History of Western Philosophy - Bertrand Russell [281]
Florence was the most civilized city in the world, and the chief source of the Renaissance. Almost all the great names in literature, and the earlier as well as some of the later of the great names in art, are connected with Florence; but for the present we are concerned with politics rather than culture. In the thirteenth century, there were three conflicting classes in Florence: the nobles, the rich merchants, and the small men. The nobles, in the main, were Ghibelline, the other two classes Guelf. The Ghibellines were finally defeated in 1266, and during the fourteenth century the party of the small men got the better of the rich merchants. The conflict, however, led not to a stable democracy, but to the gradual growth of what the Greeks would have called a 'tyranny'. The Medici family, who ultimately became the rulers of Florence, began as political bosses on the democratic side. Cosimo dei Medici (1389–1464), the first of the family to achieve clear pre-eminence, still had no official position; his power depended upon skill in manipulating elections. He was astute, conciliatory when possible, ruthless when necessary. He was succeeded, after a short interval, by his grandson Lorenzo the Magnificent, who held power from 1469 till his death in 1492. Both these men owed their position to their wealth, which they had acquired mainly in commerce, but also in mining and other industries. They understood how to make Florence rich, as well as themselves, and under them the city prospered.
Lorenzo's son Pietro lacked his father's merits, and was expelled in 1494. Then followed the four years of Savonarola's influence, when a kind of Puritan revival turned men against gaiety and luxury, away from free-thought and towards the piety supposed to have characterized a simpler age. In the end, however, mainly for political reasons, Savonarola's enemies triumphed, he was executed and his body was burnt (1498). The Republic, democratic in intention but plutocratic in fact, survived till 1512, when the Medici were restored. A son of Lorenzo, who had become a cardinal at the age of fourteen, was elected Pope in 1513, and took the title of Leo X. The Medici family, under the title of Grand Dukes of Tuscany, governed Florence until 1737; but Florence meanwhile, like the rest of Italy, had become poor and unimportant.
The temporal power of the Pope, which owed its origin to Pepin and the forged Donation of Constantine, increased greatly during the Renaissance; but the methods employed by the popes to this end robbed the papacy of spiritual authority. The conciliar movement, which came to grief in the conflict between the Council of Basel and Pope Eugenius IV (1431–47), represented the most earnest elements in the Church; what was perhaps even more important, it represented ecclesiastical opinion north of the Alps. The victory of the popes was the victory of Italy, and (in a lesser degree) of Spain. Italian civilization, in the latter half of the fifteenth century, was totally unlike that of northern countries, which remained medieval. The Italians were in earnest about culture, but not about morals and religion; even in the minds of ecclesiastics, elegant latinity would cover a multitude of sins. Nicholas V (1447–55), the first humanist Pope, gave papal offices to scholars whose learning he respected, regardless of other considerations; Lorenzo Valla, an Epicurean, and the man who proved the Donation of Constantine to be a forgery, who ridiculed the style of the Vulgate and accused St Augustine of heresy, was made apostolic secretary. This policy of encouraging