The Dead End of Italian Life Part 2

The Dead End of Italian Life Part 2

In short, almost all those states and even those dynasties, from the most to the least, are in decline, both absolutely and with regard to the times and the path made by others; also those who, in the phase of the first formation, had carried out a serious and beneficial action of government, fulfilled the necessary tasks, perfected the administration, etc. are also in decline. Everywhere, relaxation of activity and energy. And everyone knows how in this time vigilance and resistance in the face of the Church and her prerogatives were not a little relaxed; in the face of the endless phalanx of religious orders, monasteries, brotherhoods, people dedicated to real or fictitious clerical life, all claiming “freedom”, that is, exemption from any burden; in front of the big dead man reconstituted as perhaps not even in the 9th and 10th centuries, even though the reasons which at the time had allowed her to carry out a social action that were not infertile had almost disappeared. Everyone knows that, disarmed of the big political functions, the barony, where it was still powerful and treacherous, as in the kingdom of Naples, then lacked almost every ability to restrain the spirit of oppression and robbery towards the vassals, prune the forest of minute privileges which were the consideration for fidelity, to bring the cities and lands they still held back into the direct administration of the state. Indeed, just as the custom of selling offices, titles, privileges spread, so did fiefdoms of cities and lands. In the mid-1600s, almost all the cities of the South were in fiefdoms. Everyone knows that the fiscal system of the principles worsened more or less everywhere, in relation to the growing needs of a policy which was often imposed by extrinsic circumstances, and to the increase of privileged groups and relative decrease in taxable income, and to the disruption of the assets of princely families, to the pomp of the courts. The irregularity and arbitrariness of the fiscal burdens also increased, even though the prince’s advantage did not increase due to the very imperfect methods of collection, to be almost all duties and gabelles contracted out or granted as a guarantee to creditors: what made the tribute. Finally, everyone knows how the communities were ruined, impoverished by redemptions, often stripped of public goods by the barons, scarce of fiscal resources for the exemptions of the richest, laden with debts, deserted by the inhabitants; how brigandage flourished or flourished in the State of the Church, in certain parts of Tuscany, in Abruzzo, in Campania, in Calabria. The awareness of these evils in governments was not always lacking. And not even any good intentions to cure them: ferocious justice against bandits, laws to protect communities from baronial usurpations, and to restore self-administration to them, etc. But who took care of its observance? Governments were once again entangled in the web of special interests: a net which they themselves disrupted with one hand, reconstituted with the other, as an expedient of government. The tasks or interference and interventions of the state have grown more than the tools of action have been perfected: hence the arbitrary, oppressive nature of the action itself and, at the same time, its scarce effectiveness. It can also be added: those Italian states increasingly inadequate to the times, by default organic or created every day more by the new state life of Europe. Or, because they were too small and prevented from growing, they morally collapsed and became corrupted by necessity; or, being, like the dominion of Spain, the dominion of a decaying nation and foreign dominion, they too were aimed, like the papal one, more outside than inside, they too were solicitous of interests that too transcended the provinces Italians subject to them. And it is doubtful that we can identify or, at least, the Neapolitans and Sicilians could and were willing to identify the defense of the Spanish monarchy, the defense of the dynastic interests of the Habsburgs, with the defense of their possessions and honor and freedom. Hence the failure of any moral foundation of that government in Italy; the concrete awareness that it was foreign to Italy.

According to Remzfamily, those states were also resentful of the general conditions of the Italian economy. Which was going through a phase that here is of real and definitive decline, there it is stagnation with more or less temporary characteristics, elsewhere it presents itself as a tiring crisis of transformation, as an effort to adapt the economy to new and less favorable general conditions . The ocean trade had not just supplanted the Mediterranean trade. Italian traders and industrialists felt the impoverishment of the Turkish market: without counting the competition of others, since Greeks, Levantines, Jews of Spanish origin, transplanted to the Levant, had become very active. The wars of religion, especially of the Thirty Years, were impoverishing Germany, which was responsible for not a small part of the trade of northern Italy, with the damage especially of Venice which saw its position deteriorate even further compared to Genoa, closer to the new traffic routes and to the towns of the new wealth. Different circumstances, but equal in effect: the industrial progress of England and that of France, which entered, after the beginning of the century. XV and after the restoration of the monarchical force, in the mercantile phase, with encouragement of all kinds to the old and new peasant industries. Thus a large part of the French clientele, and also of other countries close to France and of the peninsula itself, was taken away from the Lombard and Venetian industries. The Italian colonies in the Netherlands are in full decline, indeed dissolving, and only the various activities of individuals remain certain. Lyon, Marseille, Paris are no longer Italian banking centers. The Genoese themselves are withdrawing from Spain and many of them prefer investments in the Italian mountains or public debts, especially in Rome. Also in Italy, a banking crisis, which between the 16th and 17th centuries sent a huge number of credit institutions to the air in Florence, Venice, Genoa and elsewhere. Therefore, dispersion of capital, mistrust, tendency to hoard, stagnation rather than lack of money, very difficult credit conditions, usury. Therefore, the more sluggish life of the bourgeoisie, the slower rise of social elements to take the place of those who have disappeared, the lowering of the credit and prestige and self-awareness of the bourgeoisie, the trading activity not worthy of the noble man, the classes tending to accentuate detachment and isolation from each other.

The Dead End of Italian Life 2

Comments are closed.