| Italian Renaissance - Italy - Varchi... |
| Share travel photos on the Exploitz.com website, the leading travel photography site on the Internet! |
| |
 Italy Hotels Italy Hostels Italy Sights Recommended Italy Pictures: Rome Italy Coliseum picture Panoramic of Colosseum picture Rome Italy Italian Memorabilia Venice Canal Spaghetti Italiano The Last Supper picture Tuscan Palazzo Other picture lists: France Posters France Posters, Page 2 France Posters, Page 3 France Posters, Page 4 France Posters, Page 5 France Posters, Page 6 Australia Posters Tunisia Posters Egypt Posters Portugal Posters Denmark Posters Arezzo Hotels Bergamo Hotels Bologna Hotels Brescia Hotels Capri Hotels Catania Hotels Como Hotels Cortona Hotels Ferrara Hotels Firenze Hotels Florence Hotels Forte Dei Marmi Hotels Genova Hotels Ischia Hotels Lucca Hotels Merano Hotels Messina Hotels Milan Hotels Milano Hotels Montecatini Terme Hotels Motta Anastasia Hotels Naples Hotels Padova Hotels Paestum Hotels Palermo Hotels Palinuro Hotels Parma Hotels Perugia Hotels Piacenza Hotels Pisa Hotels Positano Hotels Rapallo Hotels Ravenna Hotels Ricadi Hotels Rimini Hotels Riva Del Garda Hotels Roma Hotels Rome Hotels San Remo Hotels Sardinia Hotels Siena Hotels Siracusa Hotels Sorrento Hotels Taormina Hotels Torino Hotels Trieste Hotels Turin Hotels Venezia Hotels Venice Hotels Verona Hotels Vicenza Hotels Vieste Hotels |
 |
Index | pg. 23 |Previous Page - Next Page Varchi ...For the first half of the sixteenth century probably no State in the world possesses a document like the magnificent description of Florence by Varchi. In descriptive statistics, as in so many things besides, yet another model is left to us, before the freedom a nd greatness of the city sank into the grave.This statistical estimate of outward life is, however, uniformly accompanied by the narrative of political events to which we have already referred. Florence not only existed under political forms more varied than those of the free States of Italy and of Europe generally, but it reflected upon them far more deeply. It is a faithful mirror of the relations of individuals and classes to a variable whole. The pictures of the great civic democracies in France and in Flanders, as they are delineated in Froissart, and the narratives of the German chroniclers of the fourteenth century, are in truth of high importance; but in comprehensiveness of thought and in the rational development of the story, none will bear comparison with the Florentines. The rule of the nobility, the tyrannies, the struggles of the middle class with the proletariat, limited and unlimited democracy, pseudo-democracy, the primacy o? a single house, the theocracy of Savonarola, and the mixed forms of government which prepared the way for the Medicean despotism all are so described that the inmost motives of the actors are laid bare to the light. At length Machiavelli in his Florentine history (down to 1492) represents his native city as a living organism and its development as a natural and individual process; he is the first of the moderns who has risen to such a conception. It lies without our province to determine whether and in what points Machiavelli may have done violence to history, as is notoriously the case in his life of Castruccio Castracani--a fancy picture of the typical despot. We might find something to say against every line of the 'Storie Fiorentine,' and yet the great and unique value of the whole would remain unaffected. And his contemporaries and successors, Jacopo Pitti, Guicciardini, Segni, Varchi, Vettori, what a circle of illustrious names! And what a story it is which these masters tell us! The great and memorable drama of the last decades of the Florentine republic is here unfolded. The voluminous record of the collapse of the highest and most original life which the world could then show may appear to one but as a collection of curiosities, may awaken in another a devilish delight at the shipwreck of so much nobility and grandeur, to a third may seem like a great historical assize; for all it will be an object of thought and study to the end of time. The evil which was for ever troubling the peace of the city was its rule over once powerful and now conquered rivals like Pisa-a rule of which the necessary consequence was a chronic state of violence. The only remedy, certainly an extreme one and which none but Savonarola could have persuaded Florence to accept, and that only with the help of favourable chances, would have been the well-timed dissolution of Tuscany into a federal union of free cities. At a later period this scheme, then no more than the dream of a past age, brought (1548) a patriotic citizen of Lucca to the scaffold. From this evil and from the ill-starred Guelph sympathies of Florence for a foreign prince, which familiarized it with foreign intervention, came all the disasters which followed. But who does not admire the people which was wrought up by its venerated preacher to a mood of such sustained loftiness that for the first time in Italy it set the example of sparing a conquered foe while the whole history of its past taught nothing but vengeance and extermination? The glow which melted patriotism into one with moral regeneration may seem, when looked at from a distance, to have soon passed away; but its best results shine forth again in the memorable siege of 1529-30. They were 'fools,' as Guicciardini then wrote, who drew down this storm upon Florence, but he confesses himself that they achieved things which seemed incredible; and when he declares that sensible people would have got out of the way of the danger, he means no more than that Florence ought to have yielded itself silently and ingloriously into the hands of its enemies. It would no doubt have preserved its splendid suburbs and gardens, and the lives and prosperity of countless citizens; but it would have been the poorer by one of its greatest and most ennobling memories. Index | pg. 23 |Previous Page - Next Page Italy Hotels - Italy Hostels - Italy Sights ................................................................ Other popular Italy book pages: Mythology: Apollo and Daphne Mythology: Prometheus and Pandora Mythology: Callisto Mythology: Venus and Adonis Mythology: Apollo and Hyacinthus Mythology: Cupid and Psyche Mythology: Nisus, Scylla, Echo Mythology: Sphinx Mythology: Pegasus,Chimera Mythology: Centaurs Online Italy Books Italian Renaissance Italian Recipes Italian Poetry Roman Mythology |
|
Italy Travel Guide A good starting point for researching Italy for travel or reference. Venice - Piazza St. Marco (St. Mark's Square) Venice - Gondola along the Grand Canal Venice - Walking around Venice Streets Venice - Pictures from the Venice canals Venice - From the Train Station to St. Mark's 1 Venice - From the Train Station to St. Mark's 2 Ceasar's European Discovery Pictures. Italy Pg.1 Breathtaking Italy and France Ceasar's European Discovery Pictures. Italy Pg. 2 Florence and Venice Arno River in Florence Campania |
