ies, and by the prosperity in which their
population flourished. When, during the war of the League of Cambray,
Venice gave liberty to her towns upon the mainland, they voluntarily
returned to her allegiance. At home, the inhabitants of the lagoons, who
had never seen a hostile army at their gates, and whose taxes were light
in comparison with those of the rest of Italy, regarded the nobles as
the authors of their unexampled happiness. Meanwhile, these nobles were
merchants. Idleness was unknown in Venice. Instead of excogitating new
constitutions or planning vengeance against hereditary foes the Venetian
attended to his commerce on the sea, swayed distant provinces, watched
the interests of the state in foreign cities, and fought the naval
battles of the republic. It was the custom of Venice to employ her
patricians only on the sea as admirals, and never to intrust her armies
to the generalship of burghers. This policy had undoubtedly its wisdom;
for by these means the nobles had no opportunity of intriguing on a
large scale in Italian affairs, and never found the chance of growing
dangerously powerful abroad. But it pledged the State to that system of
paid condottieri and mercenary troops, jealously watched and scarcely
ever trustworthy, which proved nearly as ruinous to Venice as it did to
Florence.

It is difficult to imagine a greater contrast than that which is
presented by Florence to Venice. While Venice pursued one consistent
course of gradual growth, and seemed immovable, Florence remained in
perpetual flux, and altered as the strength of factions or of
party-leaders varied.[1] When the strife of Guelfs and Ghibellines,
Neri, and Bianchi, had exhausted her in the fourteenth century, she
submitted for a while to the indirect ascendency of the kings of Naples,
who were recognized as Chiefs of the Guelf Party. Thence she passed for
a few months into the hands of a despot in the person of the Duke of
Athens (1342-43). After the confirmation of her republican liberty,
followed a contest between the proletariat and the middle classes
(Ciompi 1378). During the fifteenth century she was kept continually
disturbed by the rivalry of her great merchant families. The rule of the
Albizzi, who fought the Visconti and extended the Florentine territory
by numerous conquests, was virtually the despotism of a close oligarchy.
This phase of her career was terminated by the rise of the Medici, who
guided her affairs with a show o