A Short History of Italy E-Book

Mary Platt Parmele

• Herausgeber: Enhanced Media Publishing
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

From the birth of the Roman Empire to the rise of the city-states through the Renaissance and the making of modern Italy, Mary Platt Parmele’s  A Short History of Italy is a fascinating story of the forces and events that shaped this country. 

Leseprobe

A Short History of Italy

By Mary Platt Parmele

Table of Contents

Title Page

A Short History of Italy

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

Chapter XV

Further Reading: A Ride to Khiva: Travels and Adventures in Central Asia

A Short History of Italy by Mary Platt Parmele. First published in A Short History of Rome and Italy by Mary Platt Parmele in 1901. This edition published 2017 by Enhanced Media. All rights reserved.

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ISBN: 978-1-365-99172-1.

Chapter I

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The time had passed when "Rome was the whole world, and all the world was Rome." That crater through which had poured the volcanic energies of the mighty empire was awfully still. But those energies were sleeping, not dead. The instinct for power, the old thirst for mastery, the same genius for organization, were finding a new pathway, and were preparing to convert the forlorn, dismantled city into the throne of a universal empire.

The least spiritual of nations was creating a spiritual kingdom, into which it would inject its own dominating strength. By controlling the sources of action, it might be master of men and of events. By holding the consciences and hearts of humanity in one hand, and the keys to heaven and hell in the other, a power might be wielded deep as human consciousness, and wide as the earth itself. There existed no such plan in the minds of the devout early bishops of Rome. But such was the instinctive process at work, as surely and as irresistibly as a mighty river if obstructed will find a new way to the sea. When before trembling souls were held up the horrors of eternal punishment, which might be remitted, and the tortures of purgatory shortened by gifts to the Church, money poured in great streams into the treasury. Dying sinners, even if half pagan, would leave their all, for the chance of purchasing forgiveness. This meant wealth and power never before possessed by a single organization. Ecclesiasticism was the road to success, and to be Bishop of Rome the richest prize offered to ambition, men still pagans at heart entering the lists to obtain it. The bishop, the custodian of this wealth, which he lavishly dispensed in charity and in deeds of mercy, was to the common people the adored father, or, as he began to be called, Papa (from the Greek), the word assuming in English the form "Pope."

The Greek and Oriental spirit which had come to pervade the Eastern Empire was making of Eastern Christianity something quite different from that of the West. There were different ideas of church government, and finally a different understanding of the dogmas of the Church concerning the nature of the Trinity. The assumption of headship by the Bishop of Rome, by virtue of an apostolic succession, was indignantly repudiated, and when the Pope asserted his authority by virtue of this headship to decide what were the dogmas of the faith, the Eastern Christians resolved upon a separation; and the Church of Christ on earth fell apart into two bodies—the Greek Church, with its seat at Constantinople, and the Roman, to be enthroned at Rome.

It was a period of transition and of preparation. The rough foundations of future Europe were being laid. A Visigoth kingdom, established by Ataulf, held in subjection Romanized Spain. The Angles and Saxons had divided the Roman province of Britain between themselves and created a heptarchy which was to become a monarchy; Clovis, newly Christianized, had fastened a Frankish kingdom upon the Romanized and still pagan Gauls, and crowded the Visigoths over the Pyrenees. In Central Europe was a surging mass of Germanic tribes, never at rest, but with a general movement always toward the South, where their kinsmen, the Goths and Vandals, had already found homes of bewildering luxury ready for their use, and were fast acquiring the arts of civilization. In the region beyond, in the East, was another tumultuous mass of tribes, of which nothing was known yet—Slavonic, Finnish, Bulgarian, and strange Asiatic barbarians— all beginning to be drawn like moths toward the blazing illumination at Constantinople, the centre of that Byzantine Empire about which would revolve the ambitions and aspirations of what was to become Russia.

Although sundered in its spiritual life from the Empire of the West, Constantinople still claimed a shadowy political unity, and asserted an unsubstantial authority over the destinies of Rome and of Italy, which was for two centuries represented by an exarch at Ravenna, this exarchate being the nominal centre of Byzantine authority in the West.

But the Goths, barbarians though they were, did not learn of Christianity from Rome. More than a century before the fall of the empire they had received it in its primitive simplicity from Ulfilas, the Christian boy from Syria whom they had captured, and who created a Gothic alphabet and then translated his Bible into their tongue, explaining its truths in his own artless fashion, as they had been taught in his native land by Arius. The Roman Church had accepted, at the Council of Nice (327), the truth as expounded by Athanasius, making the Trinity the most sacred of its dogmas. So the Christianity of the Goths, which rejected the idea of the Trinity, was by Roman standards a very abominable heresy, and rivers of blood were to flow in Italy and in Spain before it was washed out by a triumphant trinitarianism.

The Gothic nation, like the Roman Empire, had separated into a Western and an Eastern division. And while the Visigoths had long since overrun Italy, Gaul, and Spain, the home of the Ostrogoths was still far north of the Danube. On the day of a great victory over the Huns, a son had been born to the King of the Ostrogoths. So the child of this good omen was called Theodoric—gift of God. When Odoacer became King of Italy, Theodoric was twenty-one years old. Seven hundred miles stretched between him and the throne of Italy, but he determined to possess it. By the year 492 he had wrenched the prize from Odoacer. He had not mistaken his strength nor his ability. Theodoric's is one of the few names to which by common consent has been attached the word "Great." When we compare this wise, enlightened, and humane reign with that of some of the human tigers who had worn the name of Caesar, we conclude that the barbarians brought something more than rugged strength into the expiring civilization. They brought some human elements which had been fatally lacking in the Romans. Terrible in wrath and in vengeance, the Goths had capacity for gentle emotions. Cruelty was their weapon, not their pastime. They did not with epicurean pleasure taste human blood with their wine. If Theodoric ordered the execution of his friend Boethius, the learned scholar, musician, and mathematician, it was because he believed he was trying to undermine the Arian faith, the religion of his people; but the remorse which overtook the barbarian king was the cause of his death (526 a.d.). The wife of this remarkable man was a sister of Clovis, and the magnificent monument erected by his daughter over his sarcophagus still remains at Ravenna.

With the strong hand of the king removed, Justinian, Emperor of the East, saw his opportunity to reconquer Italy. He sent his army, under Belisarina, and first captured Sicily. A few soldiers crawling through an abandoned aqueduct entered the city of Naples, and then opened the gates to the besieging army. Rome quickly surrendered, and the keys of the city were sent as a trophy to Constantinople (637). The Goths then in turn besieged Rome, and then it was that Hadrian's tomb, now the castle of St. Angelo, was first used as a fortress, and priceless statues (four thousand it is said), the work of famous Greek sculptors, were hurled from the walls, and fell crashing down upon the heads of the besieging Goths, so terrifying them that they fled.

When Justinian died, in 565, Italy was practically recovered. But the rule was oppressive, and some even desired a return of the Goths.

The Lombards were a fierce Germanic tribe originally from Northern Prussia, which had been, like all the others, gravitating toward Italy, watching an opportunity to slip inside that tempting garden through some open door. In the present conditions they saw their opportunity. Their descent into Northern Italy is still kept in remembrance by the name Lombardy, that beautiful region lying between the Alps and the Apennines. It was another instance of rugged untamed power coming out of the North to subdue the South. The terrified people fled before them, and by the end of the century these last barbarians had divided the peninsula with the Greek Empire. During the following century (the seventh) there were three centres of power in Italy— the Eastern Empire, which held Southern Italy and the eastern coast; the Lombards, who were supreme in Northern Italy to the borders of Venetia; and the Pope. Among these three, it was the power of the Pope which was ascending. It knew no geographical, no political limits. It was as powerful in the Frankish kingdom and in Christianized Britain as at Rome. From the king on the throne to the humblest of the people, wherever there were true children of the Church, wherever there were stricken consciences or aching hearts, there were his subjects. The presence of Arianism was the greatest difficulty in the path, and the Church had been greatly strengthened by the conversion of Theodolinda, the wife of the King of the Lombards, to the true faith, and the consequent rejection of the Arian heresy by the Lombards. The famous "Iron Crown of Lombardy," now preserved near Milan, was a gift to the Lombard Queen from Gregory the Great in recognition of this service.

Precisely at this time there came into the world one of the greatest factors in shaping human events. Since Rome had raised the cross as a symbol of empire, the world had discovered the enormous power which might be wielded by holding the spiritual consciousness of man. The sincere purpose of Mahomet to replace a corrupt polytheism with a simple belief in one God, of whom he was the prophet, was seized upon by the wise and crafty Saracens. With the Koran in one hand, the sword in the other, and the crescent as their emblem, they determined to proselyte the world. They conquered Persia, Syria, and Egypt, and then swept along the African coast, effacing the Vandal Empire, not pausing until they reached the ocean. Their purpose of universal dominion was as much greater than Alexander's as the world was greater than the one in his time. The Church of Christ, which was the object of Saracen hatred, had two heads, and their plan included the destruction of both. They would enter Europe by the way of Spain, then cross the Pyrenees into France. Another Saracen host, after conquering Constantinople, would flow westward; and when the two streams met at Rome, the world would be theirs.

In 709 the movement began. The Visigoth Kingdom in Spain, now three centuries old, was swept out of existence, and a Moorish occupation of the Spanish peninsula began, which was to last seven hundred years. But at the Pyrenees the Saracens, or Moors as they are now called, were met by a Frankish army led by Charles Martel, which drove them back with such fury that there was never another attempt made to cross that barrier. Six hundred years were to elapse before the crescent would wave over Constantinople. But in all those years the shadow of the coming disaster would rest upon the Eastern Empire, which would be gradually weakened and exhausted by conflicts with her future destroyer.

Chapter II

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Near the end of the eighth century the King of the Lombards captured Ravenna, and in annexing the territory which was the nominal seat of the imperial government, put an end to the exarchate which had existed for two centuries. Alboin's ambition was now fired to achieve a greater triumph, i.e., a complete ascendancy in the peninsula. This attempt, in itself so fruitless, changed the whole course of European history. The Merovingian kings were faithful sons of the Church, so the Pope appealed to the Pranks to protect him from the Lombard encroachments, and Pepin, the son of Charles Martel, came twice across the Alps with an army, checked the ambition of the Lombards by a conquest which made him virtual sovereign, then, upon leaving, cast an imperial gift into the lap of the Church—five cities and a vast extent of territory. This, known as the Donation of Pepin, was the beginning of the temporal kingdom of the popes in Italy. Pepin, Maire du Palais of the last Merovingian king, resolved, since he held the kingly power, also to assume the kingly crown. Pope Zacharias, in gratitude for his gift to the Church, sanctioned the audacious act, and sent his representative to place the symbol of power upon the head of his faithful son.

When Pope Adrian I again needed protection from the Lombards, a greater than Pepin wore the crown he had snatched from the Merovingian. His son Charlemagne was King of the Franks. The tie uniting the Eastern Empire and the Western was worn to a frail thread; with hostile religions, and characters which had grown utterly divergent, the union was a mockery. The wretched Irene, who put out the eyes of her own son in order that she might reign, was disgracing the throne. Charlemagne's services to the Church were unequalled. A man who could compel a whole army of pagan Saxons to be baptized in an afternoon, and Christianize a nation in a campaign, was the sort of ally the Pope needed. So when Pope Adrian I. asked for protection, Charlemagne, with fully matured plans, came himself, and with the consent and acquiescence of the Pope, he took formal possession of Italy, and the centre of power returned from the East to the West.

On Christmas Day in the year 800, Charlemagne knelt before the high altar at St. Peter's in Rome, while Leo III. placed upon his head the crown which made him "By the Grace of God, Emperor of the Romans and of the Holy Roman Empire." By these words the present was deftly linked to the past, and Charlemagne bad become the successor of Augustus and of Constantine. The line of Caesar which had been prolonged in the East would be continued through Charlemagne's successors in the West. The Roman Church, instead of being politically joined to its enemy, was in natural alliance with its most ardent and powerful defender. In the compact formed between the Emperor and the Pope there was a mutual dependence. The election of the Pope required the sanction of the Emperor. Nor was the King of the Pranks emperor until crowned by the Pope. In this friendly clause there lurked material for many troubled centuries, and the writing of many histories. The wonder is that a statesman as astute as Charlemagne did not, as a condition, then and there fix the question of supremacy. But he did not realize the extraordinary nature of the power with which he was in alliance, any more than did the Pope suspect the turn of events which would make him the vassal of German emperors. Upon the death of Charlemagne, his empire was divided among his sons into three parts. Louis took the Eastern and German Franks, Charles the Western and Latinized Franks, and to Lothar was assigned the imperial title together with Italy, and a long narrow strip of territory extending to the North Sea. Instead of being in natural and close alliance with Latinized France, Italy found herself irrevocably tied to the Germans, a Teutonic people with which she had nothing in common.

The great states of modern Europe had now all come into being. Italy, France, Spain, from their infancy nourished by currents from the ancient world, were the children and the heirs of Latin civilization. England, Germany, Russia, all born in this pregnant century, were in no way linked with the past. They were children of new and obscure parentage. Of the Roman occupation in Britain there remained not a trace after the coming of the Angles and Saxons. Germany, the one state where Roman power could not get a foothold, had not an ancestral root extending beyond her native soil; while Russia, the strangest ethnic product of all, the Slav blended with utterly unknown Asiatic fragments, was going to sit at the feet of the expiring Byzantine Empire and learn its first lesson in civilization. It was at the very time Charlemagne was being crowned at Rome, in the year 800, that the heptarchy in Britain was consolidated and King Alfred reigned over England. The treaty of Verdun in 840 created Germany; and in 862 a few Slavonic tribes were brought into political union by the Scandinavian Rurik, who reigned as Grand Prince [...]