to the
Duke of Florence, who in 1569 obtained the title of Grand Duke of
Tuscany from Pope Pius V. This title was confirmed by the Empire in 1575
to his son Francesco.

Thus the republics of Florence and Siena were extinguished. The Grand
Duchy of Tuscany was created. It became an Italian power of the first
magnitude, devoted to the absolutist principles of Spanish and Papal
sovereignty. The further changes which took place in Italy after the
year 1530, turned equally to the profit of Spain and Rome. These were
principally the creation of the Duchy of Parma for the Farnesi
(1545-1559), of which I shall have to speak in the next chapter; the
resumption of Ferrara by the Papacy in 1597, which reduced the House of
Este to the smaller fiefs of Modena and Reggio; the acquisition of
Montferrat by Mantua in 1536; the cession of Saluzzo to Savoy in 1598,
and the absorption of Urbino into the Papal domains in 1631.

It was hoped when Charles and Clement proclaimed the pacification of
Italy at Bologna on the last day of 1529, that the peninsula would no
longer be the theater of wars for supremacy between the French and
Spaniards. This expectation proved delusive; for the struggle soon broke
out again. The people, however, suffered less extensively than in former
years; because the Spanish party, supported by Papal authority, was
decidedly predominant. The Italian princes, whether they liked it or
not, were compelled to follow in the main a Spanish policy. At length,
in 1559, by the Peace of Cateau Cambresis signed between Henri II. and
Philip II., the French claims were finally abandoned, and the Spanish
hegemony was formally acknowledged. The later treaty of Vervins, in
1598, ceded Saluzzo to the Duchy of Savoy, and shut the gates of Italy
to French interference.

Though the people endured far less misery from foreign armies in the
period between 1630 and 1600 than they had done in the period from 1494
to 1527, yet the state of the country grew ever more and more
deplorable. This was due in the first instance to the insane methods of
taxation adopted by the Spanish viceroys, who held monopolies of corn
and other necessary commodities in their hands and who invented imposts
for the meanest articles of consumption. Their example was followed by
the Pope and petty princes. Alfonso II. of Ferrara, for instance, levied
a tenth on all produce which passed his city gates, and on the capital
engaged in every contract. He monopolized