A Short History of Italy (476-1900). Henry Dwight Sedgwick
href="#ulink_db9a6088-99d7-5731-9b18-58559ad03ad2">CHAPTER XXVI
THE BARBARIAN INVASIONS (1494-1537)
THE PAPAL MONARCHY (1471-1527)
THE HIGH RENAISSANCE (1499-1521)
ITALY AND THE CATHOLIC REVIVAL (1527-1563)
THE CINQUECENTO (16th Century)
THE AGE OF STAGNATION, POLITICS (1580-1789)
THE AGE OF STAGNATION, THE ARTS (1580-1789)
THE NAPOLEONIC ERA (1789-1820)
PERTURBED INACTIVITY (1821-1847)
THE UNITY OF ITALY (1849-1871)
PREFACE
This volume is a mere sketch in outline; it makes no pretence to original investigation, or even to an extended examination of the voluminous literature which deals with every part of its subject. It is an attempt to give a correct impression of Italian history as a whole, and employs details only here and there, and then merely for the sake of giving greater clearness to the general outline. So brief a narrative is mainly a work of selection; and perhaps no two persons would agree upon what to put in and what to leave out. I have laid emphasis upon the matters of greatest general interest, the Papacy, the Renaissance, and the Risorgimento; and my special object has been to put in high relief those achievements which make Italy so charming and so interesting to the world, and to give what space was possible to the great men to whom these achievements are due.
H. D. S.
New York, October 1, 1905.
A SHORT HISTORY OF ITALY
A SHORT HISTORY OF ITALY
CHAPTER I
THE FALL OF THE EMPIRE IN THE WEST (476 AD)
In the year 476 an unfortunate young man, mocked with the great names of the founders of the City and of the Empire, Romulus Augustus, nicknamed Augustulus, was deposed from the throne of the Cæsars by a Barbarian general in the Imperial service, and the Roman Empire in Italy came to its end. This act was but the outward sign that the power of Italy was utterly gone, and that in the West at least the Barbarians were indisputably conquerors in the long struggle which they had carried on for centuries with the Roman Empire.
That Empire, at the period of its greatness, embraced all the countries around the Mediterranean Sea; it was the political embodiment of the Mediterranean civilization. In Europe, to the northeast, it reached as far as the Rhine and the Danube; it included England. Beyond the Rhine and the Danube dwelt the Barbarians. Europe was thus divided into two parts, the civilized and the Barbarian: one, a great Latin empire which rested upon slavery, and was governed by a highly centralized bureaucracy; the other, a collection of tribes of Teutonic blood, bound together in a very simple form of society, and essentially democratic in character.
The Empire, composed of many races, Etruscan, Ligurian, Iberian, Celtic, Basque, Greek, Egyptian, and divers others, had been created and maintained by the military and administrative genius of Rome. Over all these people Roman law and Roman order prevailed. All enjoyed the Pax Romana. From Cadiz to Milan, from Milan to Byzantium, from Byzantium to Palmyra, stretched the great Roman roads. Coins, weights, and measures were everywhere the same. The inhabitants of Africa, Asia, and Europe, enfranchised by an Imperial edict, were thankful to be Roman citizens. To this day Roman law, the Romance languages, and the Roman Catholic Church testify to the vigour and solidity of Roman dominion. The city of Rome was, and had been for centuries, the head of the world. From east and