original characters and
many-sided intellects in greater profusion than any other nation at any
other period, with the single exception of Greece on her emergence from
the age of her despots? It was the misfortune of Italy that the age of
the despots was succeeded not by an age of free political existence, but
by one of foreign servitude.

[1] See Guicciardini, 'Dialogo del Reggimento di Firenze,' _Op.
Ined._ vol. ii. p. 53, for a critique of the motives of tyrannicide
in Italy.

Frederick II. was at the same time the last emperor who maintained
imperial sway in Italy in person, and also the beginner of a new system
of government which the despots afterwards pursued. His establishment of
the Saracen colony at Nocera, as the nucleus of an army ready to fulfill
his orders with scrupulous disregard for Italian sympathies and customs,
taught all future rulers to reduce their subjects to a state of unarmed
passivity, and to carry on their wars by the aid of German, English,
Swiss, Gascon, Breton, or Hungarian mercenaries, as the case might be.
Frederick, again, derived from his Mussulman predecessors in Sicily the
arts of taxation to the utmost limits of the national capacity, and
founded a precedent for the levying of tolls by a Catasto or schedule of
the properties attributed to each individual in the state. He also
destroyed the self-government of burghs and districts, by retaining for
himself the right to nominate officers, and by establishing a system of
judicial jurisdiction which derived authority from the throne. Again, he
introduced the example of a prince making profit out of the industries
of his subjects by monopolies and protective duties. In this path he was
followed by illustrious successors--especially by Sixtus IV. and Alfonso
II. of Aragon, who enriched themselves by trafficking in the corn and
olive-oil of their famished provinces. Lastly, Frederick established the
precedent of a court formed upon the model of that of Oriental Sultans,
in which chamberlains and secretaries took the rank of hereditary
nobles, and functions of state were confided to the body-servants of the
monarch. This court gave currency to those habits of polite culture,
magnificent living, and personal luxury which played so prominent a part
in all subsequent Italian despotism. It is tempting to overstrain a
point in estimating the direct influence of Frederick's example. In many
respects doubtless he was merely somewhat i