sand florins were annually coined. Eighty banks conducted the commercial operations, not of Florence only, but of all Europe. The transactions of those establishments were sometimes of a magnitude which may surprise even the contemporaries of the Barings and the Rothschilds. Two houses advanced to Edward the Third upwards of three hundred marks at a time when the mark contained more silver than fifty shillings of the present day, and when the value of silver was more than quadruple of what it now is. The city and its environs contained a hundred and seventy thousand inhabitants. In the various schools about ten thousand children were taught to read; twelve hundred studied arithmetic; six hundred received a learned education. The progress of elegant literature and of the fine arts was proportioned to that of the public prosperity. Under the despotic successors of Augustus, all the fields of the intellect had been turned into arid wastes, still marked out by formal boundaries, still retaining the traces of old cultivation, but yielding neither flowers nor fruit. The deluge of barbarism came. It swept away all the landmarks; it obliterated all the signs of former tillage. But it fertilized that which it devastated. When it receded, the wilderness was as the garden of the Lord, rejoicing on every side, laughing, clapping its hands, pouring forth, in spontaneous abundance, everything brilliant, or fragant, or nourishing."*

The early part of the fifteenth century, the age of Lorenzo de Medici, justly styled the Pericles of Florence, was, if possible, still more distinguished for wealth and splendor. Florence was the resort of learned men from all parts of Italy and the world; her merchants were princes and corresponded with kings. Poets, orators and artists produced, in their highest perfection, the bright creations of their genius and art. The people yet en

*T. B. Macaulay; Miscellanies, vol. i, p. 85.

joyed a high degree of freedom; the Medici professed to rule according to the spirit of the Republic, and claimed to be the guardians of the rights and liberties of the citizens. Guicciardini, styled the Tuscan Thucydides, describes the state of Italy at that time, in the following enthusiastic style: "Restored to supreme peace and tranquillity, cultivated no less in her most mountainous and sterile places than in her plains and more fertile regions, and subject to no other empire than her own, not only was she most abundant in inhabitants and wealth, but in the highest degree illustrious by the magnificence of many princes, by the splendor of many most noble and beautiful cities, and by the seat and majesty of religion, she flourished with men pre-eminent in the administration of public affairs, and with genuises skilled in all the sciences, and in every elegant and useful art."t

But an enfeebled faith and a boundless luxury begot venality and lust. The most shameless profligacy prevailed among the clergy, especially of the higher orders, the most outrageous selfishness and ambition among the nobles. The common people were violent and disorderly; the different republics coveted each other's possessions, and thirsted for each other's blood. The spirit

* Notwithstanding his celebrity, the prolixity of Guicciardini is proverbial in Italy. There was a criminal, we are told, who was permitted to make his choice between the reading of that author's History and the galleys. But the war of Pisa proved too much for him, and rather than wade through it, he was satisfied to live the life of a galley slave!

Italy is rich in historical writers. The names of Baronio, Bembo, Tiraboschi, Muratori, Denina, Bossi, Giannone, Daru, Litta, Botta, Balbo, Cantu, and others, will occur to the student of Italian literature. Sismondi, though he wrote in French, is essentially Italian. Niccolini, the poet, is engaged on a history of the house of Suabia. Rosini, a successful novelist, has left romance, for the more important task of historical painting. Azeglio and Balbo are engaged in historical researches.

History of Florence, book i.

of freedom took its flight, and Florence sunk in the gulf of despotism and crime. Deceived and betrayed by her professed friends, especially by Leo the Tenth, and subsequently by Clement the Seventh, she fell under the dominion of a foreign power; and a long night of oppression and sorrow ensued. This indeed was the state of things over the whole of the Italian peninsula. It was the consummation of papal ambition and imperial lust,in those beautiful cities, once the home of the free and the hope of the world.

In the modern partition of Italy, Florence with Tuscany fell into the hands of a member of the House of Hapsburg, under whose reign, not over liberal or wise, the country has somewhat prospered. Yet it is poor and heavily taxed. Until recently lotteries and all sorts of gambling, aided by superstitious usages, have been supported as a source of revenue by the State. But the Grand Duke of Tuscany has had sagacity enough to advance with the spirit of the age. For an Austrian his course has been fair. To secure himself, he has conceded a liberal Constitution. Ostensibly the press is free, and religious toleration is promised to all. But whether the provisions of this Constitution will be carried out, remains to be seen. The greatest enthusiasm for liberty prevails among the people. Literature and the arts have revived, and a new era is obviously breaking upon Tuscany. But we are startled by the news that the Grand Duke, following, we presume, his Austrian instincts, has fled from Tuscany, as Pope Pius from Rome, and that a Republican government has been proclaimed in Florence. The progress of reform was going too far to suit his ducal dignity. The Pope threatened excommunication, and in all probability Austria threatened something worse. Doubtless he hopes to return, with the conquering armies of Austria; and perhaps he may. But the case is problematical. The issues of such a change are scarcely to be foretold. Of all the Italian States, Tuscany is the best adapted for a republic; but her fate must stand or fall with Milan, Venice and Rome.

CHAPTER XII.

Florence distinguished in Literature-Dante and "The Divina Commedia”His character and genius-Early days-Portrait-Beatrice and the "Vita Nuova"-Wanderings-Controlling spirit and object of his Life-His Death-Honors-Extraordinary Genuis-Real import of the Commedia— Dante and Michael Angelo-Characteristics of Dante's poetry-Origin of the Commedia-Its general character and aim.

FLORENCE is rich in literature; richer indeed than any other Italian city. With the single exception of Ferrara, it has produced more men of genius than all the rest put together. Taken in connection with her great men, her literature illustrates her moral and political history, and some knowledge of the one is essential to a just conception of the other. Indeed every civilized people embodies its genius and life in literature. This evermore is the blossoming of character, the flowering of that vital root which lives in the heart of the community.

The earliest and greatest poet of Florence is Dante Alighieri, author of the Divina Commedia, or the Vision of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, one of the greatest poems in any language, and yet one of the most singular compounds of truth and error, of beauty and deformity. If, however, we make allowance for its narrow views, its superstitious fancies, and intense bigotries, as due rather to the age than to the man, we shall be compelled to acknowledge it one of the sublimest epics that ever was written. Severe, gloomy and cumbrous, it is yet radiant with the light of genius. Stern as the fanaticism of the dark ages, it contains pictures of

truth and virtue the most vivid and entrancing. At times the author seems absolutely inspired. Brief, rapid, condensed, burning with heat and beauty, his language rushes and sparkles, like the molten lava, on a dark night, from the crater of Ætna or Vesuvius. To peruse some portions of the Commedia, is actually like descending into the infernal regions, or wandering amid the stars of light. The rapt reader is compelled to hold his breath in alternate horror and delight. True, every now and then, we are shocked with some strange sentiment, some superstitious figment-some atrocious bigotry. Not unfrequently we are bewildered with extravagant metaphysics or still more extravagant theology, yet all the while awed by the spirit of grandeur and beauty, gleaming out upon our vision, like stars through the gloom, or the faces of angels amid the clouds of heaven. Then again, after a long and fatiguing journey through the storm and darkness of the Inferno, we come to some scene of cool refreshment or serene beauty, some terrestrial paradise, it may be, in the wide waste of horror; we listen, amid the groans and shudderings of the lost, to angel voices or the wailing melody of the pitying minstrel, bathe our eyes in celestial dews, and then catch vivid glimpses of the distant fields of light; by which, invigorated and cheered, we gradually ascend, as on the wings of the morning, to mingle with the spirits of the just, and lose ourselves in the beatific vision of the upper heaven.

As Mont Blanc not only rises far above his fellows, but is often crowned with light, while the rest of the world is reposing in shadow, so Dante not only rises far above all his contemporaries, and indeed above all the poets of Italy, ancient or modern, but seems invested with a supernal radiance, as if he held communion with a higher sphere. Yet, like Mont Blanc, he is of "the earth, earthy." "His foundation is in the dust." In him the fiercest fanaticism is mingled with the widest sympathy, the most intol