Even if it were held
out as a threat to oppressive governments, this is at least a proof
that the idea had become familiar. As early as 1480 Battista Mantovano
gives us clearly to understand that most of the inhabitants of the
Adriatic coast foresaw something o f this kind, and that Ancona in
particular desired it. When Romagna was suffering from the oppressive
government of Leo X, a deputy from Ravenna said openly to the Legate,
Cardinal Giulio Medici: 'Monsignore, the honorable Republic of Venice
will not have us, for fear of a dispute with the Holy See; but if the
Turk comes to Ragusa we will put ourselves into his hands.'
It was a poor but not wholly groundless consolation for the enslavement
of Italy then begun by the Spaniards, that the country was at least
secured from the relapse into barbarism which would have awaited it
under the Turkish rule. By itself, divided as it was, it could hardly
have escaped this fate.
If, with all these drawbacks, the Italian statesmanship of this period
deserves our praise, it is only on the ground of its practical and
unprejudiced treatment of those questions which were not affected by
fear, passion, or malice. Here was no feudal system after the northern
fashion, with its artificial scheme of rights; but the power which each
possessed he held in practice as in theory.
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