Aeneas Sylvius looks with longing from his
native town over to the 'merry' German imperial cities, where life is
embittered by no confiscations of land and goods, by no arbitrary
officials, and by no political factions. Genoa scarcely comes within
range of our task, as before the time of Andrea Doria it took almost no
part in the Renaissance.
Indeed, the inhabitant of the Riviera was proverbial among Italians for
his contempt of all higher culture. Party conflicts here assumed so
fierce a char- acter, and disturbed so violently the whole course of
life, that we can hardly understand how, after so many revolutions and
invasions, the Genoese ever contrived to return to an endurable
condition. Perhaps it was owing to the fact that all who took part in
public affairs were at the same time almost without exception active
men of business. The example of Genoa shows in a striking manner with
what insecurity wealth and vast commerce, and with what internal
disorder the possession of distant colonies, are compatible.
Foreign Policy
As the majority of the Italian States were in their internal
constitution works of art, that is, the fruit of reflection and careful
adaptation, so was their relation to one another and to foreign
countries also a work of art. That nearly all of them were the result
of recent usurpations, was a fact which exercised as fatal an influence
in their foreign as in their internal policy.
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