal Legates with plenipotentiary authority
were sent to Languedoc, and decrees were issued against the heretics, in
which the Inquisition was rather implied than directly named; nor can I
find that S. Dominic, though he continued to be the soul of the new
institution until his death in 1221, obtained the title of Inquisitor.
Notwithstanding this vagueness, the Holy Office may be said to have been
founded by S. Dominic; and it soon became apparent that the order he had
formed, was destined to monopolize its functions. The Emperor Frederick
II. on his coronation, in 1221, declared his willingness to support a
separate Apostolical tribunal for the suppression of heresy. He
sanctioned the penalty of death by fire for obstinate heretics, and
perpetual imprisonment for penitents--forms of punishment which became
stereotyped in the proceedings of the Holy Office.[78] The tribunal, now
recognized as a Dominican institution, derived its authority from the
Pope. The bishops were suffered to sit with the Inquisitors, but only in
such subordinate capacity as left to them a bare title of authority.[79]
The secular magistracy was represented by an assessor, who, being
nominated by the Inquisitor, became his servile instrument. The
expenses of the Court in prosecuting, punishing and imprisoning
heretics, together with the maintenance of the Inquisitors and their
guards, were thrown upon the communes which they visited. Such was the
organization which the Popes, aided by S. Dominic, and availing
themselves of the fanatical passions aroused in the Provencal wars,
succeeded in creating for their own aggrandizement. It is strange to
think that its ratification by the supreme secular power was obtained
from an Emperor who died in contumacy, excommunicated and persecuted as
an arch-heretic by the priests he had supported.
[Footnote 78: See Cantu, _Gli Eretici d'Italia_, vol. i. Discorso 5, and
the notes appended to it, for Frederick's edicts and letters to Gregory
IX. upon this matter of heresy. The Emperor treats of _Heretica
Pravitas_ as a crime against society, and such, indeed, it then appeared
according to the mediaeval ideal of Christendom united under Church and
Empire. Yet Frederick himself, it will be remembered, died under the ban
of the Church, and was placed by Dante among the heresiarchs in the
tenth circle of Hell. We now regard him justly as one of the precursors
of the Renaissance. But at the beginning of his reign, in his peculiar
attitude of Holy Roman Emperor, he had to proceed with rigor against
free-thinkers in religion. They were foes to the mediseval order, of
which he was the secular head.]
[Footnote 79: Sarpi, 'Discorso dell'Origine,' etc. _Opere_, vol. iv. p.
6.]
This Apostolical Inquisition was at once introduced into Lombardy,
Romagna and the Marches of Treviso. The extreme rigor of its
proceedings, the extortions of monks, and the violent resistance offered
by the communes, led to some relaxation of its original constitution.
More authority had to be conceded to the bishops; and the right of the
Inquisitors to levy taxes on the people was modified. Yet it retained
its true form of a Papal organ, superseding the episcopal prerogatives,
and overriding the secular magistrates, who were bound to execute its
biddings. As such it was admitted into Tuscany, and established in
Aragon. Venice received it in 1289, with certain reservations that
placed its proceedings under the control of Doge and Council. In
Languedoc, the country of its birth, it remained rooted at Toulouse and
Carcassonne; but the Inquisition did not extend its authority over
central and northern France.[80] In Paris its functions were performed
by the Sorbonne. Nor did it obtain a footing in England, although the
statute 'De Haeretico Comburendo,' passed in 1401 at the instance of the
higher clergy, sanctioned the principles on which it existed.
The wide and ready acceptance of so terrible an engine of oppression
enables us to estimate the profound horror which heresy inspired in the
Middle Ages.[81] On the whole, the Inquisition performed the work for
which it had been instituted. Those spreading sects, known as Waldenses,
Albigenses, Cathari and Paterines, whom it was commissioned to
extirpate, died away into obscurity during the fourteenth century; and
through the period of the Renaissance the Inquisition had little scope
for the display of energy in Italy. Though dormant, it was by no means
extinct, however; and the spirit which created it, needed only external
cause and circumstance to bring it once more into powerful operation.
Meanwhile the Popes throughout the Renaissance used the imputation of
heresy, which never lost its blighting stigma, in the prosecution of
their secular ambition. As Sarpi has pointed out, there were few of the
Italian princes with whom they came into political collision, who were
not made the subject of such accusation.
[Footnote 80: See Christie's _Etienne Dolet_, chapter 21.]
[Footnote 81: Visitors to Milan must have been struck with the
equestrian statue to the Podesta Oldrado da Trezzeno in the Piazza
de'Mercanti. Underneath it runs an epitaph containing among the praises
of this man: _Catharos ut debuit uxit_. An Archbishop of Milan of the
same period (middle of the thirteenth century), Enrico di Settala, is
also praised upon his epitaph because _jugulavit haereses_. See Cantu,
_Gli Eretici d Italia_, vol. i. p. 108.]
The revival of the Holy Office on a new and far more murderous basis,
took place in 1484. We have seen that hitherto there had been two types
of inquisition into heresy. The first, which remained in force up to the
year 1203, may be called the episcopal. The second was the Apostolical
or Dominican: it transferred this jurisdiction from the bishops to the
Papacy, who employed the order of S. Dominic for the special service of
the tribunal instituted by the Imperial decrees of Frederick II. The
third deserves no other name than Spanish, though, after it had taken
shape in Spain, it was transferred to Portugal, applied in all the
Spanish and Portuguese colonies, and communicated with some
modifications to Italy and the Netherlands.[82] Both the second and
third types of Inquisition into heresy were Spanish inventions, patented
by the Roman Pontiffs and monopolized by the Dominican order. But the
third and final form of the Holy Office in Spain distinguished itself
by emancipation from Papal and Royal control, and by a specific
organization which rendered it the most formidable of irresponsible
engines in the annals of religious institutions.
[Footnote 82: Sarpi estimates the number of victims in the Netherlands
during the reign of Charles V. at 50,000; Grotius at 100,000. In the
reign of Philip II. perhaps another 25,000 were sacrificed. Motley
(_Rise of the Dutch Republic_, vol. ii. p. 155) tells how in February
1568 a sentence of the Holy Office, confirmed by royal proclamation,
condemned all the inhabitants of the Netherlands, some three millions of
souls, with a few specially excepted persons, to death. It was customary
to burn the men and bury the women alive. In considering this
institution as a whole, we must bear in mind that it was extended to
Mexico, Lima, Carthagena, the Indies, Sicily, Sardinia, Oran, Malta. Of
the working of the Holy Office in the Spanish and Portuguese colonies we
possess but few authentic records. The _Histoire des Inquisitions_ of
Joseph Lavallee (Paris, 1809) may, however, be consulted. In vol. ii.
pp. 5-9 of this work there is a brief account of the Inquisition at Goa
written by one Pyrard; and pp. 45-157 extend the singularly detailed
narrative of a Frenchman, Dellon, imprisoned in its dungeons. Some
curious circumstances respecting delation, prison life, and _autos da
fe_ are here minutely recorded.]
The crimes of which the second or Dominican Inquisition had taken
cognizance were designated under the generic name of heresy. Heretics
were either patent by profession of some heterodox cult or doctrine; or
they were suspected. The suspected included witches, sorcerers, and
blasphemers who invoked the devil's aid; Catholics abstaining from
confession and absolution; harborers of avowed heretics; legal defenders
of the cause of heretics; priests who gave Christian burial to heretics;
magistrates who showed lukewarmness in pursuit of heretics; the corpses
of dead heretics, and books that might be taxed with heretical opinions.
All ranks in the social hierarchy, except the Pope, his Legates and
Nuncios, and the bishops, were amenable to this Inquisition. The
Inquisitors could only be arraigned and judged by their peers. In order
to bring the machinery of imprisonment, torture and final sentence into
effect, it was needful that the credentials of the Inquisitor should be
approved by the sovereign, and that his procedure should be recognized
by the bishop. These limitations of the Inquisitorial authority
safeguarded the crown and the episcopacy in a legal sense. But since
both crown and episcopacy concurred in the object for which the Papacy
had established the tribunal, the Inquisitor was practically unimpeded
in his functions. Furnished with royal or princely letters patent, he
traveled from town to town, attended by his guards and notaries,
defraying current expenses at the cost of provinces and towns through
which he passed. Where he pitched his camp, he summoned the local
magistrates, swore them to obedience, and obtained assurance of their
willingness to execute such sentences as he might pronounce. Spies and
informers gathered round him, pledged to secrecy and guaranteed by
promises of State-protection. The Court opened; witnesses were examined;
the accused were acquitted or condemned. Then sentence was pronounced,
to which the bishop or his delegate, often an Inquisitor, gave a formal
sanction. Finally, the heretic was handed over to the secular arm for
the execution of justice. The extraordinary expenses of the tribunal
were defrayed by confiscation of goods, a certain portion being paid to
the district in which the crime had occurred, the rest being reserved
for the maintenance of the Holy Office.
Such, roughly speaking, was the method of the Inquisition before 1484;
and it did not materially differ in Italy and Spain. Castile had
hitherto been free from the pest. But the conditions of that kingdom
offered a good occasion for its introduction at the date which I have
named. During the Middle Ages the Jews of Castile acquired vast wealth
and influence. Few families but felt the burden of their bonds and
mortgages. Religious fanaticism, social jealousy, and pecuniary distress
exasperated the Christian population; and as early as the year 1391,
more than 5000 Jews were massacred in one popular uprising. The Jews, in
fear, adopted Christianity. It is said that in the fifteenth century the
population counted some million of converts--called New Christians, or,
in contempt, Marranos: a word which may probably be derived from the
Hebrew Maranatha. These converted Jews, by their ability and wealth,
crept into high offices of state, obtained titles of aristocracy, and
founded noble houses. Their daughters were married with large dowers
into the best Spanish families; and their younger sons aspired to the
honors of the Church. Castilian society was being penetrated with Jews,
many of whom had undoubtedly conformed to Christianity in externals
only. Meanwhile a large section of the Hebrew race remained faithful to
their old traditions; and a mixed posterity grew up, which hardly knew
whether it was Christian or Jewish, and had opportunity for joining
either party.
A fertile field was now opened for Inquisitorial energy. The orthodox
Dominican saw Christ's flock contaminated. Not without reason did
earnest Catholics dread that the Church in Castile would suffer from
this blending of the Jewish with the Spanish breed. But they had a fiery
Catholic enthusiasm to rely upon in the main body of the nation. And in
the crown they knew that there were passions of fear and cupidity, which
might be used with overmastering effect. It sufficed to point out to
Ferdinand that a persecution of the New Christians would flood his
coffers with gold extorted from suspected misbelievers. No merely fabled
El Dorado lay in the broad lands and costly merchandise of these
imperfect converts to the faith. It sufficed to insist upon the peril to
the State if an element so ill-assimilated to the nation were allowed to
increase unchecked. At the same time, the Papacy was nothing loth to
help them in their undertaking. Sixtus V., one of the worst of Pontiffs,
sat then on S. Peter's chair. He readily discerned that a considerable
portion of the booty might be indirectly drawn into his exchequer; and
he knew that any establishment of the Inquisition on an energetic basis
would strengthen the Papacy in its combat with national and episcopal
prerogatives. The Dominicans on their side can scarcely be credited with
a pure zeal for the faith. They had personal interests to serve by
spiritual aggrandizement, by the elevation of their order, and by the
exercise of an illimitable domination.
It was a Sicilian Inquisitor, Philip Barberis, who suggested to
Ferdinand the Catholic the advantage he might secure by extending the
Holy Office to Castile. Ferdinand avowed his willingness; and Sixtus IV.
gave the project his approval in 1478. But it met with opposition from
the gentler-natured Isabella. She refused at first to sanction the
introduction of so sinister an engine into her hereditary dominions. The
clergy now contrived to raise a popular agitation against the Jews,
reviving old calumnies of impossible crimes, and accusing them of being
treasonable subjects. Then Isabella yielded; and in 1481 the Holy Office
was founded at Seville. It began its work by publishing a comprehensive
edict against all New Christians suspected of Judaizing, which offense
was so constructed as to cover the most innocent observance of national
customs. Resting from labor on Saturday; performing ablutions at stated
times; refusing to eat pork or puddings made of blood; and abstaining
from wine, sufficed to color accusations of heresy. Men who had joined
the Catholic communion after the habits of a lifetime had been formed,
thus found themselves exposed to peril of death by the retention of mere
sanitary rules.[83]
[Footnote 83: See Lavallee, _Histoire des Inquisitions_, vol. ii. pp.
341-361, for the translation of a process instituted in 1570 against a
Mauresque female slave. Suspected of being a disguised infidel, she was
exposed to the temptations of a Moorish spy, and convicted mainly on the
evidence furnished by certain Mussulman habits to which she adhered.
Llorente reports a similar specimen case, vol. i. p. 442. The culprit
was a tinker aged 71, accused in 1528 of abstaining from pork and wine,
and using certain ablutions. He defended himself by pleading that,
having been converted at the age of 45, it did not suit his taste to eat
pork or drink wine, and that his trade obliged him to maintain
cleanliness by frequent washing. He was finally condemned to carry a
candle at an _auto da fe_ in sign of penitence, and to pay four ducats,
the costs of his trial. His detention lasted from September, 1529, till
December 18, 1530.]
Upon the publication of this edict, there was an exodus of Jews by
thousands into the fiefs of independent vassals of the crown--the Duke
of Medina Sidonia, the Marquis of Cadiz, and the Count of Arcos. All
emigrants were _ipso facto_ declared heretics by the Holy Office. During
the first year after its foundation, Seville beheld 298 persons burned
alive, and 79 condemned to perpetual imprisonment. A large square stage
of stone, called the Quemadero, was erected for the execution of those
multitudes who were destined to suffer death by hanging or by flame. In
the same year, 2000 were burned and 17,000 condemned to public
penitence, while even a larger number were burned in effigy, in other
parts of the kingdom.
While estimating the importance of these punishments we must remember
that they implied confiscation of property. Thus whole families were
orphaned and consigned to penury. Penitence in public carried with it
social infamy, loss of civil rights and honors, intolerable conditions
of ecclesiastical surveillance, and heavy pecuniary fines. Penitents who
had been reconciled, returned to society in a far more degraded
condition than convicts released on ticket of leave. The stigma attached
in perpetuity to the posterity of the condemned, whose names were
conspicuously emblazoned upon church-walls as foemen to Christ and to
the State.
It is not strange that the New Christians, wealthy as they were and
allied with some of the best blood in Spain, should have sought to avert
the storm descending on them by appeals to Rome. In person or by
procurators, they carried their complaints to the Papal Curia, imploring
the relief of private reconciliation with the Church, special exemption
from the jurisdiction of the Holy Office, rehabilitation after the loss
of civil rights and honors, dispensation from humiliating penances, and
avvocation of causes tried by the Inquisition, to less prejudiced
tribunals. The object of these petitions was to avoid perpetual infamy,
to recover social status, and to obtain an impartial hearing in doubtful
cases. The Papal Curia had anticipated the profits to be derived from
such appeals. Sixtus IV. was liberal in briefs of indulgence, absolution
and exemption, to all comers who paid largely. But when his suitors
returned to Spain, they found their dearly-purchased parchments of no
more value than waste paper. The Holy Office laughed Papal Bulls of
Privilege to scorn, and the Pope was too indifferent to exert such
authority as he might have possessed.
Meanwhile, the Inquisition rapidly took shape. In 1483 Thomas of
Torquemada was nominated Inquisitor General for Castile and Aragon.
Under his rule a Supreme Council was established, over which he
presided for life. The crown sent three assessors to this board; and the
Inquisitors were strengthened in their functions by a council of
jurists. Seville, Cordova, Jaen, Toledo, became the four subordinate
centers of the Holy Office, each with its own tribunal and its own right
of performing _autos da fe_. Commission was sent out to all Dominicans,
enjoining on them the prosecution of their task in every diocese.
In 1484 a General Council was held, and the constitution of the
inquisition was established by articles. In these articles four main
points seem to have been held in view. The first related to the system
of confiscation, fines, civil disabilities, losses of office, property,
honors, rights, inheritances, which formed a part of the penitentiary
procedure, and by which the crown and Holy Office made pecuniary gains.
The second secured secrecy in the action of the tribunal, whereby a door
was opened to delation, and accused persons were rendered incapable of
rational defense. The third elaborated the judicial method, so as to
leave no loophole of escape even for those who showed a wish to be
converted, empowering the use of torture, precluding the accused from
choosing their own counsel, and excluding the bishops from active
participation in the sentence. The fourth multiplied the charges under
which suspected heretics, even after their death might be treated as
impenitent or relapsed, so as to increase the number of victims and
augment the booty.
The two most formidable features of the Inquisition as thus constituted,
were the exclusion of the bishops from its tribunal and the secrecy of
its procedure. The accused was delivered over to a court that had no
mercy, no common human sympathies, no administrative interest in the
population. He knew nothing of his accusers; and when he died or
disappeared from view no record of his case survived him.
The Inquisition rested on the double basis of ecclesiastical fanaticism
and protected delation. The court was _prima facie_ hostile to the
accused; and the accused could never hope to confront the detectives
upon whose testimony he was arraigned before it. Lives and reputations
lay thus at the mercy of professional informers, private enemies,
malicious calumniators. The denunciation was sometimes anonymous,
sometimes signed, with names of two corroborative witnesses. These
witnesses were examined, under a strict seal of secrecy, by the
Inquisitors, who drew up a form of accusation, which they submitted to
theologians called Qualificators. The qualificators were not informed of
the names of the accused, the delator, or the witnesses. It was their
business to qualify the case of heresy as light, grave, or violent.
Having placed it in one of these categories, they returned it to the
Inquisitors, who now arrested the accused and flung him into the secret
prisons of the Holy Office. After some lapse of time he was summoned for
a preliminary examination. Having first been cautioned to tell the
truth, he had to recite the Paternoster, Credo, Ten Commandments, and a
kind of catechism. His pedigree was also investigated, in the
expectation that some traces of Jewish or Moorish descent might serve to
incriminate him. If he failed in repeating the Christian shibboleths, or
if he was discovered to have infidel ancestry, there existed already a
good case to proceed upon. Finally, he was questioned upon the several
heads of accusation condensed from the first delation and the deposition
of the witnesses. If needful at this point, he was put to the torture,
again and yet again.[84] He never heard the names of his accusers, nor
was he furnished with a full bill of the charges against him in writing.
At this stage he was usually remanded, and the judicial proceedings were
deliberately lengthened out with a view of crushing his spirit and
bringing him to abject submission. For his defence he might select one
advocate, but only from a list furnished by his judges; and this
advocate in no case saw the original documents of the impeachment. It
rarely happened, upon this one-sided method of trial, that an accused
person was acquitted altogether. If he escaped burning or perpetual
incarceration, he was almost certainly exposed to the public ceremony
of penitence, with its attendant infamy, fines, civil disabilities, and
future discipline. Sentence was not passed upon condemned persons until
they appeared, dressed up in a San Benito, at the place of punishment.
This costume was a sort of sack, travestying a monk's frock, made of
coarse yellow stuff, and worked over with crosses, flames, and devils,
in glaring red. It differed in details according to the destination of
the victim: for some ornaments symbolized eternal hell, and others the
milder fires of purgatory. If sufficiently versed in the infernal
heraldry of the Holy Office, a condemned man might read his doom before
he reached the platform of the _auto_. There he heard whether he was
sentenced to relaxation--in other words, to burning at the hands of the
hangman--or to reconciliation by means of penitence. At the last moment,
he might by confession _in extremis_ obtain the commutation of a death
sentence into life-imprisonment, or receive the favor of being strangled
before he was burned. A relapsed heretic, however--that is, one who
after being reconciled had once again apostatized, was never exempted
from the penalty of burning. To make these holocausts of human beings
more ghastly, the pageant was enhanced by processions of exhumed corpses
and heretics in effigy. Artificial dolls and decomposed bodies, with
grinning lips and mouldy foreheads, were hauled to the huge bonfire,
side by side with living men, women, and children. All of them
alike--_fantoccini_, skeletons, and quick folk--were enveloped in the
same grotesquely ghastly San Benito, with the same hideous yellow miters
on their pasteboard, worm-eaten, or palpitating foreheads. The
procession presented an ingeniously picturesque discord of ugly shapes,
an artistically loathsome dissonance of red and yellow hues, as it
defiled, to the infernal music of growled psalms and screams and
moanings, beneath the torrid blaze of Spanish sunlight.
[Footnote 84: The Supreme Council forbade the repetition of torture; but
this hypocritical law was evaded in practice by declaring that the
torture had been suspended. Llorente, vol. i. p. 307.]
Spaniards--such is the barbarism of the Latinized Iberian
nature--delighted in these shows, as they did and do in bull-fights.
Butcheries of heretics formed the choicest spectacles at royal
christenings and bridals.
At Seville the Quemadero was adorned with four colossal statues of
prophets, to which some of the condemned were bound, so that they might
burn to death in the flames arising from the human sacrifice between
them.
In the autumn of 1484 the Inquisition was introduced into Aragon; and
Saragossa became its headquarters in that State. Though the Aragonese
were accustomed to the institution in its earlier and milder form, they
regarded the new Holy Office with just horror. The Marranos counted at
that epoch the Home Secretary, the Grand Treasurer, a Proto-notary, and
a Vice-Chancellor of the realm among their members; and they were allied
by marriage with the purest aristocracy. It is not, therefore,
marvelous that a conspiracy was formed to assassinate the Chief
Inquisitor, Peter Arbues. In spite of a coat-of-mail and an iron
skullcap worn beneath his monk's dress, Arbues was murdered one evening
while at prayer in church. But the revolt, notwithstanding this murder,
flashed, like an ill-loaded pistol, in the pan. Jealousies between the
old and new Christians prevented any common action; and the Inquisition
took a bloody vengeance upon all concerned. It even laid its hand on Don
James of Navarre, the Infant of Tudela.
The Spanish Inquisition was now firmly grounded. Directed by Torquemada,
it began to encroach upon the crown, to insult the episcopacy, to defy
the Papacy, to grind the Commons, and to outrage by its insolence the
aristocracy. Ferdinand's avarice had overreached itself by creating an
ecclesiastical power dangerous to the best interests of the realm, but
which fascinated a fanatically-pious people, and the yoke of which could
not be thrown off. The Holy Office grew every year in pride,
pretensions, and exactions. It arrogated to its tribunal crimes of
usury, bigamy, blasphemous swearing, and unnatural vice, which
appertained by right to the secular courts. It depopulated Spain by the
extermination and banishment of at least three million industrious
subjects during the first 139 years of its existence. It attacked
princes of the blood,[85] archbishops, fathers of the Tridentine
Council. It filled every city in the kingdom, the convents of the
religious, and the palaces of the nobility, with spies. The Familiars,
or lay brethren devoted to its service, lived at charges of the
communes, and debauched society by crimes of rapine, lust, and
violence.[86] Ignorant and bloodthirsty monks composed its provincial
tribunals, who, like the horrible Lucero el Tenebroso at Cordova,
paralyzed whole provinces with a veritable reign of terror.[87] Hated
and worshiped, its officers swept through the realm in the guise of
powerful _condottieri_. The Grand Inquisitor maintained a bodyguard of
fifty mounted Familiars and two hundred infantry; his subordinates were
allowed ten horsemen and fifty archers apiece. Where these black guards
appeared, city gates were opened; magistrates swore fealty to masters of
more puissance than the king; the resources of flourishing districts
were placed at their disposal. Their arbitrary acts remained
unquestioned, their mysterious sentences irreversible. Shrouded in
secrecy, amenable to no jurisdiction but their own, they reveled in the
license of irresponsible dominion. Spain gradually fell beneath the
charm of their dark fascination. A brave though cruel nation drank
delirium from the poison-cup of these vile medicine-men, whose
Moloch-worship would have disgusted cannibals.
[Footnote 85: Llorente, in his introduction to the _History of the
Inquisition_, gives a long list of illustrious Spanish victims.]
[Footnote 86: See Llorente, vol. i. p. 349, for their outrages on
women.]
[Footnote 87: For the history of Lucero's tyranny, read Llorente, vol.
i. pp. 345-353. When at last he had to be deposed, it was not to a
dungeon or the scaffold, but to his bishopric of Almeria that this
miscreant was relegated.]
Torquemada was the genius of evil who created and presided over this
foul instrument of human crime and folly. During his eighteen years of
administration, reckoning from 1480 to 1498, he sacrificed, according to
Llorente's calculation, above 114,000 victims, of whom 10,220 were
burned alive, 6,860 burned in effigy, and 97,000 condemned to perpetual
imprisonment or public penitence.[88] He, too, it was who in 1492
compelled Ferdinand to drive the Jews from his dominions. They offered
30,000 ducats for the war against Granada, and promised to abide in
Spain under heavy social disabilities, if only they might be spared this
act of national extermination. Then Torquemada appeared before the king,
and, raising his crucifix on high, cried: 'Judas sold Christ for thirty
pieces of silver. Look ye to it, if ye do the like!' The edict of
expulsion was issued on the last of March. Before the last of July all
Jews were sentenced to depart, carrying no gold or silver with them.
They disposed of their lands, houses, and goods for next to nothing, and
went forth to die by thousands on the shores of Africa and Italy. Twelve
who were found concealed at Malaga in August were condemned to be
pricked to death by pointed reeds.[89]
The exodus of the Jews was followed in 1502 by a similar exodus of
Moors from Castile, and in 1524 by an exodus of Mauresques from Aragon.
To compute the loss of wealth and population inflicted upon Spain by
these mad edicts, would be impossible. We may wonder whether the
followers of Cortez, when they trod the teocallis of Mexico and gazed
with loathing on the gory elf-locks of the Aztec priests, were not
reminded of the Torquemada they had left at home. His cruelty became so
intolerable that even Alexander VI. was moved to horror. In 1494 the
Borgia appointed four assessors, with equal powers, to restrain the
blood-thirst of the fanatic.
[Footnote 88: Llorente, vol. i. p. 229. The basis for these and
following calculations is explained _ib._ pp. 272-281.]
[Footnote 89: _Ibid._ vol. i. p. 263.]
After Torquemada, Diego Deza reigned as second Inquisitor General from
1498 to 1507. In these years, according to the same calculation, 2,592
were burned alive, 896 burned in effigy, 34,952 condemned to prison or
public penitence.[90] Cardinal Ximenez de Cisneros followed between 1507
and 1517. The victims of this decade were 3,564 burned alive, 1,232
burned in effigy, 48,059 condemned to prison or public penitence.[91]
Adrian, Bishop of Tortosa, tutor to Charles V., and afterwards Pope, was
Inquisitor General between 1516 and 1525. Castile, Aragon, and
Catalonia, at this epoch, simultaneously demanded a reform of the Holy
Office from their youthful sovereign. But Charles refused, and the tale
of Adrian's administration was 1,620 burned alive, 560 burned in effigy,
21,845 condemned to prison or public penitence.[92] The total, during
forty-three years, between 1481 and 1525, amounted to 234,526, including
all descriptions of condemned heretics.[93] These figures are of
necessity vague, for the Holy Office left but meager records of its
proceedings. The vast numbers of cases brought before the Inquisitors
rendered their method of procedure almost as summary as that of Fouquier
Thinville, while policy induced them to bury the memory of their victims
in oblivion.[94]
[Footnote 90: Llorente, p. 341.]
[Footnote 91: _Ibid._ p. 360.]
[Footnote 92: Llorente, p. 406.]
[Footnote 93: _Ib._ p. 407.]
[Footnote 94: I know that Llorente's calculations have been disputed:
as, for instance, in some minor details by Prescott (_Ferd. and Isab._
vol. iii. p. 492). The truth is that no data now exist for forming a
correct census of the victims of the Spanish Moloch; and Llorente,
though he writes with the moderation of evident sincerity, and though he
had access to the archives of the Inquisition, does not profess to do
more than give an estimate based upon certain fixed data. However, it
signifies but little whether we reckon by thousands or by fifteen
hundreds. That foul monster spawned in the unholy embracements of
perverted religion with purblind despotism cannot be defended by
discounting five or even ten per cent. Let its apologists write for
every 1000 of Llorente 100, and for every 100 of Llorente 10, and our
position will remain unaltered. The Jesuit historian of Spain, Mariana,
records the burning-of 2000 persons in Andalusia alone in 1482.
Bernaldez mentions 700 burned in the one town of Seville between 1482
and 1489. An inscription carved above the portals of the Holy Office in
Seville stated that about 1000 had been burned between 1492 and 1524.]
Sometimes, while reading the history of the Holy Office in Spain, we are
tempted to imagine that the whole is but a grim unwholesome nightmare,
or the fable of malignant calumny. That such is not the case, however,
is proved by a jubilant inscription on the palace of the Holy Office at
Seville, which records the triumphs of Torquemada. Of late years, too,
the earth herself has disgorged some secrets of the Inquisition. 'A most
curious discovery,' writes Lord Malmesbury in his Memoirs,[95] 'has been
made at Madrid. Just at the time when the question of religious liberty
was being discussed in the Cortes, Serrano had ordered a piece of ground
to be leveled, in order to build on it; and the workmen came upon large
quantities of human bones, skulls, lumps of blackening flesh, pieces of
chains, and braids of hair. It was then recollected that the _autos da
fe_ used to take place at that spot in former days. Crowds of people
rushed to the place, and the investigation was continued. They found
layer upon layer of human remains, showing that hundreds had been
inhumanly sacrificed. The excitement and indignation this produced among
the people was tremendous, and the party for religious freedom taking
advantage of it, a Bill on the subject was passed by an enormous
majority.' Let modern Spain remember that a similar Aceldama lies hidden
in the precincts of each of her chief towns!
[Footnote 95: Vol. ii. p. 399.]
I have enlarged upon the details of the Spanish Inquisition for two
reasons. In the first place it strikingly illustrates the character of
the people who now had the upper hand in Italy. In the second place, its
success induced Paul III., acting upon the advice of Giov. Paolo
Caraffa, to remodel the Roman office on a similar type in 1542. It may
at once be said that the real Spanish Inquisition was never introduced
into Italy.[96] Such an institution, claiming independent jurisdiction
and flaunting its cruelties in the light of day, would not have suited
the Papal policy. As temporal and spiritual autocrats, the Popes could
not permit a tribunal of which they were not the supreme authority. It
was their interest to consult their pecuniary advantage rather than to
indulge insane fanaticism; to repress liberty of thought by cautious
surveillance rather than by public terrorism and open acts of cruelty.
The Italian temperament was, moreover, more humane than the Spanish; nor
had the refining culture of the Renaissance left no traces in the
nation. Furthermore, the necessity for so Draconian an institution was
not felt. Catholicism in Italy had not to contend with Jews and Moors,
Marranos and Moriscoes. It was, indeed, alarmed by the spread of
Lutheran opinions. Caraffa complained to Paul III. that 'the whole of
Italy is infected with the Lutheran heresy, which has been embraced not
only by statesmen, but also by many ecclesiastics.'[97] Pius V. was so
panic-stricken by the prevalence of heresy in Faenza that he seriously
meditated destroying the town and dispersing its inhabitants.[98] Yet,
after a few years of active persecution, this peril proved to be unreal.
The Reformation had not taken root so deep and wide in Italy that it
could not be eradicated. When, therefore, the Spanish viceroys sought
to establish their national Inquisition in Naples and Milan, the
rebellious people received protection and support from the Papacy; and
the Holy Office, as remodeled in Rome, became a far less awful engine of
oppression than that of Seville.
[Footnote 96: Naples and Milan passionately and successfully opposed its
introduction by the Spanish viceroys. But it ruled in Sicily and
Sardinia.]
[Footnote 97: McCrie, p. 186.]
[Footnote 98: Mutinelli, _Storia Arcana_, vol. i. p. 79.]
It was sufficiently severe, however. 'At Rome,' writes a resident in
1568, 'some are daily burned, hanged, or beheaded; the prisons and
places of confinement are filled, and they are obliged to build new
ones.'[99] This general statement may be checked by extracts from the
despatches of Venetian ambassadors in Rome, which, though they are not
continuous, and cannot be supposed to give an exhaustive list of the
victims of the Inquisition, enable us to judge with some degree of
accuracy what the frequency of executions may have been.[100]
[Footnote 99: McCrie, p. 272.]
[Footnote 100: Mutinelli's _Storia Arcana_, etc. vol. i., is the source
from which I have drawn the details given above.]
On September 27, 1567, a session of the Holy Office was held at S. Maria
sopra Minerva. Seventeen heretics were condemned. Fifteen of these were
sentenced to perpetual imprisonment, the galleys for life, fines, or
temporary imprisonment, according to the nature of their offenses. Two
were reserved for capital punishment--namely, Carnesecchi and a friar
from Cividale di Belluno. They were beheaded and burned upon the bridge
of S. Angelo on October 4. On May 28, 1569, there was an Act of the
Inquisition at the Minerva, twenty Cardinals attending. Four impenitent
heretics were condemned to the stake. Ten penitents were sentenced to
various punishments of less severity. On August 2, 1578, occurred a
singular scandal touching some Spaniards and Portuguese of evil manners,
all of whom were burned with the exception of those who contrived to
escape in time. On August 5, 1581, an English Protestant was burned for
grossly insulting the Host. On February 20, 1582, after an Act of the
Inquisition in due form, seventeen heretics were sentenced, three to
death, and the rest to imprisonment, etc. We must bear in mind that
Mutinelli, who published the extracts from the Venetian dispatches which
contain these details, does not profess to aim at completeness. Gaps of
several years occur between the documents of one envoy and those of his
successor. Nor does it appear that the writers themselves took notice of
more than solemn and ceremonial proceedings, in which the Acts of the
Inquisition were published with Pontifical and Curial pomp.[101] Still,
when these considerations have been weighed, it will appear that the
victims of the Inquisition, in Rome, could be counted, not by hundreds,
but by units. After illustrious examples, like those of Aonio Paleario,
Pietro Carnesecchi, Giordano Bruno, who were burned for Protestant or
Atheistical opinions, the names of distinguished sufferers are few. Wary
heretics, a Celio Secundo Curio, a Galeazzo Caracciolo, a Bernardino
Ochino, a Pietro Martire Vermigli, a Pietro Paolo Vergerio, a Lelio
Socino, escaped betimes to Switzerland, and carried on their warfare
with the Church by means of writings.[102] Others, tainted with heresy,
like Marco Antonio Flaminio, managed to satisfy the Inquisition by
timely concessions. The Protestant Churches, which had sprung up in
Venice, Lucca, Modena, Ferrara, Faenza, Vicenza, Bologna, Naples, and
Siena, were easily dispersed.[103] Their pastors fled or submitted. The
flocks conformed to Catholic orthodoxy. Only in a few cases was extreme
rigor displayed. A memorable massacre took place in the year 1561 in
Calabria within the province of Cosenza.[104] Here at the end of the
fourteenth century a colony of Waldensians had settled in some villages
upon the coast. They preserved their peculiar beliefs and ritual, and
after three centuries numbered about 4000 souls. Nearly the whole of
these, it seems, were exterminated by sword, fire, famine, torture,
noisome imprisonment, and hurling from the summits of high cliffs. A few
of the survivors were sent to work upon the Spanish galleys. Some women
and children were sold into slavery. At Locarno, on the Lago Maggiore, a
Protestant community of nearly 300 persons was driven into exile in
1555; and at Venice, in 1560-7, a small sect, holding reformed opinions,
suffered punishment of a peculiar kind. We read of five persons by name,
who, after being condemned by the Holy Office, were taken at night from
their dungeons to the Porto del Lido beyond the Due Castelli, and there
set upon a plank between two gondolas. The gondolas rowed asunder; and
one by one the martyrs fell and perished in the waters.[105]
[Footnote 101: It is singular that only one contemporary writes from
Rome about Bruno's execution in 1600; whence, I think, we may infer that
such events were too common to excite much attention.]
[Footnote 102: The main facts about these men may be found in Cantu's
_Gli Eretici d'Italia_, vol. ii. This work is written in no spirit of
sympathy with Reformers. But it is superior in learning and impartiality
to McCrie's.]
[Footnote 103: For the repressive measures used at Lucca, see _Archivio
Storico_, vol. x. pp. 162-185. They include the prohibition of books,
regulation of the religious observances of Lucchese citizens abroad in
France or Flanders, and proscription of certain heretics, with whom all
intercourse was forbidden.]
[Footnote 104: An eye-witness gives a heart-rending account of these
persecutions: sixty thrown from the tower of Guardia, eighty-eight
butchered like beasts in one day at Montalto, seven burned alive, one
hundred old women tortured and then slaughtered. _Arch. Stor._, vol. ix.
pp. 193-195.]
[Footnote 105: McCrie, _op. cit._ p. 232-236. The five men were Giulio
Gherlandi of Spresian, near Treviso (executed in 1562), Antonio Rizzetta
of Vicenza (in 1566), Francesco Sega of Rovigo (sentenced in 1566),
Francesco Spinola of Milan (in 1567), and Fra Baldo Lupatino (1556).
McCrie bases his report upon the _Histoire des Martyrs_ (Geneve, 1597)
and De Porta's _Historia Reformationis Rhaeticarum Ecclesiarum_.
Thinking these sources somewhat suspicious, I applied to my friend Mr.
H.F. Brown, whose researches in the Venetian archives are becoming known
to students of Italian history. He tells me that all the above cases,
except that of Spinola, exist in the Frari. Lupatino was condemned as a
Lutheran; the others as Anabaptists. In passing sentence on Lupatino,
the Chief Inquisitor remarked that he could not condemn him to death by
fire in Venice, but must consign him to a watery grave. This is
characteristic of Venetian state policy. It appears that, of the
above-named persons, Sega, though sentenced to death by drowning,
recanted at the last moment, saying, 'Non voglio esser negato, ma voglio
redirmi et morir buon Christiano.' Mr. Brown adds that there is nothing
in the archives to prove that he was executed; but there is also nothing
to show that his sentence was commuted. Two other persons involved in
this trial, viz. Nic. Bucello of Padua and Alessio of Bellinzona, upon
recantation, were subjected to public penances and confessions for
different terms of years. Sega's fate must, therefore, be considered
doubtful; since the fact that no commutation of sentence is on record
lends some weight to the hypothesis that he withdrew his recantation,
and submitted to martyrdom. I will close this note by expressing my hope
that Mr. Brown, who is already engaged upon the papers of the Venetian
Holy Office, will make them shortly the subject of a special
publication. Considering how rare are the full and authentic records of
any Inquisition, this would be of incalculable value for students of
history. The series of trials in the Frari extends from 1541 to 1794,
embracing 1562 _processi_ for the sixteenth century, 1469 for the
seventeenth, 541 for the eighteenth, and 25 of no date. Nearly all the
towns and districts of the Venetian State are involved.]
The position of the Holy Office in Venice was so far peculiar as to
justify a digression upon its special constitution. Always jealous of
ecclesiastical interference, the Republic insisted on the Inquisition
being made dependent on the State. Three nobles of senatorial rank were
chosen to act as Assessors of the Holy Office in the capital; and in the
subject cities this function was assigned to the Rectors, or lieutenants
of S. Mark. It was the duty of these lay members to see that justice was
impartially dealt by the ecclesiastical tribunal, to defend the State
against clerical encroachments, and to refer dubious cases to the Doge
in Council. They were forbidden to swear oaths of allegiance or of
secrecy to the Holy Office, and were bound to be present at all trials,
even in the case of ecclesiastical offenders. No causes could be
avvocated to Rome, and no crimes except heresy were held to lie within
the jurisdiction of the court. The State reserved to itself witchcraft,
profane swearing, bigamy and usury; allowed no interference with Jews,
infidels and Greeks; forbade the confiscation of goods in which the
heirs of condemned persons had interest; and made separate stipulations
with regard to the Index of Prohibited Books. It precluded the
Inquisition from extending its authority in any way, direct or indirect,
over trades, arts, guilds, magistrates, and communal officials.[106] The
tenor of this system was to repress ecclesiastical encroachments on the
State prerogatives, and to secure equity in the proceedings of the Holy
Office. Had practice answered to theory in the Venetian Inquisition, by
far the worst abuses of the institution would have been avoided. But as
a matter of fact, causes were not unfrequently transferred to Rome;
confiscations were permitted; and the lists of the condemned include
Mussulmans, witches, conjurors, men of scandalous life, etc., showing
that the jurisdiction of the Holy Office extended beyond heresy in
Venice.[107]
[Footnote 106: See Sarpi's 'Discourse on the Inquisition,' _Opere_, vol.
iv.]
[Footnote 107: I owe to Mr. H.F. Brown details about the register of
criminals condemned by the Holy Office, which substantiate my statement
regarding the various types of cases in its jurisdiction.]
The truth is that the Venetians, though they were willing to risk an
open rupture with Rome, remained at heart sound Churchmen devoted to the
principles of the Catholic Reaction. The Republic conceded the fact of
Inquisitorial authority, while it reserved the letter of
State-supervision. Venetian decadence was marked by this hypocrisy of
pride; and so long as appearances were saved, the Holy Office exercised
its functions freely. The nobles who acted as assessors had no sympathy
with religious toleration, being themselves under the influence of
confessors and directors.
How little the subjects of S. Mark at this epoch trusted the good faith
of laws securing liberty of thought in Venice, may be gathered from what
happened immediately after the publication of the Index Expurgatorius in
1596. From an official report upon the decline of the printing trade in
Venice, it appears that within the space of a few months the number of
presses fell from 125 to 40.[108] Printers were afraid to undertake
either old or new works, and the trade languished for lack of books to
publish. Yet an edict had been issued announcing that by the terms of
the Concordat with Clement VIII., the Venetian press would only be
subject to State control and not to the Roman tribunals.[109] The truth
is that, in regard both to the Holy Office and to the Index, Venice was
never strong enough to maintain the independence which she boasted. By
cunning use of the confessional, and by unscrupulous control of opinion,
the Church succeeded in doing there much the same as in any other
Italian city. Successive Popes made, indeed, a show of respecting the
liberties of the Republic. On material points, touching revenue and
State-administration, they felt it wise to concede even more than
complimentary privileges; and when Paul V. encroached upon these
privileges, the Venetians were ready to resist him. Yet the quarrels
between the Vatican and San Marco were, after all, but family disputes.
The Venetians at the close of the sixteenth century proved themselves no
better friends to spiritual freedom than were the Grand Dukes of
Tuscany. Their political jealousies, commercial anxieties, and feints of
maintaining a power that was rapidly decaying, denoted no partiality for
the opponents of Rome--unless, like Sarpi, these wore the livery of the
State, and defended with the pen its secular prerogatives. Therefore,
when the Signory published Clement VIII.'s Index, when copies of that
Index were sown broadcast, while only an edition of sixty was granted to
the Concordat, authors and publishers felt, and felt rightly, that their
day had passed. The art of printing sank at once to less than a third of
its productivity. The city where it had flourished so long, and where it
had effected so much of enduring value for European culture, was gagged
in scarcely a less degree than Rome. We have full right to insist upon
these facts, and to draw from them a stringent corollary. If Venice
allowed the trade in books, which had brought her so much profit and
such honor in the past, to be paralyzed by Clement's Index, what must
have happened in other Italian towns? The blow which maimed Venetian
literature, was mortal elsewhere; and the finest works of genius in the
first half of the seventeenth century had to find their publishers in
Paris.[110] But these reflections have led me to anticipate the proper
development of the subject of this chapter.
[Footnote 108: The document in question, prepared for the use of the
Signoria, exists in MS. in the Marcian Library, Misc. Eccl. et Civ.
Class. VII. Cod. MDCCLXI.]
[Footnote 109: This edict is dated August 24, 1596.]
[Footnote 110: This will be apparent when I come to treat of Marino and
Tassoni.]
In Italy at large, the forces of the Inquisition were directed, not as
in Spain against heretics in masses, but against the leaders of
heretical opinion; and less against personalities than against ideas.
Italy during the Renaissance had been the workshop of ideas for Europe.
It was the business of the Counter-Reformation to check the industry of
that _officina scientiarum_, to numb the nervous centers which had
previously emitted thought of pregnant import for the modern world, and
to prevent the reflux of ideas, elaborated by the northern races in
fresh forms, upon the intelligence which had evolved them. To do so now
was comparatively easy. It only needed to put the engine of the Index
Librorum Prohibitorum into working order in concert with the
Inquisition.
Throughout the Middle Ages it had been customary to burn heretical
writings. The bishops, the universities, and the Dominican Inquisitors
exercised this privilege; and by their means, in the age of manuscripts,
the life of a book was soon extinguished. Whole libraries were sometimes
sacrificed at one fell swoop, as in the case of the 6000 volumes
destroyed at Salamanca in 1490 by Torquemada, on a charge of
sorcery.[111] After the invention of printing it became more difficult
to carry on this warfare against literature, while the rapid diffusion
of Protestant opinions through the press rendered the need for their
extermination urgent. Sixtus IV. laid a basis for the Index by
prohibiting the publication of any books which had not previously been
licensed by ecclesiastical authority. Alexander VI. by a brief of 15O1
confirmed this measure, and placed books under the censorship of the
episcopacy and the Inquisition. Finally, the Lateran Council, in its
tenth session, held under the auspices of Leo X., gave solemn ecumenical
sanction to these regulations.
The censorship having been thus established, the next step was to form a
list of books prohibited by the Inquisitors appointed for that purpose.
The Sorbonne in Paris drew one up for their own use, and even presented
a petition to Francis I. that publication through the press should be
forbidden altogether.[112] A royal edict to this effect was actually
promulgated in 1535. Charles V. commissioned the University of Louvain
in 1539 to furnish a similar catalogue, proclaiming at the same time the
penalty of death for all who read or owned the works of Luther in his
realms.[113] The University printed their catalogue with Papal approval
in 1549.
[Footnote 111: Llorente, vol. i. p. 281.]
[Footnote 112: Christie's _Etienne Dolet_, pp. 220-24.]
[Footnote 113: Llorente, vol. i. p. 463.]
These lists of the Sorbonne and Louvain formed the nucleus of the
Apostolic Index, which, after the close of the Council of Trent, became
binding upon Catholics. When the Inquisition had been established in
Rome, Caraffa, who was then at its head, obtained the sanction of Paul
III. for submitting all books, old or new, printed or in manuscript, to
the supervision of the Holy Office. He also contrived to place
booksellers, public and private libraries, colporteurs and officers of
customs, under the same authority; so that from 1543 forward it was a
penal offence to print, sell, own, convey or import any literature, of
which the Inquisition had not first been informed, and for the diffusion
or possession of which it had not given its permission. Giovanni della
Casa, who was sent in 1546 to Venice with commission to prosecute P.
Paolo Vergerio for heresy, drew up a list of about seventy prohibited
volumes, which was printed in that city.[114] Other lists appeared, at
Florence in 1552, and at Milan in 1554. Philip II. at last, in 1558,
issued a royal edict commanding the publication of one catalogue which
should form the standard for such Indices throughout his States.[115]
These lists, revised, collated, and confirmed by Papal authority, were
reprinted, in the form which ever afterwards obtained, at Rome, by
command of Paul IV. in 1559.
[Footnote 114: In the year 1548. The MS. cited above (p. 192) mentions
another Index of the Venetian Holy Office published in 1554.]
[Footnote 115: Sarpi, _Ist. del Conc. Tial_, vol. ii..p. 90.]
The Tridentine Council ratified the regulations of the Inquisition and
the Index concerning prohibited books, and referred the execution of
them in detail to the Papacy. A congregation was appointed at Rome,
which, though technically independent of the Holy Office, worked in
concert with it. This Congregation of the Index brought the Tridentine
decrees into harmony with the practice that had been developed by
Caraffa as Inquisitor and Pope. Their list was published in 1564 with
the authority of Pius IV. Finally, in 1595 the decrees embodying the
statutes of the Church upon this topic were issued in print, together
with a largely augmented catalogue of interdicted books. This document
will form the basis of what I have to say with regard to the Catholic
crusade against literature.
Not without reason did Aonio Paleario call this engine of the Index 'a
dagger drawn from the scabbard to assassinate letters'--_sica districta
in omnes scriptores_.[116] Not without reason did Sarpi describe it as
'the finest secret which has ever been discovered for applying religion
to the purpose of making men idiotic.'[117]
[Footnote 116: In his _Oratio pro se ipso ad Senenses_. Printed by
Gryphius at Lyons in 1552.]
[Footnote 117: _1st. del Conc. Trid_. vol. ii. p. 91. The passage
deserves to be Paul IV. designated in his transcribed. 'Sotto colore di
fede e religione sono vietati con la medesima severita e dannati gli
autori de'libri da'quali l'autorita del principe e magistrati temporali
e difesa dalle usurpazioni ecclesiastiche; dove l'autorita de' Concilj e
de'Vescovi e difesa dalle usurpazioni della Corte Romana; dove le
ipocrisie o tirannidi con le quali sotto pretesto di religione il popolo
e ingannato o violentato sono manifestate. In somma non fu mai trovato
piu bell'arcano per adoperare la religione a far gli uomini insensati.']
Index Expurgatorius sixty-one printing firms by name, all of whose
publications were without exception prohibited, adding a similar
prohibition for the books edited by any printer who had published the
writings of any heretic; so that in fine, as Sarpi says, 'there was not
a book left to read.' Truly he might well exclaim in another passage
that the Church was doing its best to extinguish sound learning
altogether.[118]
In order to gain a clear conception of the warfare carried on by Rome
against free literature, it will be well to consider first the rules for
the Index of Prohibited Books, sketched out by the fathers delegated by
the Tridentine Council, published by Pius IV., augmented by Sixtus V.,
and reduced to their final form by Clement VIII. in 1595.[119]
Afterwards I shall proceed to explain the operation of the system, and
to illustrate by details the injury inflicted upon learning and
enlightenment.
[Footnote 118: _Discorso Sopra l'Inq._ vol. iv. p. 54.]
[Footnote 119: These rules form the Preface to modern editions of the
Index. The one I use is dated Naples, 1862. They are also printed in
vol. iv. of Sarpi's works.]
The preambles to this document recite the circumstances under which the
necessity for digesting an Index or Catalogue of Prohibited Books arose.
These were the diffusion of heretical opinions at the epoch of the
Lutheran schism, and their propagation through the press. The Council of
Trent decreed that a list of writings 'heretical, or suspected of
heretical pravity, or injurious to manners and piety,' should be drawn
up. This charge they committed to prelates chosen from all nations, who,
when the catalogue had been completed, referred it for sanction and
approval to the Pope. He nominated a congregation of eminent
ecclesiastics, by whose care the catalogue was perfected, and rules were
framed, defining the use that should be made of it in future. It issued
officially, as I have already stated, in 1564, the fifth year of the
pontificate of Pius IV., with warning to all universities and civil and
ecclesiastical authorities that any person of what grade or condition
soever, whether clerk or layman, who should read or possess one or more
of the proscribed volumes, would be accounted _ipso jure_ excommunicate,
and liable to prosecution by the Inquisition on a charge of heresy.[120]
Booksellers, printers, merchants, and custom-house officials received
admonition that the threat of excommunication and prosecution concerned
them specially.
[Footnote 120: Paulus Manutius Aldus printed this Index at Venice in
1564.]
The first rules deal with the acknowledged writings of Protestant
heresiarchs. Those of Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin, whether in their
original languages or translated, are condemned absolutely and without
exception. Next follow regulations for securing the monopoly of the
Vulgate, considered as the sole authorized version of the Holy
Scriptures. Translations of portions of the Bible made by learned men in
Latin may be used by scholars with permission of a bishop, provided it
be understood that they are never appealed to as the inspired text.
Translations into any vernacular idiom are strictly excluded from public
use and circulation, but may, under exceptional circumstances, be
allowed to students who have received license from a bishop or
Inquisitor at the recommendation of their parish priest or confessor.
Compilations made by heretics, in the form of dictionaries,
concordances, etc., are to be prohibited until they have been purged and
revised by censors of the press. The same regulation extends to
polemical and controversial works touching on matters of doctrine in
dispute between Catholics and Protestants. Next follow regulations
concerning books containing lascivious or obscene matter, which are to
be rigidly suppressed. Exception is made in favor of the classics, on
account of their style; with the proviso that they are on no account to
be given to boys to read. Treatises dealing professedly with occult
arts, magic, sorcery, predictions of future events, incantation of
spirits, and so forth, are to be proscribed; due reservation being made
in favor of scientific observations touching navigation, agriculture,
and the healing art, in which prognostics may be useful to mankind.
Having thus broadly defined the literature which has to be suppressed or
subjected to supervision, rules are laid down for the exercise of
censure. Books, whereof the general tendency is good, but which contain
passages savoring of heresy, superstition or divination, shall be
reserved for the consideration of Catholic theologians appointed by the
Inquisition; and this shall hold good also of prefaces, summaries, or
annotations. All writings printed in Rome must be submitted to the
judgment of the Vicar of the Pope, the Master of the Sacred Palace, or a
person nominated by the Pontiff. In other cities the bishop, or his
delegate, and the Inquisitor of the district, shall be responsible for
examining printed or manuscript works previous to publication; and
without their license it shall be illegal to circulate them.
Inquisitorial visits shall from time to time be made, under the
authority of the bishop and the Holy Office, in bookshops or printing
houses, for the removal and destruction of prohibited works. Colporteurs
of books across the frontiers, heirs and executors who have become
depositaries of books, collectors of private libraries, as well as
editors and booksellers, shall be liable to the same jurisdiction, bound
to declare their property by catalogue, and to show license for the use,
transmission, sale, or possession of the same.
With regard to the correction of books, it is provided that this duty
shall fall conjointly on bishops and Inquisitors, who must appoint three
men distinguished for learning and piety to examine the text and make
the necessary changes in it. Upon the report of these censors, the
bishops and Inquisitors shall give license of publication, provided they
are satisfied that the work of emendation has been duly performed. The
censor must submit not only the body of a book, to scrupulous analysis;
but he must also investigate the notes, summaries, marginal remarks,
indexes, prefaces, and dedicatory epistles, lest haply pestilent
opinions lurk there in ambush. He must keep a sharp lookout for
heretical propositions, and arguments savoring of heresy; insinuations
against the established order of the sacraments, ceremonies, usages and
ritual of the Roman Church; new turns of phrase insidiously employed by
heretics, with dubious and ambiguous expressions that may mislead the
unwary; plausible citations of Scripture, or passages of holy writ
extracted from heretical translations; quotations from the authorized
text, which have been adduced in an unorthodox sense; epithets in honor
of heretics, and anything that may redound to the praise of such
persons; opinions savoring of sorcery and superstition; theories that
involve the subjection of the human will to fate, fortune, and
fallacious portents, or that imply paganism; aspersions upon
ecclesiastics and princes; impugnments of the liberties, immunities, and
jurisdiction of the Church; political doctrines in favor of antique
virtues, despotic government, and the so-called Reason of State, which
are in opposition to the evangelical and Christian law; satires on
ecclesiastical rites, religious orders, and the state, dignity, and
persons of the clergy; ribaldries or stories offensive and prejudicial
to the fame and estimation of one's neighbors, together with
lubricities, lascivious remarks, lewd pictures, and capital letters
adorned with obscene images. All such peccant passages are to be
expunged, obliterated, removed or radically altered, before the license
for publication be accorded by the ordinary.
No book shall be printed without the author's name in full, together
with his nationality, upon the title-page. If there be sufficient reason
for giving an anonymous work to the world, the censor's name shall stand
for that of the author. Compilations of words, sentences, excerpts,
etc., shall pass under the name of the compiler. Publishers and
booksellers are to take care that the printed work agrees with the MS.
copy as licensed, and to see that all rules with regard to the author's
name and his authority to publish have been observed. They are,
moreover, to take an oath before the Master of the Sacred Palace in
Rome, or before the bishop and Inquisitor in other places, that they
will scrupulously follow the regulations of the Index. The bishops and
Inquisitors are held responsible for selecting as censors, men of
approved piety and learning, whose good faith and integrity they shall
guarantee, and who shall be such as will obey no promptings of private
hatred or of favor, but will do all for the glory of God and the
advantage of the faithful. The approbation of such censors, together
with the license of the bishop and Inquisitor, shall be printed at the
opening of every published book. Finally, if any work composed by a
condemned author shall be licensed after due purgation and castration,
it shall bear his name upon the title-page, together with the note of
condemnation, to the end that, though the book itself be accepted, the
author be understood to be rejected. Thus, for example, the title shall
run as follows: 'The Library, by Conrad Gesner, a writer condemned for
his opinions, which work was formerly published and proscribed, but is
now expurgated and licensed by superior authority.'
The Holy Office was made virtually responsible for the censorship of
books. But, as I have already stated, there existed a Congregation of
prelates in Rome to whom the final verdict upon this matter Was
reserved. If an author in some provincial town composed a volume, he was
bound in the first instance to submit the MS. to the censor appointed by
the bishop and Inquisitor of his district. This man took time to weigh
the general matter of the work before him, to scrutinize its
propositions, verify quotations, and deliberate upon its tendency. When
the license of the ordinary had been obtained, it was referred to the
Roman Congregation of the Index, who might withhold or grant their
sanction. So complicated was the machinery, and so vast the pressure
upon the officials who were held responsible for the expurgation of
every book imprinted or reprinted in all the Catholic presses, that even
writers of conspicuous orthodoxy had to suffer grievous delays. An
archbishop writes to Cardinal Sirleto about a book which had been
examined thrice, at Rome, at Venice and again at Rome, and had obtained
the Pope's approval, and yet the license for reprinting it is never
issued.[121] The censors were not paid; and in addition to being
overworked and over-burdened with responsibility, they were rarely men
of adequate learning. In a letter from Bartolommeo de Valverde, chaplain
to Philip II., under date 1584, we read plain-spoken complaints against
these subordinates.[122] 'Unacquainted with literature, they discharge
the function of condemning books they cannot understand. Without
knowledge of Greek or Hebrew, and animated by a prejudiced hostility
against authors, they take the easy course of proscribing what they feel
incapable of judging. In this way the works of many sainted writers and
the useful commentaries made by Jews have been suppressed.' A memorial
to Sirleto, presented by Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti, points out the
negligence of the Index-makers and their superficial discharge of
onerous duties, praying that in future men of learning and honesty
should be employed, and that they should receive payment for their
labors.[123] These are the expostulations addressed by faithful
Catholics, engaged in literary work demanded by the Vatican, to a
Cardinal who was the soul and mover of the Congregation. They do not
question the salutary nature of the Index, but only call attention to
the incapacity and ignorance of its unpaid officials.
[Footnote 121: Dejob, _De l'Influence_, etc. p. 60.]
[Footnote 122: Id. _op. cit._ p. 76.]
[Footnote 123: Id. _op. cit._ p. 78.]
Meanwhile, it was no easy matter to appoint responsible and learned
scholars to the post. The inefficient censors proceeded with their work
of destruction and suppression. A commentator on a Greek Father, or the
Psalms, was corrected by an ignoramus who knew neither Greek nor Hebrew,
anxious to discover petty collisions with the Vulgate, and eager to
create annoyances for the author. Latino Latini, one of the students
employed by the Vatican, refused his name to an edition of Cyprian which
he had carefully prepared with far more than the average erudition,
because it had been changed throughout by the substitution of bad
readings for good, in defiance of MS. authority, with a view of
preserving a literal agreement with the Vulgate.[124] Sigonius, another
of the Vatican students, was instructed to prepare certain text-books by
Cardinal Paleotti. These were an Ecclesiastical History, a treatise on
the Hebrew Commonwealth, and an edition of Sulpicius Severus. The MSS.
were returned to him, accused of unsound doctrine, and scrawled over
with such remarks as 'false,' 'absurd.'[125]
[Footnote 124: Dejob, _op. cit._ p. 74.]
[Footnote 125: Id. _op. cit._ p. 54.]
In addition to the intolerable delays of the Censure, and the arrogant
inadequacy of its officials, learned men suffered from the pettiest
persecution at the hands of informers. The Inquisitors themselves were
often spies and persons of base origin. 'The Roman Court,' says Sarpi,
'being anxious that the office of the Inquisition should not suffer
through negligence in its ministers, has confided these affairs to
individuals without occupation, and whose mean estate renders them proud
of their official position.'[126] It was not to be expected that such
people should discharge their duties with intelligence and scrupulous
equity. Pius V., himself an incorruptible Inquisitor, had to condemn one
of his lieutenants for corruption or extortion of money by menaces.[127]
There was still another source of peril and annoyance to which scholars
were exposed. Their comrades, engaged in similar pursuits, not
unfrequently wreaked private spite by denouncing them to the
Congregation.[128] Van Linden indicated heresies in Osorius, Giovius,
Albertus Pighius. The Jesuit Francesco Torres accused Maes, and
threatened Latini. Sigonius obtained a license for his _History of
Bologna_, but could not print it, owing to the delation of secret
enemies. Baronius, when he had finished his Martyrology, found that a
cabal had raised insuperable obstacles in the way of its publication. I
have been careful to select only examples of notoriously Catholic
authors, men who were in the pay and under the special protection of the
Vatican. How it fared with less favored scholars, may be left to the
imagination. We are not astonished to find a man like Latini writing
thus from Rome to Maes during the pontificate of Paul IV.[129]
[Footnote 126: Discorso dell'Origine, etc. dell'Inquisizione,' _Opp._
vol. iv. p. 34.]
[Footnote 127: Mutinelli, _Storia Arcana_, vol. i. p. 277.]
[Footnote 128: Dejob, _op. cit._ pp. 53-57.]
[Footnote 129: Id. _op. cit._ p. 75.]
'Have you not heard of the peril which threatens the very existence of
books? What are you dreaming of, when now that almost every published
book is interdicted, you still think of making new ones? Here, as I
imagine, there is no one who for many years to come will dare to write
except on business or to distant friends. An Index has been issued of
the works which none may possess under pain of excommunication; and the
number of them is so great that very few indeed are left to us,
especially of those which have been published in Germany. This
shipwreck, this holocaust of books will stop the production of them in
your country also, if I do not err, and will teach editors to be upon
their guard. As you love me and yourself, sit and look at your bookcases
without opening their doors, and beware lest the very cracks let
emanations come to you from those forbidden fruits of learning.' This
letter was written in 1559, when Paul proscribed sixty-one presses, and
prohibited the perusal of any work that issued from them. He afterwards
withdrew this interdict. But the Index did not stop its work of
extirpation.
Another embarrassment which afflicted men of learning, was the danger of
possessing books by heretics and the difficulty of procuring them.[130]
Yet they could not carry on their Biblical studies without reference to
such authors as, for example, Erasmus or Reuchlin. The universities
loudly demanded that books of sound erudition by heretics should at
least be expurgated and republished. Yet the process of disfiguring
their arguments, effacing the names of authors, expunging the praises of
heretics, altering quotations and retouching them all over, involved so
much labor that the demand was never satisfied. The strict search
instituted at the frontiers stopped the importation of books,[131] and
carriers refused to transmit them. In their dread of the Inquisition,
these folk found it safer to abstain from book traffic altogether.
Public libraries were exposed to intermittent raids, nor were private
collections safe from such inspection. The not uncommon occurrence of
old books in which precious and interesting passages have been erased
with printer's ink, or pasted over with slips of opaque paper, testifies
to the frequency of these inquisitorial visitations.[132] Any casual
acquaintance, on leaving a man's house, might denounce him as the
possessor of a proscribed volume; and everybody who owned a book-case
was bound to furnish the Inquisitors with a copy of his catalogue.
Book-stalls lay open to the malevolence of informers. We possess an
insolent letter of Antonio Possevino to Cardinal Sirleto, telling him
that he had noticed a forbidden book by Filiarchi on a binder's counter,
and bidding him to do his duty by suppressing it.[133] When this
Cardinal's library was exposed for sale after his death, the curious
observed that it contained 1872 MSS. in Greek and Latin, 530 volumes of
printed Greek books, and 3939 volumes of Latin, among which 39 were on
the Index. But charity suggested that the Cardinal had retained these
last for censure.
[Footnote 130: Sarpi's Letters abound in useful information on this
topic. Writing to French correspondents, he complains weekly of the
impossibility even in Venice of obtaining books. See, for instance,
_Lettere_, vol. i. pp. 286, 287, 360, vol. ii. p. 13. In one passage he
says that the importation of books into Italy is impeded at Innsbruck,
Trento, and throughout the Tyrolese frontiers (vol. i. p. 74). In
another he warns his friends not to send them concealed in merchandise,
since they will fall under so many eyes in the custom-houses and
lazzaretti (vol. i. p. 303).]
[Footnote 131: It was usual at this epoch to send Protestant
publications from beyond the Alps in bales of cotton or other goods.
This appears from the Lucchese proclamations against heresy published in
_Arch. Stor._ vol. x.]
[Footnote 132: I may mention that having occasion to consult
Savonarola's works in the Public Library of Perugia, which has a fairly
good collection of them, I found them useless for purposes of study by
reason of these erasures and Burke-plasters.]
[Footnote 133: Dejob, _op. cit._ p. 43.]
During the period of the Counter-Reformation it was the cherished object
of the Popes to restore ecclesiastical and theological learning. They
gathered men of erudition round them in the Vatican, and established a
press for the purpose of printing the Fathers and diffusing Catholic
literature. But they were met in the pursuance of this project by very
serious difficulties. Their own policy tended to stifle knowledge and
suppress criticism. The scholars whom they chose as champions of the
faith worked with tied hands. Baronio knew no Greek; Latini knew hardly
any; Bellarmino is thought to have known but little. And yet these were
the apostles of Catholic enlightenment, the defenders of the infallible
Church against students of the caliber of Erasmus, Casaubon, Sarpi! An
insuperable obstacle to sacred studies of a permanently useful kind was
the Tridentine decree which had declared the Vulgate inviolable. No
codex of age or authority which displayed a reading at variance with the
inspired Latin version might be cited. Sirleto, custodian of the Vatican
Library, refused lections from its MSS. to learned men, on the ground
that they might seem to impugn the Vulgate.[134] For the same reason,
the critical labors of all previous students, from Valla to Erasmus, on
the text of the Bible were suppressed, and the best MSS. of the Fathers
were ruthlessly garbled, in order to bring their quotations into
accordance with Jerome's translation. Galesini takes credit to himself
in a letter to Sirleto for having withheld a clearly right reading in
his edition of the Psalms, because it explained a mistake in the
Vulgate.[135] We have seen how Latini's Cyprian suffered from the
censure; and there is a lamentable history of the Vatican edition of
Ambrose, which was so mutilated that the Index had to protect it from
confrontation with the original codices.[136] This dishonest dealing not
only discouraged students and paralyzed the energy of critical
investigation; but it also involved the closing of public libraries to
scholars. The Vatican could not afford to let the light of science in
upon its workshop of forgeries and sophistications.
[Footnote 134: Dejob, _op. cit._ p. 50. Also his _Muret_, pp. 223-227.]
[Footnote 135: Dejob, _De l'Influence_, p. 49.]
[Footnote 136: Id. _op. cit._ pp. 96-98.]
A voice of reasonable remonstrance was sometimes raised by even the most
incorruptible children of the Church. Thus Bellarmino writes to Cardinal
Sirleto, suggesting a doubt whether it is obligatory to adhere to the
letter of the Tridentine decree upon the Vulgate.[137] Is it rational,
he asks, to maintain that every sentence in the Latin text is
impeccable? Must we reject those readings in the Hebrew and the Greek,
which elucidate the meaning of the Scriptures, in cases where Jerome has
followed a different and possibly a corrupt authority? Would it not be
more sensible to regard the Vulgate as the sole authorized version for
use in universities, pulpits, and divine service, while admitting that
it is not an infallible rendering of the inspired original? He also
touches, in a similar strain of scholar-like liberality, upon the
Septuagint, pointing out that this version cannot have been the work of
seventy men in unity, since the translator of Job seems to have been
better acquainted with Greek than Hebrew, while the reverse is true of
the translator of Solomon. Such remonstrances were not, however,
destined to make themselves effectively heard. Instead of relaxing its
severity after the pontificate of Pius IV., the Congregation of the
Index grew, as we have seen, more rigid, until, in the rules digested by
Clement VIII., it enforced the strictest letter of the law regarding the
Vulgate, and ratified all the hypocrisies and subterfuges which that
implied.
[Footnote 137: This very interesting and valuable letter is printed by
Dejob in the work I have so often cited, p. 391.]
Under the conditions which I have attempted to describe, it was
impossible that Italy should hold her place among the nations which
encouraged liberal studies. Rome had one object in view--to gag the
revolutionary free voice of the Renaissance, to protect conservative
principles, to establish her own supremacy, and to secure the triumph of
the Counter-Reformation. In pursuance of this policy, she had to react
against the learning and the culture of the classical revival; and her
views were seconded not only by the overwhelming political force of
Spain in the Peninsula, but also by the petty princes who felt that
their existence was imperiled.
Independence of judgment was rigorously proscribed in all academies and
seats of erudition. New methods of education and new text-books were
forbidden. Professors found themselves hampered in their choice of
antique authors. Only those classics which were sanctioned by the
Congregation of the Index could be used in lecture-rooms. On the one
hand, the great republican advocates of independence had incurred
suspicion. On the other hand, the poets were prohibited as redolent of
paganism. To mingle philosophy with rhetoric was counted a crime. Thomas
Aquinas had set up Pillars of Hercules beyond which the reason might not
seek to travel. Roman law had to be treated from the orthodox scholastic
standpoint. Woe to the audacious jurist who made the Pandects serve for
disquisitions on the rights of men and nations! Scholars like Sigonius
found themselves tied down in their class-rooms to a weariful routine of
Cicero and Aristotle. Aonio Paleario complained that a professor was no
better than a donkey working in a mill; nothing remained for him but to
dole out commonplaces, avoiding every point of contact between the
authors he interpreted and the burning questions of modern life.
Muretus, who brought with him to Italy from France a ruined moral
reputation with a fervid zeal for literature, who sold his soul to
praise the Massacre of S. Bartholomew and purge by fulsome panegyrics of
great public crimes the taint of heresy that clung around him, found his
efforts to extend the course of studies in Rome thwarted.[138] He was
forbidden to lecture on Plato, forbidden to touch jurisprudence,
forbidden to consult a copy of Eunapius in the Vatican Library. It cost
him days and weeks of pleading to obtain permission to read Tacitus to
his classes. Greek, the literature of high thoughts, noble enthusiasms,
and virile sciences, was viewed with suspicion. As the monks of the
middle ages had written on the margins of their MSS.: _Graeca sunt, ergo
non legenda_, so these new obscurantists exclaimed: _Graeca sunt,
periculosa sunt, ergo non legenda_. 'I am forced,' he cries in this
extremity, 'to occupy myself with Latin and to abstain entirely from
Greek.' And yet he knew that 'if the men of our age advance one step
further in their neglect of Greek, doom and destruction are impending
over all sound arts and sciences.' 'It is my misery,' he groans, 'to
behold the gradual extinction and total decay of Greek letters, in whose
train I see the whole body of refined learning on the point of vanishing
away.[139]
A vigorous passage from one of Sarpi's letters directly bearing on these
points may here be cited (vol. i. p. 170): 'The revival of polite
learning undermined the foundations of Papal monarchy. Nor was this to
be wondered at. This monarchy began and grew in barbarism; the cessation
of barbarism naturally curtailed and threatened it with extinction. This
we already see in Germany and France; but Spain and Italy are still
subject to barbarism. Legal studies sink daily from bad to worse. The
Roman Curia opposes every branch of learning which savors of polite
literature, while it defends its barbarism with tooth and nail. How can
it do otherwise? Abolish those books on Papal Supremacy, and where shall
they find that the Pope is another God, that he is almighty, that all
rights and laws are closed within the cabinet of his breast, that he can
shut up folk in hell, in a word that he has power to square the circle?
Destroy that false jurisprudence, and this tyranny will vanish; but the
two are reciprocally supporting, and we shall not do away with the
former until the latter falls, which will only happen at God's good
pleasure.'
[Footnote 138: See Dejob's _Life of Muret_, pp. 231, 238, 274, 320.]
[Footnote 139: _Op. cit_. pp. 262, 481.]
The jealousy with which liberal studies were regarded by the Church
bred a contempt for them in the minds of students. Benci, a professor of
humane letters at Rome, says that his pupils walked about the class-room
during his lectures. With grim humor he adds that he does not object to
their sleeping, so long as they abstain from snoring.[140] But it is
impossible, he goes on to complain, that I should any longer look upon
the place in which I do my daily work as an academy of learning; I go to
it rather as to a mill in which I must grind out my tale of worthless
grain. Muretus, when he had labored twenty years in the chair of
rhetoric at Rome, begged for dismissal. His memorial to the authorities
presents a lamentable picture of the insubordination and indifference
from which he had suffered.[141] 'I have borne immeasurable indignities
from the continued insolence of these students, who interrupt me with
cries, whistlings, hisses, insults, and such opprobrious remarks that I
sometimes scarcely know whether I am standing on my head or heels.'
'They come to the lecture-room armed with poignards, and when I reprove
them for their indecencies, they threaten over and over again to cut my
face open if I do not hold my tongue.' The walls, he adds, are scrawled
over with obscene emblems and disgusting epigrams, so that this haunt of
learning presents the aspect of the lowest brothel; and the professor's
chair has become a more intolerable seat than the pillory, owing to the
missiles flung at him and the ribaldry with which he is assailed. The
manners and conversation of the students must have been disgusting
beyond measure, to judge by a letter of complaint from a father
detailing the contamination to which his son was exposed in the Roman
class-rooms, and the immunity with which the lewdest songs were publicly
recited there.[142] But the total degradation of learning at this epoch
in Rome is best described in one paragraph of Vittorio de'Rossi,
setting forth the neglect endured by Aldo Manuzio, the younger. This
scion of an illustrious family succeeded to the professorship of Muretus
in 1588. 'Then,' says Rossi, 'might one marvel at or rather mourn over,
the abject and down-trodden state of the liberal arts. Then might one
perceive with tears how those treasures of humane letters, which our
fathers exalted to the heavens, were degraded in the estimation of
youth. In the good old days men crossed the seas, undertook long
journeys, traversed the cities of Greece and Asia, in order to obtain
the palm of eloquence and salute the masters of languages and learning,
at whose feet they sat entranced by noble words. But now these fellows
poured scorn upon an unrivaled teacher of both Greek and Latin
eloquence, whose services were theirs for the asking, theirs without the
fatigue of travel, without expense, without exertion. Though he freely
offered them his abundance of erudition in both learned literatures,
they shut their ears against him. At the hours when his lecture-room
should have been thronged with multitudes of eager pupils you might see
him, abandoned by the crowd, pacing the pavement before the door of the
academy with one, or may be two, for his companions.'[143]
[Footnote 140: Dejob, _Marc Antoine Muret_, p. 349.]
[Footnote 141: The original is printed by Dejob, _Marc Antoine Muret_,
pp. 487-489.]
[Footnote 142: The original letter, printed by Dejob, _op. cit._ p. 491,
is signed by Giustiniano Finetti, who seems to have been a professor of
medicine in the Roman University. His son, a youth of sixteen,
complained that the students had demanded and obtained leave to recite a
certain 'lettione che era carnavalesca d'ano et de priapo,' adding that
they were in the habit of holding debates upon the thesis that (LATIN:
'res sodcae erant praeferendae veneri naturali, et reprobabant rem
veneream cum feminis ac audabant masturbationem.') The dialogue which
the students obtained leave publicly to recite was probably similar to
one that might still be heard some years ago in spring upon the quays of
Naples, and which appeared to have descended from immemorial antiquity.]
[Footnote 143: The Latin text is printed in Renouard's _Imprimerie des
Aldes_, p. 473.]
To accuse the Church solely and wholly for this decay of humanistic
learning in Italy would be uncritical and unjust. We must remember that
after a period of feverish energy there comes a time of languor in all
epochs of great intellectual excitement. Nor was it to be expected that
the enthusiasm of the fifteenth century for classical studies should
have been prolonged into the second half of the sixteenth century. But
we are justified in blaming the ecclesiastical and civil authorities of
the Counter-Reformation for their determined opposition to the new
direction which that old enthusiasm for the classics was now
manifesting. They strove to force the stream of learning backward into
scholastic and linguistic channels, when it was already plowing for
itself a fresh course in the fields of philosophical and scientific
discovery. They made study odious, because they attempted to restrain it
to the out-worn husks of pedantry and rhetoric. These, they thought,
were innocuous. But what the intellectual appetite then craved, the
pabulum that it required to satisfy its yearning, was rigidly denied it.
Speculations concerning the nature of man and of the world, metaphysical
explorations into the regions of dimly apprehended mysteries, physics,
political problems, religious questions touching the great matters in
dispute through Europe, all the storm and stress of modern life, the
ferment of the modern mind and will and conscience, were excluded from
the schools, because they were antagonistic to the Counter-Reformation.
Italy was starved and demoralized in order to avert a revolution; and
learning was asphyxiated by confinement to a narrow chamber filled with
vitiated and exhausted air.[144]
[Footnote 144: As Sarpi says: 'Of a truth the extraordinary rigor with
which books are hunted out for extirpation, shows how vigorous is the
light of that lantern which they have resolved to extinguish.'
_Lettere_, vol. i. p. 328.]
Similar deductions may be drawn from the life of Paolo Manuzio in Rome.
He left Venice in 1561 at the invitation of Pius IV., who proposed to
establish a press 'for the publication of books printed with the finest
type and the utmost accuracy, and more especially of works bearing upon
sacred and ecclesiastical literature.'[145] Paolo's engagement was for
twelve years; his appointments were fixed at 300 ducats for traveling
expenses, 500 ducats of yearly salary, a press maintained at the
Pontifical expense, and a pension secured upon his son's life. The
scheme was a noble one. Paolo was to print all the Greek and Latin
Fathers, and to furnish the Catholic world with an arsenal of orthodox
learning. Yet, during his residence in Rome, no Greek book issued from
his press.[146] Of the Latin Fathers he gave the Epistles of Jerome,
Salvian, and Cyprian to the world. For the rest, he published the
Decrees of the Tridentine Council ten times, the Tridentine Catechism
eight times, the _Breviarium Romanum_ four times, and spent the greater
part of his leisure in editing minor translations, commentaries, and
polemical or educational treatises. The result was miserable, and the
man was ruined.
[Footnote 145: See Renouard, _op. cit._ pp. 442-459, for Paulus
Manutius's life at Rome.]
[Footnote 146: _op. cit._ pp. 184-216.]
It remains to notice the action of the Index with regard to secular
books in the modern languages. I will first repeat a significant passage
in its statutes touching upon political philosophy and the so-called
_Ratio Status_: 'Item, let all propositions, drawn from the digests,
manners, and examples of the Gentiles, which foster a tyrannical polity
and encourage what they falsely call the reason of state, in opposition
to the law of Christ and of the Gospel, be expunged.' This, says Sarpi
in his Discourse on Printing, is aimed in general against any doctrine
which impugns ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the civil sphere of
princes and magistrates, and the economy of the family.[147] Theories
drawn from whatever source to combat Papal and ecclesiastical
encroachments, and to defend the rights of the sovereign in his monarchy
or of the father in his, household, are denominated and denounced as
_Ratio Status_. The impugner of Papal absolutism in civil, as well as
ecclesiastical affairs, is accounted _ipso facto_ a heretic.[148] It
would appear at first sight as though the clause in question had been
specially framed to condemn Machiavelli and his school. The works of
Machiavelli were placed upon the Index in 1559, and a certain Cesare of
Pisa who had them in his library was put to the torture on this account
in 1610. It was afterwards proposed to correct and edit them without his
name; but his heirs very properly refused to sanction this proceeding,
knowing that he would be made to utter the very reverse of what he meant
in all that touched upon the Roman Church.
[Footnote 147: Sarpi's Works, vol. iv. p. 4.]
[Footnote 148: Sarpi, _Discorso_, vol. iv. p. 25, on Bellarmino's
doctrine. Sarpi's _Letters_, vol. i. pp. 138, 243. Sarpi says that he
and Gillot had both had their portraits painted in a picture of Hell and
shown to the common folk as foredoomed to eternal fire, because they
opposed doctrines of Papal omnipotence. _Ibid._ p. 151.]
This paragraph in the statutes of the Index had, however, a further and
far more ambitious purpose than the suppression of Machiavelli,
Guicciardini, and Sarpi. By assuming to condemn all political writings
of which she disapproved, and by forbidding the secular authorities to
proscribe any works which had received her sanction, the Church obtained
a monopoly of popular instruction in theories of government. She
interdicted every treatise that exposed her own ambitious interference
in civil affairs or which maintained the rights of temporal rulers.[149]
She protected and propagated the works of her servile ministers, who
proclaimed that the ecclesiastical was superior in all points to the
civil power; that nations owed their first allegiance to the Pope, who
was divinely appointed to rule over them, and their second only to the
Prince, who was a delegate from their own body; and that tyrannicide
itself was justifiable when employed against a contumacious or heretical
sovereign. Such were the theories of the Jesuits--of Allen and Parsons
in England, Bellarmino in Italy, Suarez and Mariana in Spain, Boucher in
France.
[Footnote 149: On this point, again, Sarpi's _Letters_ furnish valuable
details. He frequently remarks that a general order had been issued by
the Congregation of the Index to suppress all books against the writings
of Baronius, who was treated as a saint, vol. i. pp. 3, 147, ii. p. 35.
He relates how the Jesuits had procured the destruction of a book
written to uphold aristocracy in states, without touching upon
ecclesiastical questions, as being unfavorable to their theories of
absolutism (vol. i. p. 122). He tells the story of a confessor who
refused the sacraments to a nobleman, because he owned a treatise
written by Quirino in defense of the Venetian prerogatives (vol. i. p.
113). He refers to the suppression of James I.'s _Apologia_ and De
Thou's _Histories_ (vol. i. pp. 286, 287, 383).]
In his critique of this monstrous unfairness Sarpi says: 'There are not
wanting men in Italy, pious and of sound learning, who hold the truth
upon such topics; but these can neither write nor send their writings to
the press.'[150] The best years and the best energies of Sarpi's life
were spent, as is well known, in combating the arrogance of Rome, and in
founding the relations of State to Church upon a basis of sound common
sense and equity. More than once he narrowly escaped martyrdom as the
reward of his temerity; and when the poignard of an assassin struck him,
his legend relates that he uttered the celebrated epigram: _Agnosco
stilum Curiae Romanae_.
[Footnote 150: In the Treatise on the Inquisition, _Opere_, vol. iv. p.
53. Sarpi, in a passage of his _Letters_ (vol. ii. p. 163), points out
why the secular authorities were ill fitted to retaliate in kind, upon
these Papal proscriptions.]
Sarpi protested, not without good reason, that Rome was doing her best
to extinguish sound learning in Italy. But how did she deal with that
rank growth of licentious literature which had sprung up during the
Renaissance period? This is the question which should next engage us. We
have seen that the Council of Trent provided amply for the extirpation
of lewd and obscene publications. Accordingly, as though to satisfy the
sense of decency, some of the most flagrantly immoral books, including
the _Decameron_, the _Priapeia_, the collected works of Aretino, and
certain mediaeval romances, were placed upon the Index. Berni was
proscribed in 1559; but the interdict lasted only a short time, probably
because it was discovered that his poems, though licentious, were free
from the heresies which Pier Paolo Vergerio had sought to fix upon him.
Meanwhile no notice was taken of the _Orlando Furioso_, and a multitude
of novelists, of Beccadelli's and Pontano's verses, of Molza and
Firenzuola, of the whole mass of mundane writers in short, who had done
so much to reveal the corruption of Italian manners. It seemed as though
the Church cared less to ban obscenity than to burke those authors who
had spoken freely of her vices. When we come to examine the expurgated
editions of notorious authors, we shall see that this was literally the
case. A castrated version of Bandello, revised by Ascanio Centorio degli
Ortensi, was published in 1560.[151] It omitted the dedications and
preambles, suppressed some disquisitions which palliated vicious
conduct, expunged the novels that brought monks or priests into
ridicule, but left the impurities of the rest untouched. A reformed
version of Folengo's _Baldus_ appeared in 1561. The satires on religious
orders had been erased. Zambellus was cuckolded by a layman instead of a
priest. Otherwise the filth of the original received no cleansing
treatment. When Cosimo de'Medici requested that a revised edition of
the _Decameron_ might be licensed, Pius V. entrusted the affair to
Thomas Manrique, Master of the Sacred Palace. It was published by the
Giunti in 1573 under the auspices of Gregory XIII., with the approval
of the Holy Office and the Florentine Inquisition, fortified by
privileges from Spanish and French kings, dukes of Tuscany, Ferrara, and
so forth. The changes which Boccaccio's masterpiece had undergone were
these: passages savoring of doubtful dogma, sarcasms on monks and
clergy, the names of saints, allusions to the devil and hell, had
disappeared. Ecclesiastical sinners were transformed into students and
professors, nuns and abbesses into citizens' wives. Immorality in short
was secularized. But the book still offered the same allurements to a
prurient mind. Sixtus V. expressed his disapproval of this recension,
and new editions were licensed in 1582 and 1588 under the revision of
Lionardo Salviati and Luigi Groto. Both preserved the obscenities of the
_Decameron_, while they displayed more rigor with regard to satires on
ecclesiastical corruption. It may be added, in justice to the Roman
Church, that the _Decameron_ stands still upon the Index with the
annotation _donec expurgetur_.[152] Therefore we must presume that the
work of purification is not yet accomplished, though the Jesuits have
used parts of it as a text-book in their schools, while Panigarola
quoted it in his lectures on sacred eloquence.
[Footnote 151: See Dejob, _De l'Influence, etc._ Chapter III.]
[Footnote 152: _Index_, Naples, Pelella, 1862, p. 87.]
It would weary the reader to enlarge upon this process of stupid or
hypocritical purgation, whereby the writings of men like Doni and
Straparola were stripped of their reflections on the clergy, while their
indecencies remained untouched; or to show how Ariosto's Comedies were
sanctioned, when his Satires, owing to their free speech upon the Papal
Court, received the stigma.[153] But I may refer to the grotesque
attempts which were made in this age to cast the mantle of spirituality
over profane literature. Thus Hieronimo Malipieri rewrote the
_Canzoniere_ of Petrarch, giving it a pious turn throughout; and the
_Orlando Furioso_ was converted by several hands into a religious
allegory.[154]
[Footnote 153: This treatment of Ariosto is typical. Men of not over
scrupulous nicety may question whether his Comedies are altogether
wholesome reading. But not even a Puritan could find fault with his
Satires on the score of their morality. Yet Rome sanctioned the Comedies
and forbade the Satires.]
[Footnote 154: Curious details on this topic are supplied by Dejob, _op.
cit._ pp. 179-181, and p. 184.]
The action of Rome under the influence of the Counter-Reformation was
clearly guided by two objects: to preserve Catholic dogma in its
integrity, and to maintain the supremacy of the Church. She was eager to
extinguish learning and to paralyze intellectual energy. But she showed
no unwillingness to tolerate those pleasant vices which enervate a
nation. Compared with unsound doctrine and audacious speculation,
immorality appeared in her eyes a venial weakness. It was true that she
made serious efforts to reform the manners of her ministers, and was
fully alive to the necessity of enforcing decency and decorum. Yet a
radical purification of society seemed of less importance to her than
the conservation of Catholic orthodoxy and the inculcation of obedience
to ecclesiastical authority. When we analyze the Jesuits' system of
education, and their method of conducting the care of souls, we
shall see to what extent the deeply seated hypocrisy of the
Counter-Reformation had penetrated the most vital parts of the Catholic
system. It will suffice, at the close of this chapter, to touch upon one
other repressive measure adopted by the Church in its panic. Magistrates
received strict injunctions to impede the journeys of Italian subjects
into foreign countries where heresies were known to be rife, or where
the rites of the Roman Church were not regularly administered.[155] In
1595 Clement VIII. reduced these admonitions to Pontifical law in a
Bull, whereby he forbade Italians to travel without permission from the
Holy Office, or to reside abroad without annually remitting a
certificate of confession and communion to the Inquisitors. To ensure
obedience to this statute would have been impossible without the
co-operation of the Jesuits. They were, however, diffused throughout the
nations of North, East, South, and West. When an Italian arrived, the
Jesuit Fathers paid him a visit, and unless they received satisfactory
answers with regard to his license of travel and his willingness to
accept their spiritual direction, these serfs of Rome sent a delation
to the central Holy Office, upon the ground of which the Inquisitors of
his province instituted an action against him in his absence. Merchants,
who neglected these rules, found themselves exposed to serious
impediments in their trading operations, and to the peril of prosecution
involving confiscation of property at home. Sarpi, who composed a
vigorous critique of this abuse, points out what injury was done to
commerce by the system.[156] We may still further censure it as an
intolerable interference with the liberty of the individual; as an
odious exercise of spiritual tyranny on the part of an ambitious
ecclesiastical power which aimed at nothing less than universal
domination.
[Footnote 155: Any correspondence with heretics was accounted sufficient
to implicate an Italian in the charge of heresy. Sarpi's Letters are
full of matter on this point. He always used Cipher, which he frequently
changed, addressed his letters under feigned names, and finally resolved
on writing in his own hand to no heretic. See _Lettere_, vol. ii. pp. 2,
151, 242, 248, 437. See also what Dejob relates about the timidity of
Muretus, _Muret_, pp. 229-231.]
[Footnote 156: 'Treatise on the Inquisition,' _Opere_, vol. iv. p. 45.]
CHAPTER IV.
THE COMPANY OF JESUS.
Vast Importance of the Jesuits in the Counter-Reformation--Ignatius
Loyola--His Youth--Retreat at Manresa--Journey to
Jerusalem--Studies in Spain and Paris--First Formation of his Order
at Sainte Barbe--Sojourn at Venice--Settlement at Rome--Papal
Recognition of the Order--Its Military Character--Absolutism of the
General--Devotion to the Roman Church--Choice of Members--Practical
and Positive Aims of the Founder--Exclusion of the Ascetic,
Acceptance of the Worldly Spirit--Review of the Order's Rapid
Extension over Europe--Loyola's Dealings with his Chief
Lieutenants--Propaganda--The Virtue of Obedience--The _Exercitia
Spiritualia_--Materialistic Imagination--Intensity and
Superficiality of Religious Training--The Status of the
Novice--Temporal Coadjutors--Scholastics--Professed of the Three
Vows--Professed of the Four Vows--The General--Control exercised
over him by his Assistants--His relation to the General
Congregation--Espionage a part of the Jesuit System--Advantageous
Position of a Contented Jesuit--The Vow of Poverty--Houses of the
Professed and Colleges--The Constitutions and Declarations--Problem
of the _Monita Secreta_--Reciprocal Relations of Rome and the
Company--Characteristics of Jesuit Education--Direction of
Consciences--Moral Laxity--Sarpi's
Critique--Casuistry--Interference in affairs of State--Instigation
to Regicide and Political Conspiracy--Theories of Church
Supremacy--Insurgence of the European Nations against the Company.
We have seen in the preceding chapters how Spain became dominant in
Italy, superseding the rivalry of confederate states by the monotony of
servitude, and lending its weight to Papal Rome. The internal changes
effected in the Church by the Tridentine Council, and the external power
conferred on it, were due in no small measure to Spanish influence or
sanction. A Spanish institution, the Inquisition, modified to suit
Italian requirements, lent revived Catholicism weapons of repression and
attack. We have now to learn by what means a partial vigor was
communicated to the failing body of Catholic beliefs, how the Tridentine
creed was propagated, the spiritual realm of the Roman Pontiff policed,
and his secular authority augmented. A Spanish Order rose at the right
moment to supply that intellectual and moral element of vitality without
which the Catholic Revival might have remained as inert as a stillborn
child. The devotion of the Jesuits to the Papacy, was in reality the
masterful Spanish spirit of that epoch, masking its world-grasping
ambition under the guise of obedience to Rome. This does not mean that
the founders and first organizers of the Company of Jesus consciously
pursued one object while they pretended to have another in view. The
impulse which moved Loyola was spontaneous and romantic. The world has
seen few examples of disinterested self-devotion equal to that of
Xavier. Yet the fact remains that Jesuitry, taking its germ and root in
the Spanish character, persisting as an organism within the Church, but
separate from the ecclesiastical hierarchy, devised the doctrine of
Papal absolutism, and became the prime agent of that Catholic policy in
Europe which passed for Papal during the Counter-Reformation. The
indissoluble connection between Rome, Spain, and the Jesuits, was
apparent to all unprejudiced observers. For this triad of reactionary
and belligerent forces Sarpi invented the name of the Diacatholicon,
alluding, under the metaphor of a drug, to the virus which was being
instilled in his days into all the States of Europe.[157]
The founder of the Jesuit order was the thirteenth child of a Spanish
noble, born in 1491 at his father's castle of Loyola in the Basque
province of Guipuzcoa.[158] His full name was Inigo Lopez de Recalde;
but he is better known to history as Saint Ignatius Loyola. Ignatius
spent his boyhood as page in the service of King Ferdinand the Catholic,
whence he passed into that of the Duke of Najara, who was the hereditary
friend and patron of his family. At this time he thought of nothing but
feats of arms, military glory, and romantic adventures.
[Footnote 157: For Sarpi's use of this phrase see his _Lettere_, vol.
ii. pp. 72, 80, 92. He clearly recognized the solidarity between the
Jesuits and Spain. 'The Jesuit is no more separable from the Spaniard
than the accident from the substance.' 'The Spaniard without the Jesuit
is not worth more than lettuce without oil.' 'For the Jesuits to deceive
Spain, would be tantamount to deceiving themselves.' _Ibid._ vol. i. pp.
203, 384, vol. ii. p. 48. Compare passages in vol. i. pp. 184, 189. He
only perceived a difference in the degrees of their noxiousness to
Europe. Thus, 'the worst Spaniard is better than the least bad of the
Jesuits' (vol. i. p. 212).]
[Footnote 158: Study of the Jesuits must be founded on _Institutum
Societatis Jesu_, 7 vols. Avenione; Orlandino, _Hist. Soc. Jesu_;
Cretineau-Joly, _Histoire de la Compagnie de Jesus_; Ribadaneira, _Vita
Ignatii_; Genelli's Life of Ignatius in German, or the French
translation; the Jesuit work, _Imago Primi Saeculi_; Ranke's account in
his _History of the Popes_, and the three chapters assigned to this
subject in Philippson's _La Contre-Revolution Religieuse_. The latter
will be found a most valuable summary.]
He could boast but little education; and his favorite reading was in
_Amadis of Gaul_. That romance appeared during the boy's earliest
childhood, and Spain was now devouring its high-flown rhapsodies with
rapture. The peculiar admixture of mystical piety, Catholic enthusiasm,
and chivalrous passion, which distinguishes _Amadis_, exactly
corresponded to the spirit of the Spaniards at an epoch when they had
terminated their age-long struggle with the Moors, and were combining
propagandist zeal with martial fervor in the conquest of the New World.
Its pages inflamed the imagination of Ignatius. He began to compose a
romance in honor of S. Peter, and chose a princess of blood royal for
his Oriana. Thus, in the first days of youth, while his heart was still
set on love and warfare, he revealed the three leading features of his
character--soaring ambition, the piety of a devotee, and the tendency to
view religion from the point of fiction.
Ignatius was barely twenty when the events happened which determined the
future of his life and so powerfully affected the destinies of Catholic
Christendom. The French were invading Navarre; and he was engaged in the
defense of its capital, Pampeluna. On May 20, 1521, a bullet shattered
his right leg, while his left foot was injured by a fragment of stone
detached from a breach in the bastion. Transported to his father's
castle, he suffered protracted anguish under the hands of unskilled
medical attendants. The badly set bone in his right leg had twice to be
broken; and when at last it joined, the young knight found himself a
cripple. This limb was shorter than the other; the surgeons endeavored
to elongate it by machines of iron, which put him to exquisite pain.
After months of torture, he remained lame for life.
During his illness Ignatius read such books as the castle of Loyola
contained. These were a 'Life of Christ' and the 'Flowers of the Saints'
in Spanish. His mind, prepared by chivalrous romance, and strongly
inclined to devotion, felt a special fascination in the tales of Dominic
and Francis. Their heroism suggested new paths which the aspirant after
fame might tread with honor. Military glory and the love of women had to
be renounced; for so ambitious a man could not content himself with the
successes of a cripple in these spheres of action. But the legends of
saints and martyrs pointed out careers no less noble, no less useful,
and even more enticing to the fancy. He would become the spiritual
Knight of Christ and Our Lady. To S. Peter, his chosen protector, he
prayed fervently; and when at length he rose from the bed of sickness,
he firmly believed that his life had been saved by the intercession of
this patron, and that it must be henceforth consecrated to the service
of the faith. The world should be abandoned. Instead of warring with the
enemies of Christ on earth, he would carry on a crusade against the
powers of darkness. They were first to be met and fought in his own
heart. Afterwards, he would form and lead a militia of like-hearted
champions against the strongholds of evil in human nature.
It must not be thought that the scheme of founding a Society had so
early entered into the mind of Ignatius. What we have at the present
stage to notice is that he owed his adoption of the religious life to
romantic fancy and fervid ambition, combined with a devotion to Peter,
the saint of orthodoxy and the Church. Animated by this new enthusiasm,
he managed to escape from home in the spring of 1522. His friends
opposed themselves to his vocation; but he gave them the slip, took vows
of chastity and abstinence, and began a pilgrimage to our Lady of
Montserrat near Barcelona. On the road he scourged himself daily. When
he reached the shrine he hung his arms up as a votive offering, and
performed the vigil which chivalrous custom exacted from a squire before
the morning of his being dubbed a knight. This ceremony was observed
point by point, according to the ritual he had read in _Amadis of Gaul_.
Next day he gave his raiment to a beggar, and assumed the garb of a
mendicant pilgrim. By self-dedication he had now made himself the Knight
of Holy Church.
His first intention was to set sail for Palestine, with the object of
preaching to the infidels. But the plague prevented him from leaving
port; and he retired to a Dominican convent at Manresa, a little town of
Catalonia, north-west of Barcelona. Here he abandoned himself to the
crudest self-discipline. Feeding upon bread and water, kneeling for
seven hours together rapt in prayer, scourging his flesh thrice daily,
and reducing sleep to the barest minimum, Ignatius sought by austerity
to snatch that crown of sainthood which he felt to be his due. Outraged
nature soon warned him that he was upon a path which led to failure.
Despair took possession of his soul, sometimes prompting him to end his
life by suicide, sometimes plaguing him with hideous visions. At last he
fell dangerously ill. Enlightened by the expectation of early death, he
then became convinced that his fanatical asceticism was a folly. The
despair, the dreadful phantoms which had haunted him, were ascribed
immediately to the devil. In those rarer visitings of brighter visions,
which sometimes brought consolation, bidding him repose upon God's
mercy, he recognized angels sent to lead him on the pathway of
salvation. God's hand appeared in these dealings; and he resolved to
dedicate his body as well as his soul to God's service, respecting both
as instruments of the divine will, and entertaining both in efficiency
for the work required of them.
The experiences of Manresa proved eminently fruitful for the future
method of Ignatius. It was here that he began to regard self-discipline
and self-examination as the needful prelude to a consecrated life. It
was here that he learned to condemn the ascetism of anchorites as
pernicious or unprofitable to a militant Christian. It was here that,
while studying the manual of devotion written by Garcia de Cisneros, he
laid foundations for those famous _Exercitia_, which became his
instrument for rapidly passing neophytes through spiritual training
similar to his own. It was here that he first distinguished two kinds of
visions, infernal and celestial. Here also he grew familiar with the
uses of concrete imagination;, and understood how the faculty of
sensuous realization might be made a powerful engine for presenting the
past of sacred history or the dogmas of orthodox theology under shapes
of fancy to the mind. Finally, in all the experiences of Manresa, he
tried the temper of his own character, which was really not that of a
poet or a mystic, but of a sagacious man of action, preparing a system
calculated to subjugate the intelligence and will of millions. Tested by
self-imposed sufferings and by diseased hallucinations, his sound sense,
the sense of one destined to control men, gathered energy, and grew in,
solid strength: yet enough remained of his fanaticism to operate as a
motive force in the scheme which he afterwards developed; enough
survived from the ascetic phase he had surmounted, to make him
comprehend that some such agony as he had suffered should form the
vestibule to a devoted life. We may compare the throes of Ignatius at
Manresa with the contemporary struggles of Luther at Wittenberg and in
the Wartzburg. Our imagination will dwell upon the different issues to
which two heroes distinguished by practical ability were led through
their contention with the powers of spiritual evil. Protagonists
respectively of Reformation and Counter-Reformation, they arrived at
opposite conclusions; the one championing the cause of spiritual freedom
in the modern world, the other consecrating his genius to the
maintenance of Catholic orthodoxy by spiritual despotism. Yet each alike
fulfilled his mission by having conquered mysticism at the outset of his
world-historical career.
Ignatius remained for the space of ten months at Manresa. He then found
means to realize his cherished journey to the Holy Land. In Palestine he
was treated with coldness as an ignorant enthusiast, capable of
subverting the existing order of things, but too feeble to be counted on
for permanent support. His motive ideas were still visionary; he could
not cope with conservatism and frigidity established in comfortable
places of emolument. It was necessary that he should learn the wisdom of
compromise. Accordingly he returned to Spain, and put himself to school.
Two years spent in preparatory studies at Barcelona, another period at
Alcala, and another at Salamanca, introduced him to languages, grammar,
philosophy, and theology. This man of noble blood and vast ambition,
past the age of thirty, sat with boys upon the common benches. This
self-consecrated saint imbibed the commonplaces of scholastic logic. It
was a further stage in the evolution of his iron character from romance
and mysticism, into political and practical sagacity. It was a further
education of his stubborn will to pliant temper. But he could not divest
himself of his mission as a founder and apostle. He taught disciples,
preached, and formed a sect of devotees. Then the Holy Office attacked
him. He was imprisoned, once at Alcala for forty-two days, once at
Salamanca for three weeks, upon charges of heresy. Ignatius proved his
innocence. The Inquisitors released him with certificates of acquittal;
but they sentenced him to four years' study of theology before he should
presume to preach. These years he resolved to spend at Paris.
Accordingly he performed the journey on foot, and arrived in the capital
of France upon February 2, 1528. He was then thirty-seven years old, and
sixteen years had elapsed since he received his wounds at Pampeluna.
At Paris he had to go to school again from the beginning. The alms of
well-wishers, chiefly devout women at Barcelona, amply provided him with
funds. These he employed not only in advancing his own studies, but also
in securing the attachment of adherents to his cause. At this epoch he
visited the towns of Belgium and London during his vacations. But the
main outcome of his residence at Paris was the formation of the Company
of Jesus. Those long years of his novitiate and wandering were not
without their uses now. They had taught him, while clinging stubbornly
to the main projects of his life, prudence in the choice of means,
temperance in expectation, sagacity in the manipulation of
fellow-workers selected for the still romantic ends he had in view. His
first two disciples were a Savoyard, Peter Faber or Le Fevre, and
Francis Xavier of Pampeluna. Faber was a poor student, whom Ignatius
helped with money. Xavier sprang from a noble stock, famous in arms
through generations, for which he was eager to win the additional honors
of science and the Church. Ignatius assisted him by bringing students to
his lectures. Under the personal influence of their friend and
benefactor, both of these men determined to leave all and follow the new
light. Visionary as the object yet was, the firm will, fervent
confidence, and saintly life of Loyola inspired them with absolute
trust. That the Christian faith, as they understood it, remained exposed
to grievous dangers from without and form within, that millions of souls
were perishing through ignorance, that tens of thousands were falling
away through incredulity and heresy, was certain. The realm of Christ on
earth needed champions, soldiers devoted to a crusade against Satan and
his hosts. And here was a leader, a man among men, a man whose words
were as a fire, and whose method of spiritual discipline was salutary
and illuminative; and this man bade them join him in the Holy War. He
gained them in a hundred ways, by kindness, by precept, by patience, by
persuasion, by attention to their physical and spiritual needs, by words
of warmth and wisdom, by the direction of their conscience, by profound
and intense sympathy with souls struggling after the higher life. The
means he had employed to gain Faber and Xavier were used with equal
success in the case of seven other disciples. The names of these men
deserve to be recorded; for some of them played a part of importance in
European history, while all of them contributed to the foundation of the
Jesuits. They were James Lainez, Alfonzo Salmeron, and Nicholas
Bobadilla, three Spaniards; Simon Rodriguez d'Azevedo, a Portuguese; two
Frenchmen, Jean Codure and Brouet; and Claude le Jay, a Savoyard. All
these neophytes were subjected by Ignatius to rigid discipline, based
upon his _Exercitia_. They met together for prayer, meditation, and
discussion, in his chamber at the College of S. Barbe. Here he unfolded
to them his own plans, and poured out on them his spirit. At length,
upon August 15, 1534, the ten together took the vows of chastity and
poverty in the church of S. Mary at Montmartre, and bound themselves to
conduct a missionary crusade in Palestine, or, if this should prove
impracticable, to place themselves as devoted instruments, without
conditions and without remuneration, in the hands of the Sovereign
Pontiff.
The society was thus established, although its purpose remained
indecisive. The founder's romantic dream of a crusade in Holy Land,
though never realized, gave an object of immediate interest to the
associated friends. Meanwhile two main features of its historical
manifestation, the propaganda of the Catholic faith and unqualified
devotion to the cause of the Roman See, had been clearly indicated.
Nothing proves the mastery which Ignatius had now acquired over his own
enthusiasm, or the insight he had gained into the right method of
dealing with men, more than the use he made of his authority in this
first instance. The society was bound to grow and to expand; and it was
fated to receive the lasting impress of his genius. But, as though
inspired by some prophetic vision of its future greatness, he refrained
from circumscribing the still tender embryo within definite limits which
might have been pernicious to its development.
The associates completed their studies at Paris, and in 1535 they
separated, after agreeing to meet at Venice in the first months of 1537.
Ignatius meanwhile traveled to Spain, where he settled his affairs by
bestowing such property as he possessed on charitable institutions. He
also resumed preaching, with a zeal that aroused enthusiasm and extended
his personal influence. At the appointed time the ten came together at
Venice, ostensibly bent on carrying out their project of visiting
Palestine. But war was now declared between the Turks and the Republic
of S. Mark. Ignatius found himself once more accused of heresy, and had
some trouble in clearing himself before the Inquisition. It was resolved
in these circumstances to abandon the mission to Holy Land as
impracticable for the moment, and to remain in Venice waiting for more
favorable opportunities. We may believe that the romance of a crusade
among the infidels of Syria had already begun to fade from the
imagination of the founder, in whose career nothing is more striking
than his gradual abandonment of visionary for tangible ends, and his
progressive substitution of real for shadowy objects of ambition.
Loyola's first contact with Italian society during this residence in
Venice exercised decisive influence over his plans. He seems to have
perceived with the acute scent of an eagle that here lay the quarry he
had sought so long. Italy, the fountain-head of intellectual
enlightenment for Europe, was the realm which he must win. Italy alone
offered the fulcrum needed by his firm and limitless desire of
domination over souls. It was with Caraffa and the Theatines that
Ignatius obtained a home. They were now established in the States of S.
Mark through the beneficence of a rich Venetian noble, Girolamo Miani,
who had opened religious houses and placed these at their disposition.
Under the direction of their founder, they carried on their designed
function of training a higher class of clergy for the duties of
preaching and the priesthood, and for the repression of heresy by
educational means. Caraffa's scheme was too limited to suit Ignatius:
and the characters of both men were ill adapted for co-operation. One
zeal for the faith inspired both. Here they agreed. But Ignatius was a
Spaniard; and the second passion in Caraffa's breast was a Neapolitan's
hatred for that nation. Ignatius, moreover, contemplated a vastly more
expansive and elastic machinery for his workers in the vineyard of the
faith, than the future Pope's coercive temper could have tolerated.
These two leaders of the Counter-Reformation, equally ambitious, equally
intolerant of opposition, equally bent upon a vast dominion, had to
separate. The one was destined to organize the Inquisition and the
Index. The other evolved what is historically known as Jesuitry.
Nevertheless we know that Ignatius learned much from Caraffa. The
subsequent organization of his Order showed that the Theatines suggested
many practical points in the method he eventually adopted for effecting
his designs.
Some of his companions, meanwhile, journeyed to Rome. There they
obtained from Paul III. permission to visit Palestine upon a missionary
enterprise, together with special privileges for their entrance into
sacerdotal orders. Those of the ten friends who were not yet priests,
were ordained at Venice in June 1537. They then began to preach in
public, roaming the streets with faces emaciated by abstinence, clad in
ragged clothes, and using a language strangely compounded of Italian and
Spanish. Their obvious enthusiasm, and the holy lives they were known to
lead, brought them rapidly into high reputation of sanctity. Both the
secular and the religious clergy of Italy could show but few men at
that epoch equal to these brethren. It was settled in the autumn that
they should all revisit Rome, traveling by different routes, and
meditating on the form which the Order should assume. Palestine had now
been definitely, if tacitly, abandoned. As might have been expected, it
was Loyola who baptized his Order, and impressed a character upon the
infant institution. He determined to call it the Company of Jesus, with
direct reference to those Companies of Adventure which had given
irregular organization to restless military spirits in the past. The new
Company was to be a 'cohort, or century, combined for combat against
spiritual foes; men-at-arms, devoted, body and soul, to our Lord Jesus
Christ and to his true and lawful Vicar upon earth.'[159] An Englishman
of the present day may pause to meditate upon the grotesque parallel
between the nascent Order of the Jesuits and the Salvation Army, and can
draw such conclusions from it as may seem profitable.
[Footnote 159: These phrases occur in the _Deliberatio primorum
patrum_.]
Loyola's withdrawal from all participation in the nominal honor of his
institution, his enrollment of the militia he had levied under the name
of Jesus, and the combative functions which he ascribed to it, were very
decided marks of originality. It stamped the body with impersonality
from the outset, and indicated the belligerent attitude it was destined
to assume. There was nothing exactly similar to its dominant conception
in any of the previous religious orders. These had usually received
their title from the founder, had aimed at a life retired from the
world, had studied the sanctification of their individual members, and
had only contemplated an indirect operation upon society. Ignatius, on
the contrary, placed his community under the protection of Christ, and
defined it at the outset as a militant and movable legion of
auxiliaries, dedicated, not to retirement or to the pursuit of
salvation, but to freely avowed and active combat in defense of their
Master's vicegerent upon earth. It was as though he had divined the
deficiencies of Catholicism at that epoch, and had determined to
supplement them by the creation of a novel and a special weapon of
attack. Some institutions of mediaeval chivalry, the Knights of the
Temple, and S. John, for instance, furnished the closest analogy to his
foundation. Their spirit he transferred from the sphere of physical
combat with visible forces, infidel and Mussulman, to the sphere of
intellectual warfare against heresy, unbelief, insubordination in the
Church. He had refined upon the crude enthusiasm of romance which
inspired him at Montserrat. Without losing its intensity, this had
become a motive force of actual and political gravity.
The Company of Jesus was far from obtaining the immediate approval of
the Church. Paul III. indeed, perceived its utility, and showed marked
favor to the associates when they arrived in Rome about the end of 1537.
The people, too, welcomed their ministration gladly, and recognized the
zeal which they displayed in acts of charity and their exemplary
behavior. But the Curia and higher clergy organized an opposition
against them. They were accused of heresy, and attempts to seduce the
common folk. Ignatius demanded full and public inquiry, which was at
first refused him. He then addressed the Pope in person, who ordered a
trial, out of which the brethren came with full acquittal. After this
success, they obtained a hold upon religious instruction in many schools
of Rome. Adherents flocked around them; and they saw that it was time to
give the society a defined organization, and to demand its official
recognition as an Order. It was resolved to add the vow of obedience to
their former vows of chastity and poverty. Obedience had always been a
prime virtue in monastic institutions; but Ignatius conceived of it in a
new and military spirit. The obedience of the Jesuits was to be
absolute, extending even to the duty of committing sins at a superior's
orders. The General, instead of holding office for a term of years, was
to be elected for life, with unlimited command over the whole Order in
its several degrees. He was to be regarded as Christ present and
personified. This autocracy of the General might have seemed to menace
the overlordship of the Holy See, but for a fourth vow which the Company
determined to adopt. It ran as follows: 'That the members will
consecrate their lives to the continual service of Christ and of the
Popes, will fight under the banner of the Cross, and will serve the
Lord and the Roman Pontiff as God's vicar upon earth, in such wise that
they shall be bound to execute immediately and without hesitation or
excuse all that the reigning Pope or his successors may enjoin upon them
for the profit of souls or for the propagation of the faith, and shall
do so in all provinces whithersoever he may send them, among Turks or
any other infidels, to furthest Ind, as well as in the region of
heretics, schismatics, or believers of any kind.'
Loyola himself drew up these constitutions in five chapters, and had
them introduced to Paul III., with the petition that they might be
confirmed. This was in September 1539, and it is singular that the man
selected to bring them under the Pope's notice should have been Cardinal
Contarini. Paul had no difficulty in recognizing the support which this
new Order would bring to the Papacy in its conflict with Reformers, and
its diplomatic embarrassments with Charles V. He is even reported to
have said, 'The finger of God is there!' Yet he could not confirm the
constitutions without the previous approval of three Cardinals appointed
to report on them. This committee condemned Loyola's scheme; and nearly
a year passed in negotiations with foreign princes and powerful
prelates, before a reluctant consent was yielded to the Pope's avowed
inclination. At length the Bull of Sept. 27, 1540, _Regimini militantis
Ecclesiae_, launched the Society of Jesus on the world. Ignatius became
the first General of the Order; and the rest of his life, a period of
sixteen years, was spent in perfecting the machinery and extending the
growth of this institution, which in all essentials was the emanation of
his own mind.
It may be well at this point to sketch the organization of the Jesuits,
and to describe the progress of the Society during its founder's
lifetime, in order that a correct conception may be gained of Loyola's
share in its creation. Many historians of eminence, and among them so
acute an observer as Paolo Sarpi, have been of the opinion that Jesuitry
in its later developments was a deflection from the spirit and intention
of Ignatius. It is affirmed that Lainez and Salmeron, rather than
Loyola, gave that complexion to the Order which has rendered it a mark
for the hatred and disgust of Europe. Aquaviva, the fifth General, has
been credited with its policy of interference in affairs of states and
nations. Yet I think it can be shown that the Society, as it appeared in
the seventeenth century, was a logical and necessary development of the
Society as Ignatius framed it in the sixteenth.[160]
[Footnote 160: Sarpi, though he expressed an opinion that the Jesuits of
his day had departed from the spirit of their founders, spoke thus of
Loyola's worldly aims (_Lettere_, vol. i. p 224): 'Even Father Ignatius,
Founder of the Company, as his biography attests, based himself in such
wise upon human interest as though there were none divine to think
about.']
Lainez, who succeeded the founder as General, digested the constitutions
and supplied them with a commentary or Directorium. He defined,
formulated, and stereotyped the system; but the essential qualities of
Jesuitry, its concentration upon political objects, its unscrupulousness
in choice of means to ends, the worldliness which lurked beneath the
famous motto _Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam_, were implicit in Loyola's express
words, and in his actual administration. The framework of the Order, as
he fixed it, was so firmly traced, and so cunningly devised for
practical efficiency, that it admitted of no alteration except in the
direction of more rigid definition. Lainez may, indeed, have emphasized
its tendency to become a political machine, and may have weakened its
religious tone, by his rules for the interpretation of the
constitutions; but we have seen that the development of Loyola's own
ideas ran in this direction. The real strength, as well as the worst
vices of Jesuitry, were inherent in the system from the first; and in it
we have perhaps the most remarkable instance on record, of the evolution
of a cosmopolitan and world-important organism from the embryo of one
man's conception.
The Bull _Regimini militantis Ecclesiae_ restricted the number of the
Jesuits to sixty. If Ignatius did not himself propose this limit, the
restriction may perhaps have suggested his policy of reserving the full
privileges of the Society for a small band of selected members--the very
essence of the body, extracted by processes which will be afterwards
described. Anyhow, it is certain that though the Papal limitation was
removed in 1543, and though candidates flowed on the tide of fashion
toward the Order, yet the representative and responsible Fathers
remained few in numbers. These were distributed as the General thought
fit. He stayed in Rome; for Rome was the chosen headquarters of the
Society, the nucleus of their growth, and the fulcrum of their energy.
From Rome, as from a center, Ignatius moved his men about the field of
Europe. We might compare him under one metaphor to a chess-player
directing his pieces upon the squares of the political and
ecclesiastical chessboard; under another, to a spider spinning his web
so as to net the greatest number of profitable partisans. The fathers
were kept in perpetual motion. To shift them from place to place, to
exclude them from their native soil, to render them cosmopolitan and
pliant was the first care of the founder. He forbade the follies of
ascetic piety, inculcated the study of languages and exact knowledge,
and above all things recommended the acquisition of those social arts
which find favor with princes and folk of high condition. 'Prudence of
an exquisite quality,' he said, 'combined with average sanctity, is more
valuable than eminent sanctity and less of prudence.' Also he bade them
keep their eyes open for neophytes 'less marked by pure goodness than by
firmness of character and ability in conduct of affairs, since men who
are not apt for public business do not suit the requirements of the
Company.' Orlandino tells us that though Ignatius felt drawn to men who
showed eminent gifts for erudition, he preferred, in the difficulties of
the Church, to choose such as knew the world well and were distinguished
by their social station. The fathers were to seek out youths 'of good
natural parts, adapted to the acquisition of knowledge and to practical
works of utility.' Their pupils were, if possible, to have physical
advantages and manners that should render them agreeable. These points
had more of practical value than a bare vocation for piety. In their
dealings with tender consciences, they were to act like 'good fishers of
souls, passing over many things in silence as though these had not been
observed, until the time came when the will was gained, and the
character could be directed as they thought best.'[161] Loyola's dislike
for the common forms of monasticism appears in his choice of the
ordinary secular priest's cassock for their dress, and in his
emancipation of the members from devotional exercises and attendance in
the choir. The aversion he felt for ascetic discipline is evinced in a
letter he addressed to Francis Borgia in 1548. It is better, he writes,
to strengthen your stomach and other faculties, than to impair the body
and enfeeble the intellect by fasting. God needs both our physical and
mental powers for his service; and every drop of blood you shed in
flagellation is a loss.
[Footnote 161: See Philippson, _op. cit._ pp. 61, 62.]
The end in view was to serve the Church by penetrating European society,
taking possession of its leaders in rank and hereditary influence,
directing education, assuming the control of the confessional, and
preaching the faith in forms adapted to the foibles and the fancies of
the age. The interests of the Church were paramount: 'If she teaches
that what seems to us white is black, we must declare it to be black
upon the spot.' There were other precepts added. These, for instance,
seem worth commemoration: 'The workers in the Lord's vineyard should
have but one foot on earth, the other should be raised to travel
forward.' 'The abnegation of our own will is of more value than if one
should bring the dead to life again.' 'No storm is so pernicious as a
calm, and no enemy is so dangerous as having none.' It will be seen that
what is known as Jesuitry, in its mundane force and in its personal
devotion to a cause, emerges from the precepts of Ignatius. We may
wonder how the romances of the mountain-keep of Loyola, the mysticism of
Montserrat, and the struggles of Manresa should have brought the founder
of the Jesuits to these results. Yet, if we analyze the problem, it will
yield a probable solution. What survived from that first period was the
spirit of enthusiastic service to the Church, the vast ambition of a man
who felt himself a destined instrument for shoring up the crumbling
walls of Catholicity, the martial instinct of a warrior fighting at
fearful odds with nations running toward infidelity.
He had no doubt where the right lay. He was a Spaniard, a servant of S.
Peter; and for him the creed enounced by Rome was all in all. But his
commerce with the world, his astute Basque nature, and his judgment of
the European situation, taught him that he must use other means than
those which Francis and Dominic had employed. He had to make his
Company, that forlorn hope of Catholicism, the exponent of a decadent
and rotten faith. He had to adapt it to the necessities of Christendom
in dissolution, to constitute it by a guileful and sagacious method. He
had to render it wise in the wisdom of the world, in order that he might
catch the powers of this world by their interests and vices for the
Church. He was like Machiavelli, endeavoring to save a corrupt state by
utilizing corruption for ends acknowledged sound. And, like Machiavelli,
he was mistaken, because it will not profit man to trust in craft or the
manipulation of evil. Luther was stronger in his weakness than the
creator of the Jesuit machinery, wiser in his simplicity than the
deviser of that subtle engine. But Luther had the onward forces of
humanity upon his side. Ignatius could but retard them by his ingenuity.
We may be therefore excused if we admire Ignatius for the virile effort
which he made in a failing cause, and for the splendid gifts of
organizing prudence which he devoted to a misplaced object.
Under his direction, the members of the Society spread themselves over
Europe, and always with similar results. Wherever they went, hundreds of
adherents joined the Order. Paul III. and Julius III. heaped privileges
upon it, seeing what a power it had become in warfare with heresy.
Ignatius spared no pains to secure his position in Rome, paying court to
Cardinals and prelates, visiting ambassadors and princes, soliciting
their favors and offering the service of his brethren in return.
Profitable negotiations were opened with the King of Spain and the Duke
of Bavaria, which, under cover of reforming convents, led to a partition
of ecclesiastical property between the Jesuits and the State. Good
reasons seemed to justify such acts of spoliation; for the old orders
were sunk in sloth and immorality beyond redemption, while the Company
kept alive all that was sound in Catholic discipline, preaching, and
instruction. In Italy the Jesuits made rapid progress from the first.
Lainez occupied the Venetian territory, opposing Protestant opinions in
Venice itself, at Brescia, and among the mountains of the Valtelline. Le
Jay combated the forces of Calvin and Renee of France at Ferrara.
Salmeron took possession of Naples and Sicily. Piacenza, Modena, Faenza,
Bologna, and Montepulciano received the fathers with open arms. The
Farnesi welcomed them in Parma. Wherever they went, they secured the
good will of noble women, and gained some hold on universities. Colleges
were founded in the chief cities of the peninsula, where they not only
taught gratis, but used methods superior to those previously in vogue.
Rome, however, remained the stronghold of the Company. Here Ignatius
founded its first house in 1550. This was the Collegium Romanum; and in
1555, some hundred pupils, who had followed a course of studies in
Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and theology, issued from its walls. In 1557 he
purchased the palace Salviati, on the site of which now stands the vast
establishment of the Gesu. In 1552 he started a separate institution,
Collegium Germanicum, for the special training of young Germans. There
was also a subordinate institution for the education of the sons of
nobles. These colleges afforded models for similar schools throughout
Europe; some of them intended to supply the society with members, and
some to impress the laity with Catholic principles. Uniformity was an
object which the Jesuits always held in view.
They did not meet at first with like success in all Catholic countries.
In Spain, Charles V. treated them with suspicion as the sworn men of the
Papacy; and the Dominican order, so powerful through its hold upon the
Inquisition, regarded them justly as rivals. Though working for the same
end, the means employed by Jesuits and Dominicans were too diverse for
these champions of orthodoxy to work harmoniously together. The Jesuits
belonged to the future, to the party of accommodation and control by
subterfuge. The Dominicans were rooted in the past; their dogmatism
admitted of no compromise; they strove to rule by force. There was
therefore, at the outset, war between the kennels of the elder and the
younger dogs of God in Spain. Yet Jesuitism gained ground. It had the
advantage of being a native, and a recent product. It was powerful by
its appeals to the sensuous imagination and carnal superstitions of that
Iberian-Latin people. It was seductive by its mitigation of oppressive
orthodoxy and inflexible prescriptive law. Where the Dominican was
steel, the Jesuit was reed; where the Dominican breathed fire and
fagots, the Jesuit suggested casuistical distinctions; where the
Dominican raised difficulties, the Jesuit solved scruples; where the
Dominican presented theological abstractions, the Jesuit offered
stimulative or agreeable images; where the Dominican preached dogma, the
Jesuit retailed romance. It only needed one illustrious convert to plant
the Jesuits in Spain. Him they found in Francis Borgia, Duke of Gandia,
Viceroy of Catalonia, and subsequently the third General of the Order
and a saint. This man placed the university, which he had founded, in
their hands; and about the same time they gained a footing in the
university of Salamanca. Still they continued to retain their strongest
hold upon the people, who regarded them as saviours from the tyranny and
ennui of the established Dominican hierarchy.
Portugal was won at a blow. Xavier and Rodriguez planted the Company
there under the affectionate protection of King John III. When Xavier
started on his mission to the Indies in 1541, Rodriguez took the affairs
of the realm into his hands, controlled the cabinet, and formed the
heir-apparent to their will.
With France they had more trouble. Both the University and the
Parliament of Paris opposed their settlement. The Sorbonne even declared
them 'dangerous in matters of the faith, fit to disturb the peace of the
Church, and to reverse the order of monastic life; more adapted to
destroy than to build.' The Gallican Church scented danger in these
bondsmen of the Papacy; and it was only when they helped to organize the
League that the influence of the Guises gave them a foothold in the
kingdom. Even then their seminaries at Reims, Douai, and S. Omer must be
rather regarded as outposts _epiteichismoi_ against England and
Flanders, than, as nationally French establishments. In France they long
remained a seditious and belligerent faction.[162]
[Footnote 162: It was not till the epoch of Maria de'Medici's Regency
that the Jesuits obtained firm hold on France.]
They had the same partial and clandestine success in the Low Countries,
where their position was at first equivocal, though they early gained
some practical hold upon the University of Louvain. We are perhaps
justified in attributing the evil fame of Reims, Douai, S. Omer, and
Louvain to the incomplete sympathy which existed between the Jesuits and
the countries where they made these settlements. Not perfectly at home,
surrounded by discontent and jealousy, upon the borderlands of the
heresies they were bound to combat, their system assumed its darkest
colors in those hotbeds of intrigue and feverish fanaticism. In time,
however, the Jesuits fixed their talons firmly upon the Netherlands,
through the favor of Anne of Austria; and the year 1562 saw them
comfortably ensconced at Antwerp, Louvain, Brussels, and Lille, in spite
of the previous antipathy of the population. Here, as elsewhere, they
pushed their way by gaining women and people of birth to their cause,
and by showily meritorious services to education. Faber achieved
ephemeral success as lecturer at Louvain.
To take firm hold on Germany had been the cherished wish of Ignatius;
'for there,' to use his own words, 'the pest of heresy exposed men to
graver dangers than elsewhere.' The Society had scarcely been founded
when Faber, Le Jay, and Bobadilla were sent north. Faber made small
progress, and was removed to Spain. But Bobadilla secured the confidence
of William, Duke of Bavaria; while Le Jay won that of Ferdinand of
Austria. In both provinces they avowed their intention of working at the
reformation of the clergy and the improvement of popular
education--ends, which in the disorganized condition of Germany, seemed
of highest importance to those princes. Through the influence of
Bavaria, Bobadilla succeeded in rendering the Interim proclaimed by
Charles V. nugatory; while Le Jay founded the college of the Order at
Vienna. In this important post he was soon succeeded by Canisius,
Ferdinand's confessor, through whose co-operation Cardinal Morone
afterwards brought this Emperor into harmony with the Papal plan for
winding up the Council of Trent. It should be added that Ingolstadt, in
Bavaria, became the second headquarters of the Jesuit propaganda in
Germany.
The methods adopted by Ignatius in dealing with his three lieutenants,
Bobadilla, Le Jay, and Canisius, are so characteristic of Jesuit policy
that they demand particular attention. Checkmated by Bobadilla in the
matter of the Interim, Charles V. manifested his resentment. He was
already ill-affected toward the Society, and its founder felt the need
of humoring him. The highest grade of the Order was therefore
ostentatiously refused to Bobadilla, until such time as the Emperor's
attention was distracted from the cause of his disappointment. With Le
Jay and Canisius the case stood differently. Ferdinand wished to make
the former Bishop of Triest and the latter Archbishop of Vienna.
Ignatius opposed both projects, alleging that the Company of Jesus could
not afford to part with its best servants, and that their vows of
obedience and poverty were inconsistent with high office in the Church.
He discerned the necessity of reducing each member of the Society to
absolute dependence on the General, which would have been impracticable
if any one of them attained to the position of a prelate. A law was
therefore passed declaring it mortal sin for Jesuits to accept
bishoprics or other posts of honor in the Church. Instead of assuming
the miter, Canisius was permitted to administer the See of Vienna
without usufruct of its revenues. To the world this manifested the
disinterested zeal of the Jesuits in a seductive light; while the
integrity of the Society, as an independent self-sufficing body,
exacting the servitude of absolute devotion from its members, was
secured. Another instance of the same adroitness may be mentioned. The
Emperor in 1552 offered a Cardinal's hat to Francis Borgia, who was by
birth the most illustrious of living Jesuits. Ignatius refrained from
rebuffing the Emperor and insulting the Duke of Gandia by an open
prohibition; but he told the former to expect the Duke's refusal, while
he wrote to the latter expressing his own earnest hope that he would
renounce an honor injurious to the Society. This diplomacy elicited a
grateful but firm answer of _Nolo Episcopari_ from the Duke, who thus
took the responsibility of offending Charles V. upon himself. Meanwhile
the missionary objects of the Company were not neglected. Xavier left
Portugal in 1541 for that famous journey through India and China, the
facts of which may be compared for their romantic interest with Cortes'
or Pizarro's exploits. Brazil, the transatlantic Portugal, was abandoned
to the Jesuits, and they began to feel their way in Mexico. In the year
of Loyola's death, 1561, thirty-two members of the Society were
resident in South America; one hundred in India, China, and Japan; and a
mission was established in Ethiopia. Even Ireland had been explored by a
couple of fathers, who returned without success, after undergoing
terrible hardships. At this epoch the Society counted in round numbers
one thousand men. It was divided in Europe into thirteen provinces:
seven of these were Portuguese and Spanish; three were Italian, namely,
Rome, Upper Italy, and Sicily; one was French; two were German. Castile
contained ten colleges of the Order; Aragon, five; Andalusia, five.
Portugal was penetrated through and through with Jesuits. Rome displayed
the central Roman and Teutonic colleges. Upper Italy had ten colleges.
France could show only one college. In Upper Germany the Company held
firm hold on Vienna, Prag, Munich, and Ingolstadt. The province of Lower
Germany, including the Netherlands, was still undetermined. This
expansion of the Order during the first sixteen years of its existence,
enables us to form some conception of the intellectual vigor and
commanding will of Ignatius. He lived, as no founder of an order, as few
founders of religions, ever lived, to see his work accomplished, and the
impress of his genius stereotyped exactly in the forms he had designed,
upon the most formidable social and political organization of modern
Europe.
In his administration of the Order, Ignatius was absolute and
autocratic. We have seen how he dealt with aspirants after
ecclesiastical honors, and how he shifted his subordinates, as he
thought best, from point to point upon the surface of the globe. The
least attempt at independence on the part of his most trusted
lieutenants was summarily checked by him. Simon Rodriguez, one of the
earliest disciples of the College of S. Barbe at Paris, ruled the
kingdom of Portugal through the ascendency which he had gained over John
III. Elated by the vastness of his victory, Rodriguez arrogated to
himself the right of private judgment, and introduced that ascetic
discipline into the houses of his province which Ignatius had forbidden
as inexpedient. Without loss of time, the General superseded him in his
command; and, after a sharp struggle, Rodriguez was compelled to spend
the rest of his days under strict surveillance at Rome. Lainez, in like
manner, while acting as Provincial of Upper Italy, thought fit to
complain that his best coadjutors were drawn from the colleges under his
control, to Rome. Ignatius wrote to this old friend, the man who best
understood the spirit of its institution, and who was destined to
succeed him in his headship, a cold and terrible epistle. 'Reflect upon
your conduct. Let me know whether you acknowledge your sin, and tell me
at the same time what punishment you are ready to undergo for this
dereliction of duty.' Lainez expressed immediate submission in the most
abject terms; he was ready to resign his post, abstain from preaching,
confine his studies to the Breviary, walk as a beggar to Rome, and
there teach grammar to children, or perform menial offices. This was all
Ignatius wanted. If he were the Christ of the Society, he well knew that
Lainez was its S. Paul. He could not prevent him from being his
successor, and he probably was well aware that Lainez would complete and
supplement what he must leave unfinished in his life-work. The groveling
apology of such an eminent apostle, dictated as it was by hypocrisy and
cunning, sufficed to procure his pardon, and remained among the archives
of the Jesuits as a model for the spirit in which obedience should be
manifested by them.
Obedience was, in fact, the cardinal and dominant quality of the Jesuit
Order. To call it a virtue, in the sense in which Ignatius understood
it, is impossible. The _Exercitia_, the Constitutions, and the Letter to
the Portuguese Jesuits, all of which undoubtedly explain Loyola's views,
reveal to us the essence of historical Jesuitry, the _fons et origo_ of
that long-continued evil which impested modern society. Let us examine
some of his precepts on this topic. 'I ought to desire to be ruled by a
superior who endeavors to subjugate my judgment and subdue my
understanding.'--'When it seems to me that I am commanded by my superior
to do a thing against which my conscience revolts as sinful, and my
superior judges otherwise, it is my duty to yield my doubts to him,
unless I am constrained by evident reasons.'--'I ought not to be my own,
but His who created me, and his too through whom God governs me.'--'I
ought to be like a corpse, which has neither will nor understanding;
like a crucifix, that is turned about by him that holds it; like a staff
in the hands of an old man, who uses it at will for his assistance or
pleasure.'--'In our Company the person who commands must never be
regarded in his own capacity, but as Jesus Christ in him.'--'I desire
that you strive and exercise yourselves to recognize Christ our Lord in
every Superior.'--'He who wishes to offer himself wholly up to God, must
make the sacrifice not only of his will but of his intelligence.'--'In
order to secure the faithful and successful execution of a Superior's
orders, all private judgment must be yielded up.'--'A sin, whether
venial or mortal, must be committed, if it is commanded by the Superior
in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, or in virtue of obedience.' Of
such nature was the virtue of obedience within the Order.[163] It
rendered every member a tool in the hands of his immediate Superior, and
the whole body one instrument in the hand of the General. The General's
responsibility for the oblique acts and evasions of moral law, committed
in the name of this virtue, was covered by the sounding phrase, 'Unto
the greater glory of God.'
[Footnote 163: The letter addressed by Ignatius to the Portuguese
Jesuits, March 22, 1553, on the virtue of obedience, the Constitutions
and the glosses on them called Declarations, and the last chapter of the
_Exercitia_, furnish the above sentences. _See_, too, Philippson, _op.
cit._ pp. 60, 120-124.]
He had also his own duty of obedience, which was to Holy Church. 'In
making the sacrifice of our own judgment, the mind must keep itself ever
whole and ready for obedience to the spouse of Christ, our Holy Mother,
the Church orthodox, apostolical and hierarchical.'[164] Not a portion
of the Catholic creed, of Catholic habits, of Catholic institutions, of
Catholic superstitions, but must be valiantly defended.--'It is our duty
loudly to uphold reliques, the cult of saints, stations, pilgrimages
indulgences, jubilees, the candles which are lighted before altars.' To
criticise the clergy, even though notoriously corrupt, is a sin. The
philosophy of the Church, as expressed by S. Thomas Aquinas, S.
Bonaventura, and others, must be recognized as equal in authority with
Holy Writ. It follows that just as a subordinate was enjoined to sin, if
sin were ordered by his Superior, so the whole Company were bound to
lie, and do the things they disapproved, and preach the mummeries in
which they disbelieved, in virtue of obedience to the Church. They may
not even trust their senses; for 'If the Church pronounces a thing which
seems to us white to be black, we must immediately say that it is
black.'[165]
[Footnote 164: Read in the _Exercitia_ (_Inst. Jesu_, vol. iv. p.
167-173) the Rules for right accord with the Orthodox Church. What
follows above is taken from that chapter.]
[Footnote 165: _Exercitia_, ibid. p. 171. In this spirit a Jesuit of the
present century writing on astronomy develops the heliocentric theory
while he professes his submission to the geocentric theory as maintained
by the Church.]
The Jesuits were enrolled as an army, in an hour of grave peril for the
Church, to undertake her defense. They pledged themselves, by this vow
of obedience, to perform that duty with their eyes shut. It was not
their mission to reform or purify or revivify Catholicism, but to
maintain it intact with all its intellectual anachronisms. How well they
succeeded may be judged from the issue of the Council of Trent, in which
Lainez and Salmeron played so prominent a part. That rigid enforcement
of every jot and tittle in the Catholic hierarchical organization, in
Catholic ritual, in the Catholic cult of saints and images, in the
Catholic interpretation of Sacraments, in Catholic tradition as of equal
value with the Bible, and lastly in the theory of Papal Supremacy, which
was the astounding result of a Council convened to alter and reform the
Church, can be attributed in no small measure to Jesuit persistency.
Ignatius attained his object. Obedience, blind, servile, unquestioning,
unscrupulous, became the distinguishing feature of the Jesuits. But he
condemned his Order to mediocrity. No really great man in any department
of human knowledge or activity has arisen in the Company of Jesus. In
course of time it became obvious to any one of independent character and
original intellect that their ranks were not the place for him. And if
youths of real eminence entered it before they perceived this truth,
their spirit was crushed. The machine was powerful enough for good and
evil; but it remained an aggregate of individual inferiorities. Its
merit and its perfection lay in this, that so complex an instrument
could be moved by a single finger of the General in Rome. He
consistently employed its delicate system of wheels and pulleys for the
aggrandizement of the Order in the first place, in the second place for
the control of the Catholic Church, and always for the subjugation and
cretinization of the mind of Europe.
The training of a Jesuit began with study of the _Exercitia
Spiritualia_.[166] This manual had been composed by Loyola himself at
intervals between 1522 and 1548, when it received the imprimatur of Pope
Paul III. He based it on his own experiences at Manresa, and meant it to
serve as a perpetual introduction to the mysteries of the religious
life. It was used under the direction of a father, who prescribed a
portion of its text for each day's meditation, employing various means
to concentrate attention and enforce effect. The whole course of this
spiritual drill extended over four weeks, during which the pupil
remained in solitude. Light and sound and all distractions of the outer
world were carefully excluded from his chamber. He was bidden to direct
his soul inward upon itself and God, and was led by graduated stages to
realize in the most vivid way the torments of the damned and the scheme
of man's, salvation. The first week was occupied in an examination of
the conscience; the second in contemplation of Christ's Kingdom upon
earth; the third in meditation on the Passion; the fourth in an ascent
to the glory of the risen Lord. Materialism of the crudest type mingled
with the indulgence of a reverie in this long spiritual journey. At
every step the neophyte employed his five senses in the effort of
intellectual realization. Prostrate upon the ground, gazing with closed
eyelids in the twilight of his cell upon the mirror of imagination, he
had to _see_ the boundless flames of hell and souls encased in burning
bodies, to _hear_ the shrieks and blasphemies, to _smell_ their sulphur
and intolerable stench, to _taste_ the bitterness of tears and _feel_
the stings of ineffectual remorse.
[Footnote 166: _Inst. Soc. Jesu_, vol. iv. The same volume contains the
Directorium, or rules for the use of the _Exercitia_.]
He had to localize each object in the camera obscura of the brain. If
the Garden of Gethsemane, for instance, were the subject of his
meditation, he was bound to place Christ here and the sleeping apostles
there, and to form an accurate image of the angel and the cup. He gazed
and gazed, until he was able to handle the raiment of the Saviour, to
watch the drops of bloody sweat beading his forehead and trickling down
his cheeks, to grasp the chalice with the fingers of the soul. As each
carefully chosen and sagaciously suggested scene was presented, he had
to identify his very being, soul, will, intellect, and senses, with the
mental vision. He lived again, so far as this was possible through
fancy, the facts of sacred history. If the director judged it advisable,
symbolic objects were placed before him in the cell; at one time skulls
and bones, at another fresh sweetsmelling flowers. Fasting and
flagellation, peculiar postures of the body, groanings and weepings,
were prescribed as mechanical aids in cases where the soul seemed
sluggish. The sphere traversed in these exercises was a narrow one. The
drill aimed at intensity of discipline, at a concentrated and concrete
impression, not at width of education or at intellectual enlightenment.
Speculation upon the fundamental principles of religion was excluded.
God's dealings with mankind revealed in the Old Testament found no place
in this theory of salvation. Attention was riveted upon a very few
points in the life of Christ and Mary, such as every Catholic child
might be supposed to be familiar with. But it was fixed in such a way as
to bring the terrors and raptures of the mystics, of a S. Catharine or a
S. Teresa, within the reach of all; to place spiritual experience _a la
portee de tout le monde_. The vulgarity is only equaled by the ingenuity
and psychological adroitness of the method. The soul inspired with
carnal dread of the doom impending over it, passed into almost physical
contact with the incarnate Saviour. The designed effect was to induce a
vivid and varied hypnotic dream of thirty days, from the influence of
which a man should never wholly free himself. The end at which he
arrived upon this path of self-scrutiny and materialistic realization,
was the conclusion that his highest hope, his most imperative duty, lay
in the resignation of his intellect and will to spiritual guidance, and
in blind obedience to the Church. Thousands and thousands of souls in
the modern world have passed through this discipline; and those who
responded to it best, have ever been selected, when this was possible,
as novices of the Order. The director had ample opportunity of observing
at each turn in the process whether his neophyte displayed a likely
disposition.
When the _Exercitia_ had been performed, there was an end of asceticism.
Ignatius, as we have seen, dreaded nothing more than the intrusion of
that dark spirit into his Company; he aimed at nothing more earnestly
than at securing agreeable manners, a cheerful temper, and ability for
worldly business in its members.
The novice, when first received into one of the Jesuit houses, was
separated, so far as possible, for two years from his family, and placed
under the control of a master, who inspected his correspondence and
undertook the full surveillance of his life. He received cautiously
restricted information on the constitutions of the Society, and was
recommended, instead of renouncing his worldly possessions, to reserve
his legal rights and make oblation of them when he took the vows. It was
not then made clear to him that what he gave would never under any
circumstances be restored, although the Society might send him forth at
will a penniless wanderer into the world. Yet this was the hard
condition of a Jesuit's existence. After entering the order, he owned
nothing, and he had no power to depart if he repented. But the General
could cashier him by a stroke of the pen, condemning him to destitution
in every land where Jesuits held sway, and to suspicion in every land
where Jesuits were loathed. Before the end of two years, the novice
generally signed an obligation to assume the vows. He was then drafted
into the secular or spiritual service. Some novices became what is
called Temporal Coadjutors; their duty was to administer the property of
the Society, to superintend its houses, to distribute alms, to work in
hospitals, to cook, garden, wash, and act as porters. They took the
three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Those, on the other
hand, who showed some aptitude for learning, were classified as
Scholastics, and were distributed among the colleges of the order. They
studied languages, sciences, and theology, for a period of five years;
after which they taught in schools for another period of five or six
years; and when they reached the age of about thirty, they might be
ordained priests with the title of Spiritual Coadjutors. From this body
the Society drew the rectors and professors of its colleges, its
preachers, confessors, and teachers in schools for the laity. They were
not yet full members, though they had taken the three vows, and were
irrevocably devoted to the service of the order. The final stage of
initiation was reached toward the age of forty-five, after long and
various trials. Then the Jesuit received the title of Professed. He was
either a professed of the three vows, or a professed of the four vows;
having in the latter case dedicated his life to the special service of
the Papacy, in missions or in any other cause. The professed of four
vows constituted the veritable Company of Jesus, the kernel of the
organization. They were never numerous. At Loyola's death they numbered
thirty-five out of a thousand; and it has been calculated that their
average proportion to the whole body is as two to a hundred.[167] Even
these had no indefeasible tenure of their place in the Society. They
might be dismissed by the General without indemnification.
[Footnote 167: Philippson, _op. cit._ p. 142.]
The General was chosen for life from the professed of four vows by the
General Congregation, which consisted of the provincials and two members
of each province. He held the whole Society at his discretion; for he
could deal at pleasure with each part of its machinery. The
constitutions, strict as they appeared, imposed no barriers upon his
will; for almost unlimited power was surrendered to him of dispensing
with formalities, freeing from obligations, shortening or lengthening
the periods of initiation, retarding or advancing a member in his
career. Ideal fixity of type, qualified by the utmost elasticity in
practice, formed the essence of the system. And we shall see that this
principle pervaded the Jesuit treatment of morality. The General resided
at Rome, consecrated solely to the government of the Society, holding
the threads of all its complicated affairs in his hands, studying the
personal history of each of its members in the minute reports which he
constantly received from every province, and acting precisely as he
chose with the highest as well as the lowest of his subordinates.
Contrary to all precedents of previous religious orders, Ignatius framed
the Company of Jesus upon the lines of a close aristocracy with
autocratic authority confided to an elected chief. Yet the General of
the Jesuits, like the Doge of Venice, had his hands tied by subtly
powerful though almost invisible fetters. He was subjected at every hour
of the day and night to the surveillance of five sworn spies, especially
appointed to prevent him from altering the type or neglecting the
concerns of the Order. The first of these functionaries, named the
Administrator, who was frequently also the confessor of the General,
exhorted him to obedience, and reminded him that he must do all things
for the glory of God. Obedience and the glory of God, in Jesuit
phraseology, meant the maintenance of the Company. The other four were
styled Assistants. They had under their charge the affairs of the chief
provinces; one overseeing the Indies, another Portugal and Spain, a
third France and Germany, a fourth Italy and Sicily. Together with the
Administrator, the Assistants were nominated by the General Congregation
and could not be removed or replaced without its sanction. It was their
duty to regulate the daily life of the General, to control his private
expenditure on the scale which they determined, to prescribe what he
should eat and drink, and to appoint his hours for sleep, and religious
exercises, and the transaction of public business. If they saw grave
reasons for his deposition, they were bound to convene the General
Congregation for that purpose. And since the Founder knew that guardians
need to be guarded, he provided that the Provincials might convene this
assembly to call in question the acts of the Assistants. The General
himself had no power to oppose its convocation.
The Company of Jesus was thus based upon a system of mutual and
pervasive espionage. The novice on first entering had all his acts,
habits, and personal qualities registered. As he advanced in his career,
he was surrounded by jealous brethren, who felt it their duty to report
his slightest weakness to a superior. The superiors were watched by one
another and by their inferiors. Masses of secret intelligence poured
into the central cabinet of the General; and the General himself ate,
slept, prayed, worked, and moved about the world beneath the fixed gaze
of ten vigilant eyes. Men accustomed to domesticity and freedom may
wonder that life should have been tolerable upon these terms. Yet we
must remember that from the moment when a youth had undergone the
_Exercitia_ and taken the vows, he became no less in fact than in spirit
_perinde ac cadaver_ in the hands of his superior. The Company replaced
for him both family and state; and in spite of the fourth vow, it is
very evident that the Black Pope, as the General came to be nicknamed,
owned more of his allegiance than the White Pope, who filled the chair
of S. Peter. He could, indeed, at any moment be expelled and ruined. But
if he served the Order well, he belonged to a vast incalculably-potent
organism, of which he might naturally, after such training as he had
received, be proud. The sacrifice of his personal volition and
intelligence made him part of an indestructible corporation, which
seemed capable of breaking all resistance by its continuity of will and
effecting all purposes by its condensed sagacity. Nor was he in the
hands of rigid disciplinarians. His peccadilloes were condoned, unless
the credit of the order came in question. His natural abilities obtained
free scope for their employment; for it suited the interest of the
Company to make the most of each member's special gifts. He had no
tedious duties of the regular monastic routine to follow. He was
encouraged to become a man of the world, and to mix freely with society.
And thus, while he resigned himself, he lived the large life of a
complex microcosm. Nor were men of resolute ambition without the
prospect of eventually swaying an authority beyond that possessed by
princes; for any one of the professed might rise to the supreme power in
the order.
Something must be said about Loyola's interpretation of the vow of
poverty. During his lifetime the Company acquired considerable wealth;
and after his death it became a large owner of estates in Europe. How
was this consistent with the observance of that vow, so strictly
inculcated by the founder on his first disciples, and so pompously
proclaimed in their constitutions? The professed and all their houses,
as well as their churches, were bound to subsist on alms; they preached,
administered the sacraments of the Church, and educated gratis. They
could inherit nothing, and were not allowed to receive money for their
journeys. But here appeared the wisdom of restricting the numbers of the
professed to a small percentage of the whole Society. The same rigid
prohibition with regard to property was not imposed upon the houses of
novices, colleges, and other educational establishments of the Jesuits;
while the secular coadjutors were specially appointed for the
administration of wealth which the professed might use but could not
own.[168] In like manner, as they lived on alms, there was no objection
to a priest of the order receiving valuable gifts in cash or kind from
grateful recipients of his spiritual bounty. A separate article of the
constitutions furthermore reserved for the General the right of
accepting any donation whatsoever, made in favor of the whole Company,
and of assigning capital or revenue as he judged wisest.
[Footnote 168: Quinet calculates that at the close of the sixteenth
century there were twenty-one houses of the professed (incapable of
owning property) to 293 colleges (free from this inability).]
Scholastics, even after they had taken the vow of poverty, were not
obliged to relinquish their private possessions. Sooner or later, it was
hoped that these would become the property of the order. In a word, the
principle of this solemn obligation was so manipulated as to facilitate
the acquisition and accumulation of wealth by the Jesuit like any other
corporation. Only no individual Jesuit owned anything. He was rich or
poor, he wore the clothes of princes or the rags of a mendicant, he
lived sumptuously or begged in the street, he traveled with a following
of servants or he walked on foot, according as it seemed good to his
superiors. The vow of poverty, thus interpreted in practice, meant a
total disengagement from temporalities on the part of every member, an
absolute dependence of each subordinate upon his superior in the
hierarchy.
Having thus far treated the organization of the Jesuits as implicit in
Loyola's own conception and administration, I ought to add that it
received definite form from his successor, Lainez. The founder
pronounced the Constitutions in 1553. But they were thoroughly revised
after his death in 1558, at which date they first issued from the press.
Lainez, again, supplemented these laws with a perpetual commentary,
which is styled the Declarations. These contain the bulk of those
easements and indulgent interpretations, whereby the strictness of the
original rules was explained away, and an almost unbounded elasticity
was communicated to the system.
It would be rash to pronounce a decided opinion upon the much disputed
question, whether, in addition to their Constitutions and Declarations,
the Jesuits were provided with an esoteric code of rules known as
_Monita Secreta_.[169] The existence of such a manual, which was
supposed to contain the very pith of Jesuitical policy, has been
confidently asserted and no less confidently denied. In the absence of
direct evidence, it may be worth quoting two passages from Sarpi's
Letters, which prove that this keen-sighted observer believed the
Society to be governed in its practice by statutes inaccessible to all
but its most trusted members. 'I have always admired the policy of the
Jesuits,' he writes in 1608, 'and their method of maintaining secrecy.
Their Constitutions are in print, and yet one cannot set eyes upon a
copy. I do not mean their Rules, which are published at Lyons, for those
are mere puerilities; but the digest of laws which guide their conduct
of the order, and which they keep concealed. Every day many members
leave, or are expelled from the Company; and yet their artifices are not
exposed to view.'[170] In another letter, of the date 1610, Sarpi
returns to the same point. 'The Jesuits before this Aquaviva was elected
General were saints in comparison with what they afterwards became.
Formerly they had not mixed in affairs of state or thought of governing
cities. Since then, they have indulged a hope of controlling the whole
world.
[Footnote 169: A book with this title was published in 1612 at Cracow.
It was declared a forgery at Rome by a congregation of Cardinals.]
[Footnote 170: _Lettere_, vol. i. p. 100.]
And I am sure that the least part of their Cabala is in the Ordinances
and Constitutions of 1570. All the same, I am very glad to possess even
these. Their true Cabala they never communicate to any but men who have
been well tested, and proved by every species of trial; nor is it
possible for those who have been initiated into it, to think of retiring
from the order, since the congregation, through their excellent
management of its machinery, know how to procure the immediate death of
any such initiated member who may wish to leave their ranks.'[171]
Probably the mistake which Sarpi and the world made, was in supposing
that the Jesuits needed a written code for their most vital action.
Being a potent and life-penetrated organism, the secret of their policy
was not such as could be reduced to rule. It was not such as, if reduced
to rule, could have been plastic in the affairs of public importance
which the Company sought to control. Better than rule or statute, it was
biological function. The supreme deliberative bodies of the order
created, transmitted, and continuously modified its tradition of policy.
This tradition some member, partially initiated into their counsels, may
have reduced to precepts in the published _Monita Secreta_ of 1612. But
the quintessential flame which breathed a breath of life into the fabric
of the Jesuits through two centuries of organic activity, was far too
vivid and too spiritual to be condensed in any charter. A friar and a
jurist, like Sarpi, expected to discover some controlling code. The
public, grossly ignorant of evolutionary laws in the formation of social
organisms, could not comprehend the non-existence of this code.
Adventurers supplied the demand from their knowledge of the ruling
policy. But like the _Liber Trium Impostorum_ we may regard the _Monita
Secreta_ of the Jesuits as an _ex post facto_ fabrication.
[Footnote 171: _Lettere_, vol. ii. p. 174.]
There is no need to trace the further history of the Jesuits. Their part
in the Counter-Reformation has rather been exaggerated than
insufficiently recognized. Though it was incontestably considerable, we
cannot now concede, as Macaulay in his random way conceded to this
Company, the _spolia opima_ of down-beaten Protestantism. Without the
ecclesiastical reform which originated in the Tridentine Council;
without the gold and sword of Spain; without the stakes and prisons of
the Inquisition; without the warfare against thought conducted by the
Congregation of the Index; the Jesuits alone could not have masterfully
governed the Catholic revival. That revival was a movement of
world-historical importance, in which they participated. It was their
fortune to find forces in the world which they partially understood; it
was their merit to know how to manipulate those forces; it was their
misfortune and their demerit that they proved themselves incapable of
diverting those forces to any wholesome end. In Italy a succession of
worldly Popes, Paul III., Julius III., Pius IV., and Gregory XIII.,
heaped favors and showered wealth upon the order. The Jesuits
incarnated the political spirit of the Papacy at this epoch; they lent
it a potency for good and evil which the decrepit but still vigorous
institution arrogated to itself. They adapted its anachronisms with
singular adroitness to the needs of modern society. They transfused
their throbbing blood into its flaccid veins, until it became doubtful
whether the Papacy had been absorbed into the Jesuits, or whether the
Jesuits had remodeled the Papacy for contemporary uses. But this
tendency in the aspiring order to identify itself with Rome, this
ambition to command the prestige of Rome as leverage for carrying out
its own designs, stirred the resentment of haughty and _intransigeant_
Pontiffs. The Jesuits were not beloved by Paul IV., Pius V., and Sixtus
V.
It remains, however, to inquire in what the originality, the effective
operation, and the modifying influence of the Jesuit Society consisted
during the period with which we are concerned. It was their object to
gain control over Europe by preaching, education, the direction of
souls, and the management of public affairs. In each of these
departments their immediate success was startling; for they labored with
zeal, and they adapted their methods to the requirements of the age.
Yet, in the long run, art, science, literature, religion, morality and
politics, all suffered from their interference. By preferring artifice
to reality, affectation to sincerity, shams and subterfuges to plain
principle and candor, they confused the conscience and enfeebled the
intellect of Catholic Europe. When we speak of the Jesuit style in
architecture, rhetoric and poetry, of Jesuit learning and scholarship,
of Jesuit casuistry and of Jesuit diplomacy, it is either with languid
contempt for bad taste and insipidity, or with the burning indignation
which systematic falsehood and corruption inspire in honorable minds.
In education, the Jesuits, if they did not precisely innovate, improved
upon the methods of the grammarians which had persisted from the Middle
Ages through the Renaissance. They spared no pains in training a large
and competent body of professors, men of extensive culture, formed upon
one uniform pattern, and exercised in the art of popularizing knowledge.
These teachers were distributed over the Jesuit colleges; and in every
country their system was the same. New catechisms, grammars, primers,
manuals of history, enabled their pupils to learn with facility in a few
months what it had cost years of painful labor to acquire under pompous
pedants of the old _regime_. The mental and physical aptitudes of youths
committed to their charge were carefully observed; and classes were
adapted to various ages and degrees of capacity. Hours of recreation
alternated with hours of study, so that the effort of learning should be
neither irksome nor injurious to health. Nor was religious education
neglected. Attendance upon daily Mass, monthly confession, and
instruction in the articles of the faith, formed an indispensable part
of the system. When we remember that these advantages were offered
gratuitously to the public, it is not surprising that people of all
ranks and conditions should have sent their boys to the Jesuit colleges.
Even Protestants availed themselves of what appeared so excellent a
method; and the Jesuits obtained the reputation of being the best
instructors of youth.[172] It soon became the mark of a good Catholic to
have frequented Jesuit schools; and in after life a pupil who had
studied creditably in their colleges, found himself everywhere at home.
Yet the Society took but little interest in elementary or popular
education. Their object was to gain possession of the nobility, gentry,
and upper middle class. The proletariat might remain ignorant; it was
the destiny of such folk to be passive instruments in the hands of
spiritual and temporal rulers. Nor were they always scrupulous in the
means employed for taking hold on young men of distinction. One instance
of the animosity they aroused, even in Italy, at an early period of
their activity, will suffice. Tuscany was thrown into commotion by the
discovery of their designs upon the boys they undertook to teach.
[Footnote 172: See Sarpi's _Letters_, vol. i. p. 352, for Protestant
pupils of Jesuits. Sarpi's _Memorial to the Signory of Venice on the
Collegio de'Greci in Rome_ exposes the fallacy of their being reputed
the best teachers of youth, by pointing out how their aim is to withdraw
their pupils' allegiance from the nation, the government, and the
family, to themselves.]
'They were so madly bent,' says Galluzzi, 'upon filling the ranks of
their Company with individuals of wealth and birth, that in 1584, in the
single city of Siena, under the pretense of devotion, they seduced
thirty youths of the noblest and richest houses, not without great
injury to their families and grief to their parents. The most notorious
of these cases Was that of two sons of Pandolfo Petrucci, whose name
indicates his high position in the aristocracy of Siena. These young men
they got into their power by inducing them to commit a theft, and then
compelled them to pledge fealty to the Society. Escaping by night in the
direction of Rome, the lads were arrested by the city guards, and
confessed that they had agreed to meet two Jesuits, who were waiting to
conduct them on their journey.'[173]
[Footnote 173: _Storia del Granducato di Toscana_, vol. iv. p. 275.]
It was, indeed, not the propagation of sound principles or liberal
learning, but the aggrandizement of the order and the enforcement of
Catholic usages, at which the Jesuits aimed in their scheme of
education. This was noticeable in their attitude toward literature and
science. Michelet has described their method in a brilliant and exact
metaphor, as the attempt to counteract the poison of free thought and
stimulative studies by means of vaccination. They taught the classics in
expurgated editions, history in drugged epitomes, science in popular
lectures. Instead of banning what M. Renan is wont to style _etudes
fortes_, they undertook to emasculate these and render them innocuous.
While Bruno was burned by the Inquisition for proclaiming what the
Copernican discovery involved for faith and metaphysics, Father Koster
at Cologne vulgarized it into something pretty and agreeable. While
Scaliger and Casaubon used the humanities as a propaedeutic of the
virile reason, the Jesuits contrived to sterilize and mechanize their
influences by insipid rhetoric. Everywhere through Europe, by the side
of stalwart thinkers, crept plausible Jesuit professors, following the
light of learning like its shadow, mimicking the accent of the gods like
parrots, and mocking their gestures like apes. Their adroit admixture of
falsehood with truth in all departments of knowledge, their substitution
of veneer for solid timber, and of pinchbeck for sterling metal, was
more profitable to the end they had in view than the torture-chamber of
the Inquisition or the quarantine of the Index. Mediocrities and
respectabilities of every description--that is to say, the majority of
the influential classes--were delighted with their method. What could be
better than to see sons growing up, good Catholics in all external
observances, devoted to the order of society and Mother Church, and at
the same time showy Latinists, furnished with a cyclopaedia of current
knowledge, glib at speechifying, ingenious in the construction of an
epigram or compliment? If some of the more sensible sort grumbled that
Jesuit learning was shallow, and Jesuit morality of base alloy, the
reply, like that of an Italian draper selling palpable shoddy for
broadcloth, came easily and cynically to the surface: _Imita bene_! The
stuff is a good match enough! What more do you want? To produce
plausible imitations, to save appearances, to amuse the mind with
tricks, was the last resort of Catholicism in its warfare against
rationalism. And such is the banality of human nature as a whole, that
the Jesuits, those monopolists of Brummagem manufactures, achieved
eminent success. Their hideous churches, daubed with plaster painted to
resemble costly marbles, encrusted with stucco polished to deceive the
eye, loaded with gewgaws and tinsel and superfluous ornament and
frescoes, turning flat surfaces into cupolas and arcades, passed for
masterpieces of architectonic beauty. The conceits of their pulpit
oratory, its artificial cadences and flowery verbiage, its theatrical
appeals to gross sensations, wrought miracles and converted thousands.
Their sickly Ciceronian style, their sentimental books of piety, 'the
worse for being warm,' the execrable taste of their poetry, their flimsy
philosophy and disingenuous history, infected the taste of Catholic
Europe like a slow seductive poison, flattering and accelerating the
diseases of mental decadence. Sound learning died down beneath the
tyranny of the Inquisition, the Index, the Council of Trent, Spain and
the Papacy. A rank growth of unwholesome culture arose and flourished on
its tomb under the forcing-frames of Jesuitry. But if we peruse the
records of literature and science during the last three centuries, few
indeed are the eminences even of a second order which can be claimed by
the Company of Jesus.
The same critique applies to Jesuit morality. It was the Company's aim
to control the conscience by direction and confession, and especially
the conscience of princes, women, youths in high position. To do so by
plain speaking and honest dealing was clearly dangerous. The world had
had enough of Dominican austerity and dogmatism. To do so by open
toleration and avowed cynicism did not suit the temper of the time. A
reform of the monastic orders and the regular clergy had been undertaken
by the Church. Pardoners, palmers, indulgence-mongers, jolly Franciscan
confessors, and such-like folk were out of date. But the Jesuits were
equal to the exigencies of the moment. We have seen how Ignatius
recommended fishers of souls to humor queasy consciences. His successors
expanded and applied the hint.--You must not begin by talking about
spiritual things to people immersed in worldly interests. That is as
simple as trying to fish without bait. On the contrary, you must
insinuate yourself into their confidence by studying their habits, and
spying out their propensities. You must appear to notice little at the
first, and show yourself a good companion. When you become acquainted
with the bosom sins and pleasant vices of folk in high position, you can
lead them on the path of virtue at your pleasure. You must certainly
tell them then that indulgence in sensuality, falsehood, fraud,
violence, covetousness, and tyrannical oppression, is unconditionally
wrong. Make no show of compromise with evil in the gross; but refine
away the evil by distinctions, reservations, hypothetical conditions,
until it disappears. Explain how hard it is to know whether a sin be
venial or mortal, and how many chances there are against its being in
any strict sense a sin at all. Do not leave folk to their own blunt
sense of right and wrong, but let them admire the finer edge of your
scalpel, while you shred up evil into morsels they can hardly see. A
ready way may thus be opened for the satisfaction of every human desire
without falling into theological faults. The advantages are manifest.
You will be able to absolve with a clear conscience. Your penitent will
abound in gratitude and open out his heart to you. You will fulfill your
function as confessor and counselor. He will be secured for the sacred
ends of our Society, and will contribute to the greater glory of
God.--It was thus that the Jesuit labyrinth of casuistry, with its
windings, turnings, secret chambers, whispering galleries, blind alleys,
issues of evasion, came into existence; the whole vicious and monstrous
edifice being crowned with the saving virtue of obedience, and the
theory of ends justifying means. After the irony of Pascal, the
condensed rage of La Chalotais, and the grave verdict of the Parlement
of Paris (1762), it is not necessary now to refute the errors or to
expose the abominations of this casuistry in detail.[174] Yet it cannot
be wholly passed in silence here; for its application materially favored
the influence of Jesuits in modern Europe.
[Footnote 174: Having mentioned the names of these illustrious
Frenchmen, I feel bound to point out how accurately their criticism of
the Jesuits was anticipated by Paolo Sarpi. His correspondence between
the years 1608 and 1622 demonstrates that this body of social corrupters
had been early recognized by him in their true light. Sarpi calls them
'sottilissimi maestri in mal fare,' 'donde esce ogni falsita et
bestemmia,' 'il vero morbo Gallico,' 'peste pubblica,' 'peste del mondo'
(_Letters_, vol. i. pp. 142, 183, 245, ii. 82, 109). He says that they
'hanno messo l'ultima mano a stabilire una corruzione universale' (_ib._
vol. i. p. 304). By their equivocations and mental reservations 'fanno
essi prova di gabbare Iddio' (_ib._ vol. ii. p. 82). 'La menzogna non
iscusano soltanto ma lodano' (_ib._ vol. ii. p. 106). So far, the
utterances which I have quoted might pass for the rhetoric of mere
spite. But the portrait gradually becomes more definite in details
limned from life. 'The Jesuits have so many loopholes for escape,
pretexts, colors of insinuation, that they are more changeful than the
Sophist of Plato; and when one thinks to have caught them between thumb
and finger, they wriggle out and vanish' (_ib._ vol. i. p. 230). 'The
Jesuit fathers have methods of acquiring in this world, and making their
neophytes acquire, heaven without diminution, or rather with
augmentation, of this life's indulgences' (_ib._ vol. i. p. 313). 'The
Jesuit fathers used to confer Paradise; they now have become dispensers
of fame in this world' (_ibid._ p. 363). 'When they seek entrance into
any place, they do not hesitate to make what promises may be demanded of
them, possessing as they do the art of escape by lying with
equivocations and mental reservations' (_ib._ vol. ii. p. 147). 'The
Jesuit is a man of every color; he repeats the marvel of the chameleon'
(_ibid._ p. 105). 'When they play a losing game, they yet rise winners
from the table. For it is their habit to insinuate themselves upon any
condition demanded, having arts enough whereby to make themselves
masters of those who bind them by prescribed rules. They are glad to
enter in the guise of galley-slaves with irons on their ankles; since,
when they have got in, they will find no difficulty in loosing their own
bonds and binding others' (_ibid._ p. 134). 'They command two arts: the
one of escaping from the bonds and obligations of any vow or promise
they shall have made, by means of equivocation, tacit reservation, and
mental restriction; the other of insinuating, like the hedgehog, into
the narrowest recesses, being well aware that when they unfold their
piercing bristles, they will obtain the full possession of the dwelling
and exclude its master' _(ibid_. p. 144). 'Everybody in Italy is well
aware how they have wrought confession into an art. They never receive
confidences under that seal without disclosing all particulars in the
conferences of their Society; and that with the view of using confession
to the advantage of their order and the Church. At the same time they
preach the doctrine that the seal of the confessional precludes a
penitent from disclosing what the confessor may have said to him, albeit
his utterances have had no reference to sins or to the safety of the
soul' (_ib._ vol. ii. p. 108). 'Should the Jesuits in France get hold of
education, they will dominate the university, and eradicate sound
letters. Yet why do I speak of healthy literature? I ought to have said
good and wholesome doctrine, the which is verily mortal to that Company'
(_ibid._ p. 162). 'Every species of vice finds its patronage in them.
The avaricious trust their maxims, for trafficking in spiritual
commodities; the superstitious, for substituting kisses upon images for
the exercise of Christian virtues; the base fry of ambitious upstarts,
for cloaking every act of scoundreldom with a veil of holiness. The
indifferent find in them a palliative for their spiritual deadness; and
whoso fears no God, has a visible God ready made for him, whom he may
worship with merit to his soul. In fine, there is nor perjury, nor
sacrilege, nor parricide, nor incest, nor rapine, nor fraud, nor
treason, which cannot be masked as meritorious beneath the mantle of
their dispensation' (_ibid._ p. 330). 'I apprehend the difficulty of
attacking their teachings; seeing that they merge their own interests
with those of the Papacy; and that not only in the article of Pontifical
authority, but in all points. At present they stand for themselves upon
the ground of equivocations. But believe me, they will adjust this also,
and that speedily; forasmuch as they are omnipotent in the Roman Court,
and the Pope himself fears them' (_ibid._ p. 333). 'Had S. Peter known
the creed of the Jesuits, he could have found a way to deny our Lord
without sinning' (_ibid._ p. 353). 'The Roman Court will never condemn
Jesuit doctrine; for this is the secret of its empire--a secret of the
highest and most capital importance, whereby those who openly refuse to
worship it are excommunicated, and those who would do so if they dared,
are held in check' (_ibid._ p. 105). The object of this lengthy note is
to vindicate for Sarpi a prominent and early place among those candid
analysts of Jesuitry who now are lost in the great light of Pascal's
genius. Sarpi's _Familiar Letters_ have for my mind even more weight
than the famous _Lettres Provinciales_ of Pascal. They were written with
no polemical or literary bias, at a period when Jesuitry was in its
prime; and their force as evidence is strengthened by their obvious
spontaneity. A book of some utility was published in 1703 at Salzburg
(?), under the title of _Artes Jesuiticae_ Christianus Aletophilus. This
contains a compendium of those passages in casuistical writings on which
Pascal based his brilliant satires. Paul Bert's modern work, _La Morale
des Jesuites_ (Paris: Charpentier, 1881), is intended to prove that
recent casuistical treatises of the school repeat those ancient
perversions of sound morals.]
The working of the Company, as we have seen, depended upon a skillful
manipulation of apparently hard-and-fast principles. The Declarations
explained away the Constitutions; and an infinite number of minute
exceptions and distinctions volatilized vows and obligations into ether.
Transferring the same method to the sphere of ethics, they so wrought
upon the precepts of the moral law, whether expressed in holy writ, in
the ecclesiastical decrees, or in civil jurisprudence, as to deprive
them of their binding force. The subtlest elasticity had been gained for
the machinery of the order by casuistical interpretation. A like
elasticity was secured for the control and government of souls by an
identical process. It was no wonder that the Jesuits became rapidly
fashionable as confessors. The plainest prohibitions were as wax in
their hands. The Decalogue laid down as rules for conduct: 'Thou shalt
not steal;' 'Thou shalt not kill;' 'Thou shalt not commit adultery.'
Christ spiritualized these rules into their essence: 'Thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself;' 'Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after
her, hath committed adultery already with her in his heart.' It is
manifest that both the old and the new covenant upon which modern
Christianity is supposed to rest, suffered no transactions in matters
so clear to the human conscience. Jesus himself refined upon the
legality of the Mosaic code by defining sin as egotism or concupiscence.
But the Company of Jesus took pains in their casuistry to provide
attenuating circumstances for every sin in detail. By their doctrines of
the invincible erroneous conscience, of occult compensation, of
equivocation, of mental reservation, of probabilism, and of
philosophical sin, they afforded loopholes for the gratification of
every passion, and for the commission of every crime. Instead of
maintaining that any injury done to a neighbor is wrong, they multiplied
instances in which a neighbor may be injured. Instead of holding firm to
Christ's verdict that sexual vice is implicit in licentious desire, they
analyzed the sensual modes of crude voluptuousness, taxed each in turn
at arbitrary values, and provided plausible excuses for indulgence.
Instead of laying it down as a broad principle that men must keep their
word, they taught them how to lie with spiritual impunity and with
credit to their reputation as sons of the Church. Thus the inventive
genius of the casuist, bent on dissecting immorality and reducing it to
classes; the interrogative ingenuity of the confessor, pruriently
inquisitive into private experience; the apologetic subtlety of the
director, eager to supply his penitent with salves and anodynes; were
all alike and all together applied to anti-social contamination in
matters of lubricity, and to anti-social corruption in matters of
dishonesty, fraud, falsehood, illegality and violence. The single
doctrine of probabilism, as Pascal abundantly proved, facilitates the
commission of crime; for there is no perverse act which some casuist of
note has not plausibly excused.
It may be urged that confession and direction, as adopted by the
Catholic Church, bring the abominations of casuistry logically in their
train. Priests who have to absolve sinners must be familiar with sin in
all its branches. In the confessional they will be forced to listen to
recitals, the exact bearings of which they cannot understand unless they
are previously instructed. Therefore the writings of Sanchez, Diana,
Liguori, Burchard, Billuard, Rousselot, Gordon, Gaisson, are put into
their hands at an early age--works which reveal more secrets of
impudicity than Aretino has described, or Commodus can have
practiced--works which recommend more craft and treachery and fraud and
falsehood than Machiavelli accorded to his misbegotten Saviour of
Society. In these writings men vowed to celibacy probe the foulest
labyrinths of sexual impurity; men claiming to stand outside the civil
order and the state, imbibe false theories upon property and probity and
public duty.
The root of the matter is wrong indubitably. It is contrary to good
government that a sacerdotal class, by means of confession and
direction, should be placed in a position of deciding upon conduct. It
is revolting to human dignity that this same class, without national
allegiance, and without domestic ties, should have the opportunity of
infecting young minds by unhealthy questionings and dishonorable
suggestions. But this wrong, which is inherent in the modern Catholic
system, becomes an atrocity when it is employed, as the Jesuits employed
it, as an instrument for moulding and controlling so |
