How Italy thus destroyed herself may be best learned from thehistory of her maritime states.We first see Amalfi great andpowerful (from the eighth to the eleventh century).(3*) Her shipscovered the seas, and all the coin which passed current in Italyand the Levant was that of Amalfi.She possessed the most practicalcode of maritime laws, and those laws were in force in every portof the Mediterranean.In the twelfth century her naval power wasdestroyed by Pisa, Pisa in her turn fell under the attacks ofGenoa, and Genoa herself, after a conflict of a hundred years, wascompelled to succumb to Venice.
The fall of Venice herself appears to have indirectly resultedfrom this narrow-minded policy.To a league of Italian naval powersit could not have been a difficult task, not merely to maintain anduphold the preponderance of Italy in Greece, Asia Minor, theArchipelago, and Egypt, but continually to extend and strengthenit; or to curb the progress of the Turks on land and repress theirpiracies at sea, while contesting with the Portuguese the passageround the Cape of Good Hope.
As matters actually stood, however, Venice was not merely leftto her own resources, she found herself crippled by the externalattacks of her sister states and of the neighbonring Europeanpowers.
It could not have proved a difficult task to a well-organisedleague of Italian military powers to defend the independence ofItaly against the aggression of the great monarchies.The attemptto form such a league was actually made in 1526, but then not untilthe moment of actual danger and only for temporary defence.Thelukewarmness and treachery of the leaders and members of thisleague were the cause of the subsequent subjugation of Milan andthe fall of the Tuscan Republic.From that period must be dated thedownfall of the industry and commerce of Italy.(4*)In her earlier as well as in her later history Venice aimed atbeing a nation for herself alone.So long as she had to deal onlywith petty Italian powers or with decrepid Greece, she had nodifficulty in maintaining a supremacy in manufactures and commercethrough the countries bordering on the Mediterranean and BlackSeas.As soon, however, as united and vigorous nations appeared onthe political stage, it became manifest at once that Venice wasmerely a city and her aristocracy only a municipal one.It is truethat she had conquered several islands and even extensiveprovinces, but she ruled over them only as conquered territory, andhence (according to the testimony of all historians) each conquestincreased her weakness instead of her powerAt the same period the spirit within the Republic by which shehad grown great gradually died away.The power and prosperity ofVenice -- the work of a patriotic and heroic aristocracy which hadsprung from an energetic and liberty-loving democracy-maintaineditself and increased so long as the freedom of democratic energylent it support, and that energy was guided by the patriotism, thewisdom, and the heroic spirit of the aristocracy.But in proportionas the aristocracy became a despotic oligarchy, destructive of thefreedom and energies of the people, the roots of power andprosperity died away, notwithstanding that their branches andleading stem appeared still to flourish for some time longer.'(5*)A nation which has fallen into slavery,' says Montesquieu,(6*)'strives rather to retain what it possesses than to acquire more;a free nation, on the contrary, strives rather to acquire than toretain.' To this very true observation he might have added -- andbecause anyone strives only to retain without acquiring he mustcome to grief, for every nation which makes no forward progresssinks lower and lower, and must ultimately fall.Far from strivingto extend their commerce and to make new discoveries, the Venetiansnever even conceived the idea of deriving benefit from thediscoveries made by other nations.That they could be excluded fromthe trade with the East Indies by the discovery of the newcommercial route thither, never occurred to them until theyactually experienced it.What all the rest of the world perceivedthey would not believe; and when they began to find out theinjurious results of the altered state of things, they strove tomaintain the old commercial route instead of seeking to participatein the benefits of the new one; they endeavoured to maintain bypetty intrigues what could only be won by making wise use of thealtered circumstances by the spirit of enterprise and by hardihood.
And when they at length had lost what they had possessed, and thewealth of the East and West indies was pouted into Cadiz and Lisboninstead of into their own ports, like simpletons or spendthriftsthey turned their attention to alchemy.(7*)In the times when the Republic grew and flourished, to beinscribed in the Golden Book was regarded as a reward fordistinguished exertions in commerce, in industry, or in the civilor military service of the State.On that condition this honour wasopen to foreigners; for example, to the most distinguished of thesilk manufacturers who had immigrated from Florence.(8*) But thatbook was closed when men began to regard places of honour and Statesalaries as the family inheritance of the patrician class.At alater period, when men recognised the necessity of giving new lifeto the impoverished and enfeebled aristocracy, the book wasreopened.But the chief title to inscription in it was no longer,as in former times, to have rendered services to the State, but thepossession of wealth and noble birth.At length the honour of beinginscribed in the Golden Book was so little esteemed, that itremained open for a century with scarcely any additional names.
