The Cambridge Modern History. R. Nisbet Bain

in his dealings with the Greek Church. He knew the “Romaic” language well, and had sounded the nature of the Greeks of that age; he was well aware how they were absorbed in narrow theological interests, utterly divorced from the principles of honour and rectitude, which they were always willing to sacrifice in order to gain a victory for their own religious party. He saw that the Greek Church under a Patriarch appointed by the Sultan would be a valuable engine of government, placing in the Sultan’s hands a considerable indirect influence over the laity. It was, further, his policy to favour the Greek Church, in view of the crusading plans of the Latin powers; for, though the Roman pontiffs of this period showed themselves able to rise to the higher conception of the unity of Christendom, the bigoted hatred existing between the Latin and Greek Churches went far towards paralysing the sympathies of the Catholic countries. Mohammad aimed at fostering this ill-feeling, and he was thoroughly successful; the supremacy of the infidel Sultan seemed more tolerable than the supremacy of the heretical Pope. Naturally Mohammad chose for the Patriarchate one of those who were opposed to the union of the Greek and Latin Churches: George Scholarios, a man of learning and bigotry, who had thrown whatsoever obstacles he could in the way of the Emperor Constantine’s forlorn defence of Constantinople. On his election George took the name of Gennadios. A church in the city was assigned to him, and the Sultan guaranteed that he and his bishops should be exempt from tribute and enjoy their former revenues. But the internal dissensions and intrigues of the Greek clergy and laity rendered the position of the Patriarch so difficult, that in a few years Gennadios resigned. His successors were equally helpless; and after the fall of Trebizond (1461) the struggle between the Trapezuntine and the Constantinopolitan Greeks, each anxious to secure the Patriarchate for a man of their own, made matters worse. A wealthy Trapezuntine, named Simeon, compassed his own election by paying a thousand ducats to the Sultan; and this was the beginning of a system of unveiled simony which has lasted in the Greek Church to our own times. This payment was increased at subsequent elections; afterwards a yearly contribution to the treasury was promised; but it is important to observe that these tributes were not originally imposed by the Sultans, but were voluntarily offered by the intriguing Greeks. The policy of Mohammad, who was solicitous to repeople Constantinople, had the effect of gathering thither a multitude of Greek families of the better class, who might otherwise have sought refuge in foreign lands. Settled in the quarter of the Phanar, in the north of the city, they were known as Phanariots, and came to be reputed a class of clever, unprincipled intriguers.

      We have followed the expansion of Turkey up to the eve of its greatest splendour and widest extent. Subsequent pages will tell how the Ottomans advanced westwards by sea, and how the Austro-Spanish monarchy set limits to their expansion both in the north and in the south.

CHAPTER IV. ITALY AND HER INVADERS, by Stanley Leathes

      IN the latter half of the fifteenth century Italy presented the appearance of comparative calm. Frederick III, in spite of the motto attributed to him, “Alles Erdreich ist Oesterreich untertan,” took no step to assert imperial claims in Italy. Conciliar storms had blown over. The condottieri had been tamed; secure for the most part in their little tyrannies they drew the pay of some neighbouring State, and spent it on luxury, literature, and art. If war was on foot, its bitterness was mitigated, at any rate to the soldier, by every courteous device. The clash of party strife was seldom heard, for most cities had bought internal peace at the price of liberty.

      Italy possessed her own State system, her own great powers, intent on preserving a balance of forces, her own alliances, triple or dual. At first the north Italian powers had their own league; later the alliance of Milan, Florence, and Naples, promoted and sustained by Lorenzo de’ Medici, kept in check the vigilant ambition of Venice, still almost at the height of her power and pride. The smaller powers, Mantua, Ferrara, and the tyrants of the Papal States, in constant dread of their covetous neighbours, leant for support on one or other of the great powers, and did what in them lay to preserve the balance. After the brilliant raid of John, the Angevin duke of Calabria, Ferrante, the bastard of Aragon, ruled Naples in comparative peace. The revolt of his barons was stamped out, without regard for faith or mercy, as befitted a man of that age. The seizure of Otranto by the Turks in 1480 was a warning of external danger that may have assisted to preserve the peace, although all projects of united and offensive resistance to the advancing Mohammadans came to nothing. The equilibrium was unstable, but on the whole it was preserved.

      The death of Lorenzo del Medici in 1492, soon followed by that of Innocent VIII, marks a turning-point in the history of Italy. It is easy to attach too much importance to such casual incidents, but they may at least delay or hasten the inevitable course of events. And in Lorenzo was removed the conscious guardian of the peace of Italy, while the successor of Innocent, Rodrigo Borgia, was neither fitted nor inclined to play a pacific part. This then is the moment to survey the scene of our drama, to name our chief dramatis personae, and to unfold our plot.

      Three of our protagonists, Venice, Florence, the Holy See, have their own place for separate treatment in this volume. Nor is this the occasion to dwell on the petty politics of the many tyrants of the Romagna and central Italy. Naples, however, and Milan require some introduction.

      The kingdom of Naples, though still styling itself kingdom of Sicily, had been separated from its island namesake since the Sicilian Vespers, when the Angevin successors of the Suabian kings were driven from the Trinacrian island. In 1435 this Angevin dynasty died out, and its inheritance fell to Alfonso of Aragon, the King of insular Sicily. On his death in 1458 the island kingdom had remained attached to Aragon, while Naples had been devised to his bastard Ferdinand or Ferrante. The political characteristics of the Neapolitan kingdom mark it off sharply from the rest of Italy. Here had survived, though in a debased form, the feudal economy which had long since disappeared further north. Here no elusive ideal of municipal liberty mocked, amid the realities of party strife, the citizens of independent cities. Great feudatories ground down their vassals with all the ingenuity that a new commercial and industrial wisdom inspired. The King, himself a feudatory and tributary of the Holy See, was master of Naples and its castles, and of certain royal dues and domains, but for the rest hung on the goodwill of a score of almost independent princes. Ferrante, greedy, capable, and ruthless, had done much to change all that. He had devised a system of commercial monopolies exercised for the royal benefit, which had considerably increased his revenues. The barons’ war had restored to him by confiscation a part of the toll that his commercial partners had levied on his profits, and had crushed the greatest family of the kingdom, the princely house of San Severino. His relations to the papacy had been unfriendly, even warlike, but on the whole he had succeeded in withholding his tribute without losing his fief. But dangers now threatened him at home and abroad. At home, though feared, he was hated. His son Alfonso, the partner of his many cruel and treacherous acts, was equally detested. Zealous enemies were working against him, especially at the Court of France. The de facto ruler of Milan had wronged him in the person of his grand-daughter. The illegitimate son of an usurper, he held his crown by no hereditary right, and rumours came from beyond the Alps that a stronger claimant was astir.

      The State of Milan, created by the vigour of the house of Visconti, and recognised as a duchy in 1395 by the Emperor Wenceslas, had fallen in 1450 to the house of Sforza, whose founder, the great con-dottiere, had risen from the plough. Francesco, the first Sforza duke, was succeeded in 1466 by his son Galeazzo Maria, who was assassinated in the Church of San Stefano in 1476, leaving a young son, Gian Galeazzo, then about eight years old. The government was carried on by his mother, Bona of Savoy, in the name of the infant and in her own. But dissensions soon arose between the regent and her brothers-in-law. In the first encounter Bona and her chief counsellor, Cicco Simonetta, were victorious, and the brothers of Galeazzo Maria were obliged to leave the city. But before long Ludovico, the ablest of the sons of Francesco Sforza, took advantage of the rivalry between Tassino, the favourite of the duchess, and Simonetta, to procure his own readmission. The fall and execution of Simonetta followed, and from 1479 the real government of Milan lay in the hands of Ludovico, whose power was further secured in 1480, when he seized the person of the young duke and the duchess was obliged to leave Milan. Henceforward the rule of Ludovico was not seriously challenged. The young duke was a prisoner, and Ludovico managed everything in his name. Nor was the condition of the unfortunate young man improved even after his marriage to Isabella, the grand-daughter