In 1589 the tolerant Republic of Venice was the only state
in Italy to recognize the Protestant King Henri of Navarre
from the House of Bourbon who became Henri IV of France.
By then the Jesuit College in Padua had 450 students.
Student riots against that Jesuit College in 1591 have been
called the beginning of the culture wars between free thinkers
and the Spanish Empire, the Papacy, and the Jesuits.
Cesare Cremonino gave a passionate oration to the Senate
of Venice defending the anti-Jesuit students, and he taught
at the University of Padua from that year until his death
in 1631 and was the most popular teacher.
In 1592 Galileo Galilei arrived at Padua to teach mathematics.
Thanks to funding by Venice the University of Padua
had the best professors in Italy.
In 1599 Cremonino and Galileo founded the Academy
of the Recovered to encourage free discussion.
In thirty years the Inquisition would open eighty files
to investigate Cremonino.
Doge Cicogna died of a fever in April 1595
and was succeeded by Marino Grimani.
Pope Clement VIII refused to recognize Cesare of Este
in Ferrara because of his being born out of wedlock.
He sent forces to Ferrara and asked Venice to assist.
Venice delayed, and after being excommunicated,
Cesare gave in and ceded Ferrara
to the Papal States for minor concessions.
Pope Clement also criticized Venice for employing
the excommunicated Marco Sciarra in the fight against
the Uskoks who had raided Istria after the
Ottomans invaded Croatia in 1592.
The Ottoman Empire limited Venice’s trade.
In 1596 Venetian printers and booksellers were given
permission to handle books on the Index Expurgatorius.
European trade shifted from the Mediterranean Sea
to the Atlantic Ocean in the 16th century, and between
1600 and 1620 the number of ships
trading at Venice was severely reduced.
Silk production decreased 25% by the 1620s
while the export of cloths diminished by half.
In 1604 Pope Clement VIII complained that the British
ambassador Henry Wotton imported Protestant prayer-books
and held Anglican services in a private chapel,
but the Venetian Republic replied that
they would not search the baggage of the ambassador.
Venice was concerned that half the land in the city was used
by churches and monasteries and could not be sold to laymen.
When Venice’s Patriarch Matteo Zane died in 1605,
Clement demanded that his successor Francesco Vendramin
come to Rome to be examined.
After Camillo Borghese became Pope Paul V
on May 16, 1605, Venice pleased him by raising
the Borghese family to the nobility.
However, they declined to have
the new Patriarch tested as Paul V insisted.
The monks Scipio Saraceni and Marcantonio Brandolin
were accused of serious crimes against relatives
including attempted rape.
The Venetian Council of Ten conducted
an investigation for a trial.
The Pope objected and wanted them
turned over to ecclesiastical authority.
Leonardo Dona was appointed Venice’s spokesman
in Rome in December, but before his arrival
Pope Paul sent the threat of an interdict on Venice.
When Doge Grimani died on December 25, Leonardo Dona
was elected to succeed him and was recalled.
The Senate appointed the theologian Paolo Sarpi, and he wrote
a diplomatic reply to the Pope differentiating spiritual divine law
subject to the Church from temporal human law
under the state’s authority.
Sarpi accepted the infallibility of the Pope only on issues of faith
while acknowledging that the government of the people
has authority from God on secular issues.
He believed the state could limit church property
because they paid no taxes to the state.
On April 16, 1606 Pope Paul V announced
that Venice had 24 days to submit.
Sarpi advised Venice not to publish the papal bulls
and to prepare an appeal to a future Church Council.
On May 6 Doge Dona affirmed
Venice’s right to govern its people,
and he urged the clergy to continue their services.
Sarpi persuaded the Doge to banish all Jesuits, Theatines,
and Capuchins from the Republic,
and the Papal Nuncio was dismissed.
Sarpi’s “Treatise on the Interdict” accused the Pope of
misusing his power and caused a sensation in Europe.
Sarpi’s ideas were similar to those of Marsilius of Padua,
Wyclif, Hus, and Luther.
Paul V excommunicated the Venetian Senate, the Doge,
and Sarpi (burning his writings in Rome), and he banned
Church services in Venice with an interdict.
Sarpi considered the interdict invalid,
and the state followed his advice to ignore it.
He wrote many letters, preached, and debated the issues
and was summoned by the Inquisition but refused to go.
The Senate proclaimed him the “Theologian of Venice.”
Venice was opposed by Spain
but supported by England and Holland.
France’s Henri IV offered to mediate, and Sarpi negotiated
that Henri would be the one to petition
for the ban to be removed.
The prisoners were turned over to the French ambassador,
but the Jesuits and were not to return until 1657.
In April 1607 the interdict was lifted, and the Catholic Church
would not impose another major interdict for three centuries.
The French gave the prisoners to the Vatican,
but Venice reserved the right to try churchmen in its civil courts.
In September a plot by three men paid to assassinate Sarpi
was discovered, and they were imprisoned.
On October 25 five assassins attacked Sarpi,
stabbing him twice in the neck and once in the head,
but he survived that and two other attempts on his life.
The assassins fled to Rome where they were known
but never charged with a crime.
Paolo Sarpi was born in Venice on August 14, 1552
and was raised by a pious mother and his uncle, a priest.
Paolo joined the Servite Order in 1566
and was called Fra Paolo for the rest of his life.
In 1570 Duke Guglielmo Gonzaga of Mantua appointed him
court theologian which allowed him to study Greek,
Hebrew, mathematics, botany, and anatomy.
In 1579 Paolo became the Provincial leader
of the Servites in the state of Venice.
He visited Rome several times and moved to Venice in 1588.
He lived frugally, ate little meat,
and drank no wine until his later years.
Sarpi discovered a generation before Harvey that
veins have valves and that blood circulates.
Sarpi studied magnetism, and as an optician he showed that
the pupil of the eye dilates according to light.
He was a friend of Galileo and helped him with his telescope.
Sarpi wrote his “History of the Controversy between
Pope Paul V and Venice” in 1608,
but it was not printed until 1624.
He defended the right of governments to be
independent of control by the Church.
In 1610 he wrote a “History of Ecclesiastical Benefices,”
showing how churchmen had taken
vast treasures from civil authority.
In 1611 his treatise arguing against
the Inquisition was published in Venice.
In 1613 he wrote a book questioning the use of sanctuary
to protect criminals and a second work challenging
the immunity of clergy from state courts.
Another book warned against Jesuit education making
“sons disobedient to parents, citizens unfaithful to their country,
and subjects undutiful to their sovereign.”
From 1610 to 1618 Sarpi wrote a detailed history of the
Council of Trent (1545-63) and criticized them for not
allowing bishops autonomy, for making conflicts with
Protestants worse, and for increasing
the power of the Patriarchal Curia.
In 1619 the English translation of his
History of the Council of Trent was published in London
under the pseudonym Pietro Soave Polano,
and it was put on Rome’s Index of prohibited books.
Yet several editions and five translations
were published in the next ten years.
Doge Dona was less popular than his predecessor
for being more frugal with Venice’s funds.
After a heated debate in the Collegio he collapsed
and died at the age of 76 on July 16, 1612.
He was succeeded by three nephews; the first two governed
for three years each, but the third died after 34 days.
In northern Italy the only states willing to fight an army sent
by the Spanish governor of Milan were Venice and Savoy’s
Duke Charles Emmanuel I (r. 1580-1630)
who received subsidies from Venice.
In 1613 Uskok pirates decapitated
the Venetian admiral Cristoforo Venier.
The Venetians asked Archduke Ferdinand of Austria
to enforce the law, but he secretly aided the Uskoks.
Venice sent a force against the pirates,
and in 1617 a peace treaty between Venice, Savoy,
and Spain agreed to destroy the fortifications
and ships of the Uskoks.
More European students were going on tour,
and Italy and especially Venice were popular.
Venice had a spy network and even double agents
to disrupt other governments.
On May 18, 1618 before the new Doge Antonio Priuli
had arrived, two bodies were hanged in the Piazzetta.
Rumors spread that Spain was at fault,
and people demonstrated outside the Spanish Embassy.
The Marquis of Bedmar as the ambassador was suspected
of being a leader in the “Spanish conspiracy” along with
Duke Pedro of Osuna, the Spanish Viceroy of Naples.
Young Balthasar Juven, a Frenchman, discovered the plot and
tricked Gabriel Moncassin who saved his life by confessing.
The Council of Ten had three men put to death,
and eventually about 300 suspects were killed,
though Bednar and Osuna survived.
In April 1619 Venice made a treaty with Piedmont.
The diplomat Antonio Foscarini was twice tried for conspiracy,
and the second time he was convicted
and executed on April 10, 1622.
However, Countess Alatheia of Arundel proved his innocence.
The Ten confessed their previous error, and on August 22
they had the three who had accused Foscarini put to death.
Doge Priuli died on August 12, 1623,
and Francesco Contarini was Doge for only fifteen months.
During the Thirty Years’ War (1618-48) the Valtelline Valle
by the river Adda on the northwestern frontier of Venice
was an important route connecting Spaniards
ruling Milan and Habsburg Austria.
In 1623 Venice formed an alliance with France and Savoy
to protect the valley, but Spain transferred
the fortifications to Pope Urban VIII.
This did not stop Cardinal Richelieu from sending 3,000 French
with 4,000 Swiss soldiers and 500 cavalry to the Valtelline
in November 1624 to support the Venetians.
By the end of the year the papal garrisons had fled to Rome.
In early 1626 France made a treaty with Spain at Monçon
in Aragon allowing the Valtelline to govern itself.
When the fortresses were destroyed, Venice objected.
Wealthy Giovanni Corner had become Doge in January 1625.
Renier Zen was a zealous reformer and in 1621 while serving
as ambassador to the Pope had accused the Venetian Cardinal
Dolfin of being bribed by the French.
Zen became a senior official in Venice but was dismissed
and banished for his arrogance and contempt.
In 1627 he was pardoned and recalled
and was elected to the Council of Ten.
He objected that Doge Corner’s son Federico,
Bishop of Bergamo, had been appointed a cardinal,
violating Venetian law against accepting benefices.
The Doge denied the rank was a benefice,
and he argued the Senate wanted Venetian cardinals.
Then Cardinal Federico accepted the bishopric of Vicenza,
and in the summer two other sons of the Doge
were elected senatorial zonta which was also against the law.
Zen had just returned to Venice and in October
became one of the three Capi.
He summoned the state prosecutors,
and they annulled the elections on October 27.
Zen also requested records from the Doge related to other
infractions; but when Zen demanded that his admonition
be published, Doge Corner refused.
Zen believed that this would prevent future violations
and stop intrigues from Rome.
The Corners’ palace was filled with forbidden luxuries.
The Doge and the Senate were insulted,
and the other two Capi annulled Zen’s admonition
and were backed up by the Ten who also over-ruled
a fine against the other two Capi.
Zen continued to speak out, and on December 30
he was stabbed in the face by masked assassins.
The Doge’s son Giorgio was suspected,
and he had fled with two kinsmen to Ferrara.
On January 7, 1628 they were banished, deprived
of their nobility, and had their property confiscated.
Many people were glad that Zen was fighting corruption
and learned that other Corners removed Giorgio’s goods.
They believed the Ten were also corrupt.
Zen was re-elected Capi in July but found
that his authority had been curtailed.
On July 23 Zen criticized Doge Corner in the Great Council.
Paolo Basadonna accused Zen of trying
to overthrow the government.
Even though he was not supposed to be present,
Doge Corner defended himself.
That afternoon the Ten met privately
without Zen and ordered his arrest.
He was sentenced to exile for ten years
and was fined 2,000 lire, and the next day he left Venice.
His supporters were angry and formed a reform party,
demanding that secretaries not be appointed for life.
On August 4 Angelo Corner fired an arquebus
at respected Benedetto Soranzo and was not charged
for nearly a month during protests.
On September 3 a committee of reformers
was appointed to report on the Ten.
Two weeks later Bertucci Contarini in the Great Council
argued that the arrest and exile of Zen was illegal,
and by a vote of 848-298 they were nullified.
On September 19 a crowd welcomed
Renier Zen back to Venice.
A few minor reforms were made,
but the Ten retained most of their power.
Giorgio Corner was killed in Ferrara by an unknown assassin.
Venice sent an army to aid the Mantuans during a war
over its succession 1630-31, during which Venice
imprisoned their defeated Proveditor-General
Zacaria Sagredo for ten months.
The epidemic from Mantua spread through Lombardy
and to Venice, which had 46,490 die in the city.
Nicolo Contarini had become Doge in January 1630,
and he died on April 2, 1631.
In the election Francesco Erizzo was elected Doge
over Renier Zen 40-1.
Also in April 1631 a treaty brought peace to Italy that would
last for twelve years during Europe’s 30-year war.
In 1633 the population of Venice was 102,243.
When Pope Urban VIII sent an army to occupy Parma in 1642,
Venice made a defensive alliance with Tuscany and Modena.
Fighting broke out in 1643, but a peace treaty
was signed at Ferrara in March 1644.
Crusading Knights of St. John at Malta resented Venice’s
peace with the Ottoman Empire, and their attacks
on ships sometimes included Christian merchants.
Doge Erizzo protested this in September 1644.
In early October the Knights’ squadron of six ships
captured a Turkish galleon with pilgrims going to Mecca,
its Cadi, thirty women from the Sultan’s harem,
and about fifty Greek slaves.
The Knights went to Crete,
where the Venetian governor would not let them land.
The reclusive Sultan Ibrahim ordered all the Christians
in the empire killed but relented.
A Turkish fleet of 400 ships was sent to Crete with
50,000 soldiers and attacked Candia on June 25, 1645.
Crete was Venice’s best colony with many feudal estates.
Venice sent Proveditor-General Andrea Corner with an army
of 2,500 men on a fleet of thirty galleys
and later a remittance of 100,000 ducats.
The Turks captured the St. Theodore fortress
after it was blown up by its commander Biagio Zuliani.
Candia capitulated on August 22,
and its garrison was allowed to depart to Suda.
There Admiral Antonio Capello abandoned the town.
An allied Venetian fleet that included ships from the Knights,
Pope Innocent X, Tuscany,
and Naples tried to recapture Candia.
In October the allies led by Papal Admiral
Nicolo Ludovisi went home.
Doge Erizzo was made commander, but he died shortly
before his 80th birthday on January 3, 1646.
The next Doge Francesco Molin was
a veteran but suffered from gout.
In the spring of 1646 heads of households
in Venice gathered to contribute money.
Venice sold 43 procuratorships
of St. Mark for 3,260,000 ducats.
A Venetian fleet temporarily stopped the Turks from passing
through the Dardanelles, but a second Turkish fleet
made it through to Crete.
Captain Giovanni Capello let them enter Candia’s harbor,
and they took Rettimo.
He was replaced and imprisoned for a year.
A young commander was killed in 1647.
Suda was blockaded for more than a year
and suffered plague along with Candia.
The Turks were free of disease and besieged Candia in 1648.
Francesco Patrizi of Cherso (1529-97)
was born in the Republic of Venice and taught
at the University of Ferrara and in Rome.
He criticized the philosophy of Aristotle in his
Peripatetic Discussions in 1571 and defended Plato
in his New Philosophy of the Universe in 1591.
This last work described the universe in four parts
as Panarchia, Panaugia, Pampsychia, and Pancosmia
in reference to principles, light, souls, and cosmic order.
The next year the Congregation of the Index
condemned this work until it was corrected.
Patrizi accepted the “judgment of the Holy Church”
and endeavored to make the changes,
but on July 2, 1594 the Jesuit Cardinal Toledo
persuaded the Congregation to prohibit the entire work.
Patrizi was summoned and ordered
to hand over all his copies of the book.
Giovanni Francesco Loredan (1607-61) founded
the Academy of the Unknowns (Accademia degli Incogniti)
in Venice about 1630.
He later served in Venetian government
as state inquisitor and on the Council of Ten.
Loredan helped get books published by free spirits.
In the 1640s the Incogniti supported the opera
of the Teatro Novissimo in Venice.
Ferrante Pallavicino chose to live in Venice.
He wrote 26 books and novellas,
though he lived less than 29 years.
He was Loredan’s secretary.
Pallavicino’s novel Diana (1635)
criticized the Habsburg Empire.
The Post-boy Robbed of his Bag (1641) satirized
the Barberini family of Pope Urban VIII and the Roman Curia.
The papal nuncio Francesco Vitelli in Venice demanded that
Pallavicino be arrested, but after six months in prison
Loredan and the Incogniti helped get him released.
Pallavicino had to flee from his monastery
to Parma before returning to Venice.
He criticized the papal war against the people of Castro.
In 1643 he wrote The Rhetoric of Whores and the first part
of his last work, The Celestial Divorce, which was published
in Geneva and described Jesus asking the Eternal Father
for a divorce from his bride, the Roman Church,
because of her adulteries and vices.
St. Paul is sent to investigate Rome and is so horrified
that he recommends the divorce.
Pallavicino used a pseudonym, but he was lured to France
by a papal agent and was imprisoned
at Avignon for fourteen months.
The papal legate in Venice forced him to admit his authorship,
and Pallavicino was beheaded for the crime
of lese majesté on March 5, 1644.
Arcangela Tarabotti (1604-52) was a Venetian nun
who defended women against the misogyny of Pallavicino.
She was a feminist and published Convent Life as Paradise,
Against Female Luxury, Menippean Satire, Anti-satire,
Women Are No Less Rational Than Men,
and Innocence Betrayed
(previously entitled Paternal Tyranny).
Her book Convent Life as Hell was circulated
as a manuscript but was not published.
Spain’s hegemony over northwest Italy was primarily through
its governors of Milan such as Pedro Henriquez d'Azevedo,
Count of Fuentes (r. 1596-1610),
and the complicity of many small states.
Many Italian princes served at the Spanish court in Madrid
including the Savoy prince, Della Rovere of Urbino,
Alessandro Farnese of Parma,
and the Medici Prince Don Pietro.
In 1588 Savoy’s Duke Carlo Emanuele (r. 1580-1630)
annexed the Marquisate of Saluzzo on the Italian side
of the Alps, but Henri IV demanded he return it to France
in 1598 and occupied it with his army in 1600.
Papal mediation of the treaty of Lyons in 1601 enabled
Savoy to keep Saluzzo in exchange for two small
provinces on the French side of the Alps.
In the spring of 1597 Jews were expelled from Milan.
An alliance with the Swiss Grison League in 1600
gave Spanish forces control of the
Valtelline valley to the Austrian Tyrol.
Milan had a fortress built on the island of Elba at
Porto Longone in 1602 and controlled the Tuscan coast.
That year fighting broke out over the border between
the Lucca republic and the duchy of Modena.
Spaniards protected Lucca,
and Milan’s Governor Fuentes mediated a truce.
Claudio Monteverdi produced his first opera Orfeo
at Mantua in 1607 and Ariadne the next year.
Conflict erupted again in 1613, and both Lucca and Modena
fought with several thousand men until 1617 when Venetian
and French envoys persuaded Duke Carlo Emanuele
to let Spain occupy Montferrat
as they agreed to withdraw from Vercelli.
In July 1620 the Italians living in Valtellina gained the aid
of Milan’s Governor Feria (r. 1618-25) and attacked
the Swiss Calvinists there and fortified towns
to prevent control by Venice.
Spain enlisted Papal troops to help hold
the valley for the Catholic cause.
Northern and central Italy had a financial crisis 1619-22.
Duke Vincenzo of Mantua and Montferrat (r. 1587-1612)
submitted to Spanish domination and was
succeeded by his
sons Francesco IV (r.1612)
and Ferdinando Gonzaga (r. 1612-26).
On December 26, 1627 Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga died
and left Mantua to his cousin, Duke Charles of Nevers
and Montferrat to his son Count Charles of Rethel,
but they were challenged by Spain.
Spain’s governor of Milan already occupied Montferrat;
but Savoy’s Duke Carlo Emanuele invaded Montferrat
on March 29, 1628 while another force besieged Trino.
The Spanish army was depleted, but Genoese bankers
agreed to contribute 500,000 scudi in July
and 1,300,000 ducats in January 1629.
On April 8 Mantua made a six-year defense pact
with Venice, France, and Pope Urban VIII.
Trino surrendered on May 12, and the Piedmontese
army plundered the area and occupied towns.
Casale held out and was reinforced by the
French led by King Louis XIII in March.
The French took over Susa.
Duke Carlo attacked Casalmaggiore in Lombardy.
Imperial troops entered the Valtelline,
but the Venetian Senate refused to go
to war against the Habsburg Empire.
Louis took his army back to France, and the Italian General
Ambrogio Spinola mobilized a Protestant army of 40,000 men
in Lombardy that included 6,000 Neapolitans,
4,000 Tuscans, and 2,000 Parmans.
They besieged Casale in the summer of 1629.
Emperor Ferdinand II sent his imperial army of 30,000 infantry
and 6,000 cavalry to besiege Mantua in August.
In March 1630 Venice appropriated 638,000 ducats
to support the Duke of Savoy.
Tuscans sent 2,000 more men in May
while Louis invaded Savoy.
However, on May 25 the Venetian army with Mantuans
and some French were defeated at Valeggio.
Imperialist forces assaulted Mantua on July 18,
and 14,000 soldiers looted the city
of goods worth 18 million ducats.
The city of 30,000 people had only 9,000 survive.
Louis XIII returned briefly and was
supported by Carlo Emmanuel.
When Louis left again, Carlo Emanuele added his
6,500 soldiers to Spinola’s army at Casale,
but Carlo died of fever in July 1630.
Venetian troops fled during fighting in the fall as the plague
devastated Mantua, killing 25,000 people in the city,
leaving only 700 soldiers capable of fighting.
On October 13 the French imposed the peace of Regensburg
(Ratisbonne) which recognized Charles Gonzaga-Nevers
as Duke of Mantua and Marquess of Montferrat while
giving some concessions to Savoy and to Ferrante of Guastalla.
Spain’s Olivares felt this was a surrender.
Cardinal Richelieu led a French army to Savoy
in late
March 1631, but Savoy’s army was devastated at Vegliana.
Richelieu negotiated the treaty signed at Cherasco in Piedmont
on June 19, 1631 which France’s Louis XIII rejected.
Vittorio Amedeo I had succeeded his father Carlos Emmanuel
in Savoy and gained Trino and Alba in Montferrat while
Ferrante’s son Cesare II of Guastalla
received Luzzara and Reggiolo.
The Austrians evacuated Mantua,
and Emperor Ferdinand II recognized the Duke of Nevers.
The French gained Pignerol and two other fortresses in Savoy.
Emperor Ferdinand II invested Nevers
with Mantua and Montferrat.
Mantua had been looted and had lost three-quarters of its
people to the plague which also infected the Germanic invaders.
The devastating Italian plagues in 1630-31 are depicted in
Alessandro Manzoni’s novel The Betrothed (I promesi sposi).
Milan had high taxes, and in 1630 the city of Cremona
had to pay 1,359,000 lire.
Spain’s prime minister Olivares called for an army of
130,000 men with 16,000 from Naples,
8,000 from Milan, and 6,000 from Sicily.
In 1634 the Council of Italy’s Regent Ottavio Villani tried
to get the princes of Tuscany, Modena, and Parma
to raise 15,000 soldiers for Milan and Germany
in exchange for imperial titles, but they all refused.
By 1639 Italian princes supported by a few thousand
Spanish troops captured all the territory
adjoining Spanish Lombardy.
Even Turin sent away French troops offering to help.
In 1639 Milan declared vacant farms forfeited so that
anyone cultivating them could become the owner.
From 1637 to 1642 a plague
and civil war devastated Piedmont.
Milan sold noble titles and feudal properties in the 1640s.
In 1646 Duke Francesco d’Este of Modena (r. 1629-58)
raised an army of 6,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalry,
and in the summer of 1647 they invaded Lombardy.
The Republic of Genoa depended on loans from the
King of Spain who went bankrupt in 1627, seriously
depleting Genoa’s silk industry.
In 1647 Genoa purchased Pontremoli from Spain
but lost it to Tuscany in 1650.
Spain had garrisons on the Tuscan coast at Piombino,
Elba, and the Argentario promontory.
Ferdinando de’ Medici was the son of his predecessor
Cosimo I and Eleanora of Toledo.
He became a cardinal at the age of 14
even though he never was ordained as a priest.
The next year in 1563 he went to Rome,
where he lived for 24 years.
He became an administrator, founded the missionary society
for propagating the faith, and collected Roman copies
of Greek statues and a few originals which he took to Florence.
As Grand Duke of Tuscany (r. 1587-1609) Ferdinando made
government less corrupt and more efficient,
stabilizing finances
and allowing trade and agriculture to flourish.
Hospitals were built, and a college began at Pisa.
He proclaimed Livorno (Leghorn) a free port with religious
liberty and amnesty from the penance imposed by clergy.
Persecuted Protestants and many Jews expelled from Spain and
Portugal came there, helping trade and scholarship to thrive.
Ferdinando expanded Florence’s militia of peasants
to 10,000 men and strengthened western
fortifications against the Spaniards.
When the Arno River flooded Florence in the winter of 1589,
he had food distributed and used a small boat
to reach stranded villages.
He changed Florence’s policy of supporting Spain
and allied with France instead.
Ferdinando supported Protestant Henri IV with money
against the Catholic League when he became King of France
in 1589, and in 1593 he and the Florentine
Pope Clement VIII helped convert Henri to Catholicism.
At this time the revenue of Tuscany was
at least as large as that of France.
Ferdinando’s niece Maria de’ Medici was married by proxy
to Henri IV at Florence in October 1600,
and her dowry was greater than that of Caterina de’ Medici.
In 1604 the Medici acquired the counties of Pitiglano.
The first all-musical drama, the opera Daphne, with music
by Jacopo Peri and Jacopo Corsi and libretto by
Ottavio Rinuccini was performed at Florence during Carnival
in 1598, but most of the music was lost.
Improvements were made, and Peri’s opera Euridice
was staged in October 1600.
Florence had garrisons of 2,500 men but could raise
40,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry from Tuscan militia,
Corsicans, and Romagnoles.
In 1607 Ferdinando sent the knights of Santo Stefano
against the corsairs at Bona on the Barbary coast.
The next year the knights defeated a Turkish fleet,
capturing nine ships, 700 prisoners,
and jewelry valued at two million ducats.
Ferdinando’s oldest son Cosimo married the Habsburg
Archduchess Maria Maddalena in June 1608,
and he succeeded as Grand Duke Cosimo II
in February 1609 at the age of 19.
He gave Galileo Galilei sanctuary in Florence and appointed
him Chief Mathematician with a salary of 1,000 scudi a year.
Galileo developed his telescope and discovered
the moons
of Jupiter, publishing his book Medicea Sidera in 1610.
Cosimo II was the last Medici banker as he stopped
private trading and closed branches of the family bank.
Tuscany had a treaty with Spain and was obligated
to send 5,000 soldiers to the Spanish army
whenever Lombardy or Naples was attacked.
Cosimo II sent 2,000 infantry and 300 horseman
to Milan in 1613 against the Duke of Savoy.
Florentines also fought at Asti in Lombardy
in May 1615 against Piedmont’s forces.
Cosimo became very ill in 1614.
As an invalid he could do little governing,
though he supported art and literature.
He died of tuberculosis on February 28, 1621
and was succeeded by his 10-year-old son Ferdinando II.
Grand Duke Ferdinando II would reign
over Tuscany for fifty years,
but his mother Maria Maddalena and grandmother Christina
of Lorraine ruled as regents for several years.
Cosimo II’s will barring the influence of foreigners and private
trade by the regents and mandating limited salaries
for four councilors was ignored.
Dowager Grand Duchess Christina dominated Florence
until her death in December 1636.
She was zealously religious and relied on clerical counselors
and obeyed every order from Pope Urban VIII.
The Inquisition held court at Santa Croce.
The rich treasury was squandered
on corruption and incompetence.
In 1630 Ferdinando II and his brothers
stayed in Florence to aid victims.
He instituted a Board of Health that forced the monasteries
to be more sanitary; but the Pope and Christina censured
the Board and made its members do penance.
Ferdinando II was wedded to 14-year-old
Vittoria della Rovere in 1634,
but their marriage was not a happy one.
She had been heir to the duchy of Urbino from her grandfather
Francesco Maria II della Rovere; but when he died in 1631,
the Papal States occupied Urbino with troops.
In 1640 Ferdinando II initiated
the doubling of the Grand Ducal palace.
Pope Sixtus V (1585-90) funded a campaign in Flanders.
He improved the supply of fresh water in Rome and had
the Pontine marshes drained to reclaim 9,600 acres
for farming and to reduce malaria.
He spent large amounts on public utilities
and to beautify Rome.
To help pay for his projects he increased the sales tax on food,
and annual revenues increased from
1,746,814 scudi to 2,576,814.
In the spring of 1589 Rome suffered from a famine.
By that year Sixtus had introduced eighteen new taxes
including a heavy tax on wine.
He was prepared to go to war against Henri IV but relented,
hoping he would become a Catholic.
Sixtus had pagan statues removed or altered, and he topped
the columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius with statues
of Peter and Paul, showing that the Renaissance was over.
Sixtus V was not popular, and after his death
a mob demolished his statue on the Capitoline Hill.
Spanish towns celebrated, and they opposed
Cardinal Montalto, the nephew of Sixtus V.
After Pope Sixtus V died in August 1590,
the publishing of the Index was suspended.
On September 15, 1590 Giovanni Battista Castagna
was elected Pope Urban VII.
He began by donating much of his wealth to the poor Romans,
and he banned the use of tobacco in churches;
but he died of malaria twelve days later.
About 15,000 bandits roamed the Papal States
and in the early 1590s were hunted by 2,600 Roman
and Corsican soldiers who also pillaged.
The robber Marco Sciarra led raids
on walled towns with hundreds of men.
The cardinals chose Niccolo Sfondrati
to be Pope Gregory XIV on December 5.
He excommunicated France’s Protestant
King Henri IV on March 1, 1591.
Bread riots erupted early in that year
as people blamed the Spaniards.
Grain shipments had been held up to force the Pope
to renew the gracias, and after the arrival of grain
a few weeks later he renewed those grants.
Gregory XIV pledged 200,000 scudi and 6,000 infantry,
500 cavalry, and 500 pikemen
to the Catholics in the French League.
Spaniards still dominated the papal court.
Gregory XIV appointed five new cardinals
including his nephew Paolo Emilio Sfondrati.
On April 18 the Pope ordered the liberation of all slave
in the Philippines and decreed that Catholics must pay
reparations to the natives who
had been enslaved by Europeans.
He died on October 16, 1591.
Aloysius Gonzaga was born in northern Italy.
He came to Rome and took care of those suffering
from the plague which took his life on June 21,
but he was later canonized as a saint.
Giovanni Antonio Facchinetii was 72 years old when he was
chosen to be Pope Innocent XI on October 29,
but he also suffered from malaria and spent most of his time
in bed inciting war against Henri IV
and sending money for the effort.
One of the two cardinals he appointed was his great-nephew,
and Innocent died on December 30.
Ippolito Aldobrandini was elected Pope Clement VIII
on January 30, 1592.
He was a Florentine and had served as a diplomat in Spain.
He fasted often and confessed and celebrated Mass every day,
meditating and praying at certain times.
Although he was a compromise candidate, he supported
Felipe II’s French policy by giving
50,000 scudi to the Holy League.
In early 1593 Clement granted 200,000 ducats to Felipe II
from the Order of Santiago’s benefices.
Pope Clement in February revived the edict banning Jews
from the Papal States that Pope Sixtus had cancelled in 1586.
Then he expelled Jews from Bologna, accused them of usury,
and condemned reading of the Talmud.
Cardinals in Rome received pensions from Spanish realms,
and this was resented in Spain.
Clement called for a new league against the Turks,
and they raised a fleet of 47 galleys
with 5,000 Spanish and 6,000 Italian soldiers.
After Henri IV converted to Catholicism,
Clement absolved him in 1595.
In May 1596 Clement VIII approved a completely
revised Index of prohibited books.
The Inquisition banned works by Luther, Zwingli, Calvin,
and other Protestants; translations of the Bible
into any vernacular language for public use;
lascivious and obscene material except in classics;
and treatises on the occult arts.
After the death of Alfonso II d’Este on October 27, 1597
Emperor Rudolf II recognized Cesare d’Este,
but Henri IV helped the Pope regain the fiefdom of Ferrara,
though it was still ruled by the Este family.
Clement took possession of Ferrara in person on May 8, 1598.
That month Spain and France signed a treaty
that Clement had helped mediate.
During the summer of 1599 the congregation of cardinals
decreed that each new king of Spain had to do homage
and pledge fidelity to the Pope
in order to be invested with feudal rights.
The Duke of Sessa negotiated that 100,000 scudi
had to be paid as feudal dues.
After a trial lasting seven years on January 20, 1600
Clement VIII declared Giordano Bruno a heretic,
and the Inquisition burned him at the stake on February 17.
The Accademia dei Lincei was founded in Rome in 1603.
Clement suffered from gout and died on March 3, 1605.
The Sacred College had 69 cardinals (56 Italians, 6 French,
4 Spaniards, 2 Germans and one Pole).
A two-thirds majority was needed to elect a new Pope,
and they elected Alessandro de’ Medici on April 1, 1605.
The 72-year-old Pope Leo XI had agreed to support
the imperial army fighting the Turks in Hungary and pleased
Romans by reducing taxes;
but he caught a cold and died on April 27.
In the next election Cardinal Camillo Borghese
emerged as a compromise candidate
and became Pope Paul V on May 16.
He was only 52 years old and was healthy, exercising every day.
The French were concerned because Paul had a pension
of 2,000 scudi from Spain.
Borghese had served as an envoy to Felipe II
and was appointed vicar of Rome in 1603.
As Pope Paul V he promoted the study of Oriental languages,
had books printed in Arabic,
and improved the Vatican library.
He was economical and provided money for the poor.
Yet his nephew Cardinal Scipione Borghese
quickly increased his income and property.
The Papal States had more territory than the
Republic of Venice and about the same number of people.
Rome had 115,000, Bologna more than 80,000,
and Ferrara a declining 60,000.
Banditry caused much land to be uncultivated.
In addition to helping the poor, Paul made sure prisons
were inspected monthly to prevent illegal detention.
The Pope’s controversy with Venice that led to
an interdict in 1606 is discussed above.
Paul denied having anything to do
with the physical attack on Sarpi.
In 1608 Pope Paul V sent Cardinal Bonifacio Caetani
as legate to Romagna and the Genoese
Benedetto Giustiniani as legate to Bologna.
He ordered shipping improvements in the Tiber River
and had an aqueduct restored to supply water.
Paul appointed 46 cardinals, mostly Italians but including
Hungary’s Archbishop and Chancellor Francis Forgacs
Bishop François de Rochefoucauld of Clermont,
Felipe III’s favorite Duke of Lerma,
Bishop Henri de Gondi
of Paris, and Spain’s 10-year-old Prince Ferdinando.
In 1615 the Jesuits had 372 colleges.
Alessandro Ludovisi studied law at the University of Bologna
and became Archbishop of Bologna in 1612
and a cardinal in 1616.
He was elected Pope Gregory XV on February 9, 1621.
He suffered from poor health and appointed his nephew
Ludovico Ludovisi a cardinal and his secretary of state.
Ludovico’s brother Orazio was made Captain General
of the papal army, and both gained dukedoms.
Ludovico gained rich estates and collected art.
Gregory XV supported Emperor Ferdinand II
and the Catholic League with a million gold ducats
for the war against the Protestants.
The Pope also aided Poland-Lithuania’s King Zygmunt III
against the Ottoman Empire.
Gregory reformed papal elections by making balloting secret,
but no one was allowed to vote for himself.
In January 1622 he created the Congregation of cardinals
for the Propagation of the Faith to administer foreign missions.
In March he canonized as saints Teresa of Avila, Francis Xavier,
Ignatius of Loyola, Filippo di Neri, and Isodore the Farmer.
On March 10, 1623 Gregory published the last papal
ordinance on magicians and witches and limited punishments
and the death penalty to those who had made a compact
with the devil and committed murder.
Gregory XV died on July 8, 1623.
Maffeo Barberini was from a Florentine family and was
brought up by his mother
and uncle Francesco Barberini in Rome.
Maffeo earned his doctorate in law
from the University of Pisa in 1589.
He became papal legate to France in 1601 and nuncio
in 1604 and was appointed a cardinal in 1606.
With inherited wealth from his uncle
he bought a luxurious palace in Rome.
From 1617 as papal legate
he governed Bologna in the Papal States.
In August 1623 he was elected pope when only 56
and chose the name Urban VIII
to please the people of Rome.
He was healthy and survived a case of malaria.
He granted many favors to his Barberini family.
Urban appointed two nephews and a brother as cardinals
and made his nephew Taddeo Barberini the Prefect of Rome.
During his 21 years in the papacy his family acquired
more than 100 million scudi.
Urban wrote Latin verse and composed hymns.
In 1624 he banned tobacco from churches
and other holy places.
In 1627 Urban founded the Collegium Urbanum
to educate missionaries for foreign service, and in 1633
he opened China and Japan to all missionaries, not just Jesuits.
He was a friend of Galileo and in 1623 gave him permission
to write about Copernican theory as a hypothesis,
but in 1632 the Pope was offended by Galileo’s
Dialog on Two Chief Systems of the World
which had Urban’s argument for God’s
omnipotence spoken by an Aristotelian.
After that he refused to pardon Galileo.
In March 1642 Urban condemned
the “Augustinus” of Bishop Cornelius Jansen.
Pope Urban VIII continued the Catholic Church’s support
for the long war against the Protestants in Europe
but sometimes sided with the French against
the Habsburg Empire of Spain and Austria.
His large military expenditures and building projects increased
the debt from 16 million scudi to 35 million by 1640
when 85% of revenue went to pay the interest.
When the plague was devastating Italy in 1630,
he took special precautions to prevent malnutrition
by distributing alms and by cleaning streets, canals, and prisons.
Urbino was bequeathed to the Pope in 1626,
and the Papal States annexed it in July 1631.
In 1636 a Spanish faction of cardinals conspired to make
Laudivio Zacchia pope, but Urban returned to Rome
and ordered the cardinals who were also bishops to go
to their churches in accordance with the Tridentine reforms.
In 1638 Urban VIII issued a papal bull prohibiting slavery
in the Jesuit communities in South America.
He patronized the arts, notably the architecture
and sculptures of Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini.
Portugal rebelled against Spanish domination in 1640,
and both Pope Urban VIII and Pope Innocent X refused
to recognize bishops nominated by Joao IV of Braganza.
In October 1641 a Papal army besieged and captured
with 6,000 soldiers and 900 cavalry the small town of
Roncilgione in the duchy Castro north of Rome.
Duke Odoardo Farnese of Parma (r. 1622-46)
ruled Castro and gained Tuscany, Modena,
and Venice as allies on August 31, 1642.
Odoardo gathered 3,000 horsemen while Pope Urban VIII
mobilized an army of 15,000 men.
The Pope imposed a head tax
and collected silver from the wealthy.
Raimondo Montecuccoli led the cavalry against
the Papal army at Nonantola on July 19, 1643
while the allied armies besieged Forte Urbano.
About 6,000 Papal forces crossed the Po River north
of Ferrara in Venetian Polesine.
A Venetian army of 9,000 attacked the fort
in September but were repelled.
Tuscany raised an army of about 10,000 men.
A Papal army of about the same size fought in Umbria,
but they were defeated at Lagoscuro
on March 17, 1644 and surrendered.
The Castro War was very unpopular in Rome,
and the bellicose Pope Urban VIII died on July 29.
Giovanni Battista Pamphili was also trained as a lawyer
and served as papal nuncio in Naples and Spain.
He was elected Pope Innocent X
in September 1644 at the age of 70.
Innocent X was a compromise Spanish candidate and began
by prosecuting for misusing public funds Urban’s nephews
Francesco, Antonio, and Taddeo Barberini who fled to Paris.
In February 1646 Innocent issued a bull that cardinals leaving
the Papal States without the Pope’s permission
could lose their benefices, and Antonio was deprived of
his Protectorate in France in October.
The French Parlement nullified the papal ordinance,
and Cardinal Mazarin prepared
to send French troops into Italy.
In September the Pope pardoned the Barberini,
and Mazarin began cooperating with Innocent who made
his brother Michel Mazarin a cardinal in October.
During the English Civil War (1642-49) Pope Innocent X
sent Archbishop Rinuccini of Fermo to Ireland as nuncio
in 1645 and provided much money and arms
for the Catholics in Ireland.
Fabio Chigi attended the peace talks in Westphalia
as the Pope’s nuncio and protested the agreements
made in 1648, and on November 26 Innocent nullified
articles of the treaty he considered
harmful to the Catholic religion.
Naples suffered a famine in 1590-91, but in 1592 Rome
received the largest shipments of grain from Naples and Sicily.
That year Neapolitan and papal troops drove the bandit
Marco Sciarra out of the region into Venetian territory.
In May 1600 the Viceroy of Naples, the 6th Count of Lemos,
arrived at Rome with forty bishops and prelates to render
homage to Pope Clement VIII for his kingdom.
In 1600 Italy had about 13.3 million people, and Naples was
the largest city with 250,000.
By then the province of Apulia had about 2.4 million sheep;
but the cold winter of 1611-12 reduced the herds by half,
and by 1650 the herds stabilized at a half million sheep.
Less wool depressed Italian cloth manufacturing.
The population of Naples increased to a half million by 1650.
Naples spent about a third of its revenues on the military
averaging about 800,000 ducats a year.
These also paid for garrisons in Lombardy
and on the Tuscan coast.
In 1612 the kingdom of Naples had 27 companies
of Spaniards with about 3,500 soldiers.
In 1613 the mercantilist economist Antonio Serra wrote
A Short Treatise on the Wealth and Poverty of Nations
about the economics of the Neapolitan kingdom but was
suspected of conspiring with Tommaso Campanella to
liberate Calabria from Spanish oppression and imprisoned.
Serra explained that the coin shortage in Naples was caused
by a deficit in the balance of payments, and he suggested
that increasing exports would be a remedy.
After four years he was given an audience with Viceroy Osuna,
who considered his ideas “inconclusive”
and sent him back to prison where he died.
Giambattista Marino was born in Naples in 1569
and lived there until 1600.
He wrote the epic poem L’Adone, which was published
at Paris in 1623 and was about the love of the goddess
Venus for Prince Adonis.
Marino was one of the most popular of the baroque poets
with a flowery style that was called
Marinism and later Mannerism.
Il Pentamerone is a collection of fairy tales written in
Neapolitan by Giovanni Bastiste Basile (1575-1632)
and published a few years after his death.
The fifty tales include early versions of Cinderella,
Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty, and Hansel and Gretel.
The 3rd Duke of Osuna was Viceroy of Naples 1616-20
and raised 12,000 soldiers and 2,000 seamen to incite Spain
into war; but after losing some ships to Venice in 1619
and raiding the Dalmatian coast, in 1620 Spain’s Felipe III
imprisoned Osuna for disobeying orders
and getting Spain into a war against Venice.
The lawyer Giulio Genoino was his chief advisor and minister,
and in 1620 he suggested they reform the city government
by giving equal representation to nobles and the people
in the Municipal Council, noting that
it was 300,000 against 1,000.
The Viceroy agreed, but orders from Madrid
also condemned Genoino to prison.
A famine in 1621 led to riots,
and ten leaders were tortured to death.
Genoino would be one of the leaders in the revolt of 1647.
The number of peers in Naples went from 161 in 1613
to 271 in 1631 and to 341 by 1640.
In 1634 a retired judge wrote a book listing hundreds
of cases of feudal abuses that were not punished.
The debt of Naples went from 10 million ducats
in 1612 to more than 50 million in 1646.
While nobles in Europe were falling into poverty,
tax contractors, grain exporters, bankers,
and merchants were prospering.
Many of these were Genoese,
and in Naples some called them “Jews.”
Lawyers were also doing well
and became politicians and judges.
In the kingdom of Naples the titles of nobility proliferated
in the 17th century to 119 princes, 156 dukes, 173 marquises,
and several hundred counts, but instead of a fief
they were associated with farms.
Naples contributed money and soldiers to Spain during
the Thirty Years’ War and to figh
the Dutch in Brazil between 1625 and 1641.
Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 1631 destroying several towns,
though Naples was spared.
During the viceroyalty of Manuel de Acevedo, the 5th Count
of Monterey (1631-37), Naples contributed
30 million ducats to Spain.
In 1637 he reported that after raising 50,000 men between
1630 and 1635 only a few nobles could raise any more,
though according to Sommaria accounts Antonio Calabria
believed that Naples had provided or paid for 10,000 infantry
and 1,000 horsemen between 1631 and 1643.
By 1640 many of the recruits were pardoned bandits.
Taxes were contracted to collectors, mostly Genoese.
Neapolitan nobles and 8,000 soldiers helped defend the
city of Venice when it was attacked by a French fleet in 1640.
New taxes for the wars were so hard to collect that
the effective interest rate increased to 70% a year.
Naples had 10,000 Muslim slaves about 1640.
A Spanish fleet operating from Naples drove the French
out of the western Mediterranean in 1642.
After that year the Parliament of Naples no longer met,
but contributions were approved by the nobles elected
to the city sedili who were corrupted by the viceroys.
Barons were resented and had to compete with the
communes, which to remain free often incurred
heavy debts, leading to legal battles.
Taxes were increased on salt, wine, and flour.
The Duke of Arcos became Viceroy in 1646 and put
a new tax on fruit which was the primary food
of the people during the summer.
Most of the Spanish and Austrian troops usually in Naples
had been sent north to fight invading French forces.
On July 7, 1647 a dispute over who was to pay the tax
on figs, the dealer or the seller, escalated to
throwing things and fighting with the officials.
Tommaso Aniello called Masaniello, who sold paper
for wrapping fish, happened to be leading the Alarbi
armed with sticks in Eastern costumes.
They began destroying the gabelle (tax) houses.
The Prince of Bisignano promised to abolish all taxes.
Masaniello led a procession to the Viceroy’s palace,
and they demanded their privileges
granted by Charles V be restored.
Viceroy Arcos fled to a nearby convent.
On July 9 Genoino and others drafted 22 articles
previously granted in city charters.
These included ending excise taxes on food, making the tax
burden on the capital equal to the provinces,
and letting the assembly elect a leader of the people.
The Archbishop Filomarino mediated
the abolition of taxes, but rioting spread.
Prisons were opened; houses of tax collectors were burned;
and shops were looted.
They made a list of houses, and forty were burned.
The rebels found arms and distributed them,
and the garrison of thirty Spaniards surrendered.
Five hundred outlaws attacked people
in the Piazza del Mercato and were defeated.
Masaniello met with the Viceroy who swore to the terms.
Masaniello became drunk with power
and was shot to death on July 16.
Francesco Toraldo, Prince of Massa, tried to command
the people and was killed and replaced
by the lawyer Gennaro Annese.
By the end of the year the rebellion had spread to more
than a hundred towns in the kingdom of Naples.
On October 1 Felipe IV’s son Juan of Austria arrived
with 9,000 Spanish troops and began bombarding the city,
but the city militia and artillery forced them
to withdraw and agree to a truce.
Annese issued a proclamation on October 17 repudiating
Spanish sovereignty over Naples, and five days later
he became the people’s generalissimo.
In December the bakers were ordered to reduce
the loaf of bread from 40 to 24 ounces and to supply
the militia first, and this angered the people.
Arson and bombarding had damaged property
valued at six million ducats,
and more than 10,000 people had died or fled.
French warships arrived at Naples which proclaimed
a republic and invited the Duke of Guise to rule
in February 1648; but the barons would not support
a republic, and the only one to support him
was Giovanni Sanseverino, Count of Saponara.
Those upset by the disruption of commerce
looked to the Spaniards.
The barons hired armed bands to fight for Spain.
The new Viceroy, the 8th Count of Oñate,
arrived with 500 soldiers in April,
and the Spanish army suppressed the revolt.
They attacked the gangs of bandits and punished
the barons who harbored outlaws on their estates.
Bad weather ruined the harvest of 1648,
and the price of grain went up fourfold in Naples.
Lorenzo Scupoli (1530-1610) was from Otranto in Apulia
and joined the Theatine Order.
He is known for writing The Spiritual Combat
and published it at Venice in 1589.
The book was immensely popular with hundreds
of editions over the next century or so
and was translated into twelve languages.
He advised against the severe penance of mortifying the flesh
by long vigils, fasting, scourging, and wearing hair-shirts,
though he believed in moderate devotions.
For Scupoli the real struggle is between selfishness
and God’s will, and he recommended the four steps
of self-denial, complete faith in God, surrendering one’s will,
and silently praying to the God of love.
Personal desires should be transformed by charity and sacrifice.
He emphasized the goodness of God and urged people
to listen to their conscience and improve their virtues.
Torquato Accetto was born in Naples and wrote
On Honest Dissimulation in 1641, advising that knowing
when to conceal one’s opinions and emotions or reveal them
can avoid causing harm and protect one’s privacy.
He even advised people to hide things from themselves
and forget about unfortunate experiences,
for on the pilgrimage of life it is best to reduce suffering.
On the island of Sicily the large cities of Palermo and Messina
expanded in the 16th century, and new towns developed.
In western and central Sicily fertile soil produced the highest
yields of wheat and barley in Europe,
and Palermo primarily exported grain.
In the east Messina produced and exported
mostly silk but needed to import bread.
More people and American silver in the Spanish empire
increased prices and depreciated currency.
Coins were clipped until they were unrecognizable.
Laws were passed limiting each person
to one silver plate and spoon.
In 1591 Sicily’s Viceroy Diego Enriquez de Guzman,
Count of Alba de Liste, could not borrow on any terms.
By then the wealthy merchants of Messina controlled
municipal revenues and held a monopoly on silk exports.
In 1598 Viceroy Maqueda appointed a commission to
administer the property of the barons with the most debt
while allowing them limited funds, running their estates
more efficiently and paying the interest
on their debts and their arrears.
Tax on cereals was the main source of revenue
increasing the price of food.
In 1607 Sicily requested more silver from Spain,
and the new Viceroy Escalona, Marquis of Villena,
replaced the coins by forcing the bank of Palermo
to pay 500,000 scudi.
He borrowed from the city to pay Spanish soldiers
and introduced rationing of bread.
In 1608 he sent silver back to Spain for the tax.
Sicily was oppressed by the Spanish Inquisition
rather than the Italian one.
In 1605 the distinguished church historian Cardinal
Caesar Baronius published the 11th volume of his
Annales ecclesiastici, challenging the legitimacy
of Spain’s rule over Sicily.
His comprehensive 12-volume history of the Church
was later extended to 38 volumes by scholars.
In 1610 Spain’s imperial government in Madrid ordered
all copies of this book in their empire confiscated.
Pedro Téllez-Giron, 3rd Duke of Osuna,
was Viceroy of Sicily 1611-16.
He found that many carried weapons, and murders
were common; bribing officials was normal.
He banned forty suspects from Palermo
and imprisoned or expelled others from Sicily.
Licenses to carry arms were cancelled,
and he formed a confraternity to stop family vendettas.
Bandits were pardoned for turning in other bandits.
He traveled around the island and organized committees
to care for orphans and schools.
The theater of Tasso was permitted to perform
in Palermo with women on stage.
He noticed that 200,000 scudi a year had been spent on
soldiers and 130,000 on galleys while the annual interest
on the government’s debt was 250,000.
In 1612 the Parliament doubled the donativi tax,
but barons were exempt.
They and the Church made loans and had first call on money.
New taxes were put on silk, exports,
fire-arms, and hunting licenses.
Government credit was restored, banks re-opened;
but those in Messina protested the silk tax.
Spain’s participation in the Thirty Years’ Wa
put fiscal demands on its empire.
Sicily was required to send 70,000 scudi per year to support
the Habsburg Emperor in Hungary, and in 1620-21
a million scudi was sent to Germany.
Sicily also provided soldiers and warships with large
quantities of food to feed Spanish and Habsburg
armies in Lombardy and Alsace.
Messina had to make large grants to King Felipe IV
for the years 1621-23 even though they had spent
two million scudi for the privilege of not paying that tax.
Palermo suffered an epidemic of the bubonic plague
in 1624 after Christian slaves were released from Tunis;
Viceroy Emanuel Filibert of Savoy
was among the many who died.
Wheat could not be exported, and taxes were not collected.
In 1629 Sicilian bishops protested the way
the Spanish rulers were interfering with their pastoral work.
In the 1630s public works and spending on the police
were cut, and the Viceroy commented it was not safe
to travel without an escort of at least twenty men.
The silk tax was increased.
Twice in 1639 parliament was called on to raise money,
and they imposed extra stamp duties on documents
and 2% tax on leases and sale contracts.
However, the rich with lawyers and clergy
had them repealed.
Towns paid their taxes by borrowing
from the rich barons who were not taxed.
Another source of revenue was the selling
of customs and treasury offices.
In 1641 the English ambassador told Spain that the French
were helping the Sicilians to overthrow Spanish rule.
A tax in 1642 on olives, mulberries, and vines
could not be collected from the landlords.
Viceroys fixed prices and distributed money to the poor,
but unemployment increased.
In 1643 Felipe IV ordered Spain’s ministers to increase
revenues for his foreign wars, and in the next four years
the tax burden on Sicily nearly doubled.
In 1644 Sicily had a bad wheat harvest.
In 1645 Venice went to war against the Ottoman Empire
over Crete, and Messina’s silk exports fell by a quarter.
From September for a year rain drenched Sicily, wiping out
winter crops and devastating the summer harvest in 1646
and lowering the quality of bread in Palermo.
Too much food had been shipped to
Spain, Venice, Crete, and other places.
With the highest wheat prices ever the Messina Senate
ordered bakers to reduce the standard loaf of bread by 10%,
and as prices continued to rise,
they did that again three weeks later.
Messina blockaded the straits and impounded food ships,
and so did Syracuse.
In February 1647 heavy rain rotted the seeds,
and sowing had to be repeated; but severe heat in March
and April and a drought devastated the annual crop.
In the countryside people could eat wild plants,
but in Palermo thousands of beggars slept outside.
Disease spread, and dozens died of starvation each day.
On May 19, 1647 a ship brought grain to Palermo,
but royal orders forced the bakers
to reduce the loaf size by 15%.
A procession of women marched to the cathedral
and laid the smaller loaves on the altar.
People gathered outside city hall and shouted,
“Big loaves, no excise” and “Bread, bread.”
The Viceroy shouted from his palace window that
he would cancel the food tax;
but people opened the prisons and freed a thousand inmates,
and they destroyed the excise offices.
The Archbishop of Monreale armed the clergy.
A few nobles threw money at the mob
while most fled to their country estates.
The escaped murderer La Pilosa emerged as a leader
and promised to distribute money
from the Jesuits and the bank to the poor.
Viceroy Velez left the leather and fish guilds in charge as he fled.
The people imposed taxes on luxuries such as balconies,
windows, carriages, tobacco, snuff, wine, and beef.
The goldsmith d’Alesi had also escaped from prison
and was made chief (Capopopolo) of the city.
After people burned more than forty buildings,
he tried to stop rioting by confiscating stolen weapons,
banning fire-arms in the city,
and punishing looting with the death penalty.
Finally he asked the Viceroy to return, and money was spent
to incite the fishermen in a vendetta against the other guilds
who had supported d’Alesi.
The Viceroy promised reforms, and the rebellion faded.
On Assumption Day (August 15) people in a procession
shouted that they wanted the Spanish government thrown out,
and the Viceroy fled with his guards.
One week later fishermen led by nobles and followed by
a
mob killed d’Alesi, the consul of the leather workers,
and eleven supporters.
Bakers were given a subsidy of 1,200 ducats per day,
and by November the city owed nearly 150,000 ducats.
In September the revolution ended as people welcomed
Spanish troops returning to Palermo.
The Archbishop absolved the people for revolting.
Cardinal Trivulzio became Viceroy, and the unemployed
and visitors were expelled to save food.
Games and masks were prohibited.
Cannons were aimed at the city; a curfew was imposed;
and arms had to be surrendered.
The Viceroy allowed the nobles
to hire bands to garrison Palermo.
Messina had provided money to help put down
the revolt at Palermo, adding to their civic debt,
though Spain enlarged their suffrage temporarily.
The Spanish Inquisition was instituted in Sicily and Sardinia.
Sardinia’s contribution to Spain was 15,000 ducats in 1613,
but by 1626 it had multiplied by nine.
In 1638 Sicily’s Interim Viceroy Montalto had reported
that no more soldiers could be raised.
Yet Sardinia recruited about 9,000 soldiers
between 1628 and 1650.
Sicily had a feudal aristocracy.
The Parliament had feudal lords, the church,
and the royal officials responsible for voting on taxes.
Tommaso Campanella was born on September 5, 1568
at Stignano in Calabria on the southern tip of Italy.
At the age of 14 he became a Dominican.
In 1588 he was influenced by the natural philosophy of
Bernardino Telesio that challenged Aristotle’s ideas,
and he wrote a defense of Telesio’s philosophy.
Campanella left isolated Altomonte without permission
and went to Naples where he lived in a convent.
He got his book Philosophia sensibus demonstrata
published, but his next two books were seized
by the Holy Office of the Inquisition.
Having studied magic and opposed Aristotelian
Catholic theology, he was imprisoned in San Domenico
and tried on various charges.
In August 1592 he was ordered to go back to Altomonte,
but he went to Florence instead and then to Padua
where he became friends with Galileo and Sarpi.
Campanella wrote Apologia pro Telesio and Rhetorica nova;
but in 1594 the Inquisition confiscated his manuscripts
and tortured him twice but could not get him to confess.
He was transferred to Rome, and in May 1595
he was tortured again and did confess.
He was sentenced to live in a monastery.
There he wrote his Dialogue against Lutherans,
Calvinists and Other Heretics.
On March 5, 1597 a Calabrian bandit about
to be hanged testified against Campanella
who was detained for several months.
Then he returned to his native Stilo in 1598.
Concerned about the poor, he criticized Church
and Spanish rule, and he wanted radical reforms.
On September 6, 1599 Campanella was arrested with
150 others and was accused of leading
a revolutionary conspiracy in Calabria.
Inspired by the prophecies of Joachim of Fiore, his purpose
was to establish a community of goods
before the Age of Spirit was to begin in 1600.
He was taken to Naples, and in late 1602 the Inquisition
sentenced Campanella to imprisonment for life.
Aware that canon law would not allow the execution
of an insane person, on Easter Sunday in 1601
he started a fire in his cell and pretended to be insane
for fourteen months even under painful torture.
In 1604 he was transferred to Castel Nuovo,
but after an attempted escape he was shackled hand and foot
in the underground dungeon of Castel Sant’ Elmo for four years.
Then for six years he had better quarters
where he could write and receive visitors.
In 1614 he was sent back to the dungeon where he worked
on his Theologia, Apologia pro Galileo,
and books on
rhetoric, poetics, medicine, philosophy, and astrology.
Transferred from the dungeon again in 1618,
Campanella wrote many letters
asking powerful people to help him.
In 1626 he was released and sent back to the monastery
at Altomonte, but a few weeks later
he was imprisoned once more for three years.
Finally in 1629 Campanella was freed for the last ten years
of his life in the custody of the Dominicans.
In Rome he was employed by Pope Urban VIII
for his astrology and magic.
After Galileo was charged again in 1633,
Campanella came to his defense.
In 1634 he went to Paris.
His faith that the Church and the Spanish Empire might realize
his dreams had faded, and he transferred his hope to the French.
Campanella wrote about a hundred books
before he died on May 21, 1639
in the Dominican monastery in Rue St. Honoré.
Campanella wrote The City of the Sun:
The Idea of a Philosophic Republic in Italian in 1602,
and manuscripts were circulated.
In 1613 he translated it into Latin, and this was published
at Frankfurt in 1623 in his collection Philosophia realis.
In the dialog a Knight Hospitaller questions a Genoese
who had sailed with Columbus and has gone around the world.
South of the equator the Genoese was taken by a company
of people to the City of the Sun which has seven circles
and is more than two miles in diameter.
In the center is a hill and a large temple.
On the altar is a celestial globe showing the heavens
and a terrestrial globe, and there are forty clergy.
The Hospitaller asks about the government.
The Prince Prelate is called the Sun or the Metaphysician,
and the other princes are Power, Wisdom, and Love.
Power administers war and peace, Wisdom all the sciences
and arts, and Love healthy breeding
and the care and education of children.
These four princes discuss things,
and the Metaphysician decides.
All things are held in common, and there are no
separate homes for parents and their children.
Self-love is destroyed for the sake of the community
which they are taught to love.
No one has more than one deserves,
and everyone has all one needs.
Friendships develop during war, in sickness,
and while learning together.
Officials representing the virtues watch
to see that no one harms another.
Both sexes are educated and are taught language and crafts,
then natural science, followed by mathematics,
medicine, and other sciences.
Those who learn the most skills are considered noble.
One must know the history of all peoples
and astrology to be elected the Sun.
The Sun knows too much to be cruel or tyrannical.
The three officials of Power, Wisdom, and Love must also be
philosophers, historians, naturalists, and humanists.
People sleep in common dormitories.
Men and women do the same work,
and women can be artists and musicians.
However, the men handle more strenuous jobs
while women make clothes and prepare food.
Only boys and girls wait on tables.
The young are required to help those who are over forty.
They eat in silence while someone reads aloud.
Clothes are changed at the beginning of each season
when festivals also occur.
New moons and full moons are also celebrated.
Water is collected in cisterns, and people wash often.
Wise elders insist on cleanliness.
Women do not conceive children
until they are 19 and men at 21.
Sodomy is punished.
Men and women are matched in order to
produce well balanced children.
The mother nurses her child for two years,
but after weaning teachers take over.
All adults are considered fathers and mothers
while all the children are their sons and daughters.
Exercise keeps people healthy and better looking.
Campanella noted that in Naples 50,000 of the
300,000 people do not work while others work long hours;
but in the City of the Sun
no one works more than four hours a day.
Campanella believed that poverty creates liars and criminals
while wealth makes people insolent, ignorant, and treacherous.
Public ownership avoids those two extremes,
and they can live like true Christians.
The City of the Sun sends out people to study other nations
and bring back information.
Boys and girls are taught to use weapons
so they may defend the city in war.
Everyone believes that the soul is immortal
and after death goes to the place merited.
At first they thought it cruel to eat higher animals,
but then they decided to eat plants and animals.
Children have four meals a day and adults two.
They drink wine moderately.
No one is put in prison except a captured enemy.
Only a serious crime like treason is punished by death.
They honor the sun and the stars, but only God is worshipped.
The three aspects of God are Power, Wisdom, and Love.
Their most holy laws are the golden and silver rules
of treating others as one would like to be treated
and not doing what one would not like.
The author noted that more books were written in the
last century than in the previous 5,000 years.
The Solarians have learned how to fly and are working
on a glass to see hidden stars
and on a device to listen to the music of the spheres.
The Genoese also notes that their era has seen
several women rulers including England’s Elizabeth,
France’s Catherine, Scotland’s Mary, and Spain’s Isabel.
Solarians also believe in free will but that those subject
to their senses rather than reason
are more influenced by the stars.
Galileo Galilei was born on February 15, 1564 at Pisa.
His father Vincenzo Galilei was a famous musician, and,
concerned that studying mathematics did not pay, in 1581
he enrolled his son Galileo in the
University of Pisa to study medicine.
Noticing a swinging lamp in a cathedral, Galileo discovered
the temporally steady motion of the pendulum and used
that to make a machine for measuring the pulse.
Lack of money caused him to leave school in 1585,
but he continued his investigations
and wrote an essay on hydrostatic balance.
He was acclaimed for a treatise
on the center of gravity in solids.
After struggling financially Galileo was hired by the
University of Pisa to lecture on mathematics in 1589.
He conducted experiments on falling bodies and angered
Aristotelian faculty by showing that heavier bodies
did not fall faster, though scholars doubt the legend
that he dropped things off the leaning tower of Pisa.
He resigned in 1591 and soon gained a position at the
University of Padua where he taught for 18 years.
His lectures were very popular, and he taught in a large
auditorium holding two thousand people.
He invented a machine for raising water,
a geometrical compass, and an air thermometer.
In 1597 he wrote Kepler that he accepted the
sun-centered Copernican theory as more reasonable than
the earth-centered Ptolemaic system using
complicated epicycles to explain the apparent
retrograde movement of the planets.
In 1609 Galileo learned that the Dutch were manufacturing
magnifying glasses, and he put them together in a telescope
enlarging sights three times
but soon increased it to a power of 32 times.
This enabled him to see that the moon has mountains,
that the Milky Way is actually many stars, and that the planet
Jupiter has at least four satellites (moons) which he called
“Medicean stars” in honor of
Grand Duke Cosimo II of Tuscany.
The telescope also enabled him to offer more proof
for the revolutionary system of Copernicus.
Yet he somehow missed or ignored Kepler’s theory
explaining the elliptical orbits of planets
and continued to believe that their orbits are circles.
In September 1610 Galileo went to Florence to be
chief mathematician and philosopher for Cosimo II.
He visited Rome in the spring of 1611, and that summer
he began disputing with Aristotelian philosophers
over floating bodies.
In 1613 Galileo wrote how sunspots show that the sun rotates,
helping to prove the theory of Copernicus.
In December 1614 the Dominican preacher Tommaso Caccini
attacked Galileo for his revolutionary ideas.
A year later Galileo went to Rome to defend
the Copernican theory, but in February 1616
the Catholic Church condemned two of his
propositions in On the Sun Spots.
Cardinal Robert Bellarmine warned him to consider it
only as a hypothesis, and the book by Copernicus
was put on the Index on March 5.
Galileo argued that the Church should continue
to interpret scripture allegorically when it conflicts
with scientific truth as it had done in the past.
He improved his telescope for use at sea.
Galileo suffered from arthritis
and worked on understanding comets.
He was criticized by Jesuits in 1619
and answered them in 1622.
The next year he published The Assayer (Il Saggiatore)
to challenge the views of the Jesuit Orazio Grassi on comets,
and he dedicated it to the new Pope Urban VIII.
In the spring of 1624 he visited Rome
and had six audiences with Pope Urban.
That summer he made improvements
to the compound microscope.
After being seriously ill in 1628 Galileo completed his
Dialog on the Two Chief World Systems and obtained
permission before publishing it at Florence in 1632.
In August the Catholic Church ordered the printer to stop
selling the book, and in October they charged Galileo
for teaching the Copernican theory as a truth.
Galileo went to Rome in February 1633 and was examined
by Inquisitors in April.
Pope Urban ordered a thorough examination in June,
and threatened with torture, Galileo recanted and was sentenced
to imprisonment which the Pope commuted
to indefinite house arrest.
He was put under the custody of the Archbishop of Siena
and allowed to live at his home in Arcetri
near Florence for the rest of his life.
In 1637 he went blind, and in 1638 his great work,
Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Relating
to Two New Sciences, was published at Leyden.
In his last years he worked on applying the pendulum principle
to develop a clock which was accomplished
by the Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens in 1656.
Galileo died on January 8, 1642.
Pope Urban VIII forbade honoring him with a monument,
and his body was buried in the chapel of Santa Croce in Florence.
Galileo did much to pioneer
the modern scientific method of experiments.
He argued that science must be based on observation
and not on authority and that scientific understanding
can be most precisely understood using mathematics.