How did the Catholic Revival affect Italian Society?—­Difficulty of Answering this Question—­Frequency of Private Crimes of Violence—­Homicides and Bandits—­Savage Criminal Justice—­Paid Assassins—­Toleration of Outlaws—­Honorable Murder—­Example of the Lucchese Army—­State of the Convents—­The History of Virginia de Leyva—­Lucrezia Buonvisi—­The True Tale of the Cenci—­The Brothers of the House of Massimo—­Vittoria Accoramboni—­The Duchess of Palliano—­Wife-Murders—­The Family of Medici

CHAPTER VI.

     Social and domestic morals:  Part ii.

     Tales illustrative of Bravi and Banditti—­Cecco Bibboni—­Ambrogio
     Tremazzi—­Lodovico dall’Armi—­Brigandage—­Piracy—­Plagues—­The
     Plagues of Milan, Venice, Piedmont—­Persecution of the
     Untori—­Moral State of the Proletariate—­Witchcraft—­Its Italian
     Features—­History of Giacomo Centini

RENAISSANCE IN ITALY.

CHAPTER I.

The Spanish hegemony.

Italy in the Renaissance—­The Five Great Powers—­The Kingdom of Naples—­The Papacy—­The Duchy of Milan—­Venice—­The Florentine Republic—­Wars of Invasion closed by the Sack of Rome in 1527—­Concordat between Clement vii. and Charles V.—­Treaty of Barcelona and Paix des Dames—­Charles lands at Genoa—­His Journey to Bologna—­Entrance into Bologna and Reception by Clement—­Mustering of Italian Princes—­Francesco Sforza replaced in the Duchy of Milan—­Venetian Embassy—­Italian League signed on Christmas Eve, 1529—­Florence alone excluded—­The Siege of Florence pressed by the Prince of Orange—­Charles’s Coronation as King of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor—­The Significance of this Ceremony at Bologna—­Ceremony in S. Petronio—­Settlement of the Duchy of Ferrara—­Men of Letters and Arts at Bologna—­The Emperor’s Use of the Spanish Habit—­Charles and Clement leave Bologna in March, 1530—­Review of the Settlement of Italy effected by Emperor and Pope—­Extinction of Republics—­Subsequent Absorption of Ferrara and Urbino into the Papal States—­Savoy becomes an Italian Power—­Period between Charles’s Coronation and the Peace of Cateau Cambresis in 1559—­Economical and Social Condition of the Italians under Spanish Hegemony—­The Nation still Exists in Separate Communities—­Intellectual Conditions—­Predominance of Spain and Rome—­Both Cosmopolitan Powers—­Leveling down of the Component Portions of the Nation in a Common Servitude—­The Evils of Spanish Rule.

In the first volume of my book on Renaissance in Italy I attempted to set forth the political and social phases through which the Italians passed before their principal States fell into the hands of despots, and to explain the conditions of mutual jealousy and military feebleness which exposed those States to the assaults of foreign armies at the close of the fifteenth century.