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G. P. R. James
A Historical Romance
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It is therefore with the great facts of the state of Italy at that time that I will deal, as nearly in the view of Ramiro d'Orco as I can; but it must be remembered that his view also was not without its mistiness. If we cannot see early on account of the remoteness of the objects which we contemplate, his vision also was indistinct, obscured by the prejudices of class, interest, party, hope, apprehension, and above all, ambition. He painted the condition of Italy only as Ramiro d'Orco believed it to be. How much even of that belief was to be ascribed to his own desires and objects, who can say?
Lombardy, the great northern portion of Italy, indeed, had ever been isolated from the rest in manners and habits of thought. Italians the Lombards certainly were; but the characteristics of the northern conquerors predominated in that portion of the peninsula. Except at Genoa and in Venice, republicanism in no shape had taken any deep root. From very early times, although the voice of the people had occasionally proclaimed a republic here and there, the babe was strangled ere it got strength, even by those that gave it birth. The epoch of democratic independence in Lombardy lasted barely a century and a half. No republic flourished long north of the River Po, except those I have named, and even the two which took some glory from the name little deserved it. Less real liberty was known in Venice than perhaps existed under the most grinding tyranny of a single man; and Genoa, in her most palmy days, was a prey to aristocratic factions, which soon made the people but slaves to princes. But it must not be supposed that nothing was obtained in return: a more chivalrous and warlike spirit existed in that division of Italy than in the central portion. It was not so early refined, but it was not so speedily softened. Corrupt it might be, and indeed was, to even a fearful degree; but it was the corruption of the hard and the daring, rather than of the weak and effeminate. Men poisoned, and slew, and tortured each other, and the minds of all became so familiar with blood and horror, that much was endured before resistance to oppression was excited; but conspiracies were generally successful in their primary object, because the conspirators were bold and resolute. A tyrant might fall only to give place to another tyrant, but still he fell; and you rarely saw in Lombardy such weakness as was displayed in the enterprise of the Pazzi.
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