The Decline of the Renaissance (1534–1576)

Decline of Italy

The aggressive wars had not yet ended, but they had changed the face and character of Italy. The northern states were so ruined that English envoys advised Henry VIII to abandon them to Charles V as punishment. Venice had been crushed by the League of Cambrai and the opening of new trade routes. Rome, Prato, and Pavia had been sacked; Florence had been starved and financially exhausted; Pisa had ruined itself in the struggle for liberty; Siena was worn out by repeated revolts. Ferrara had impoverished itself in long quarrels with the papacy and disgraced itself by aiding the infamous attack on Rome. The kingdom of Naples, like Lombardy, had been plundered by foreign armies and long suffered under alien dynasties. Sicily had become a refuge for brigands. Italy’s only consolation was that its conquest by Charles V had perhaps saved it from the Turks.

Italian government fell, with two exceptions, into Spanish hands by the Treaty of Bologna (1530): Venice cautiously preserved its independence, and the papacy’s weakened control over the Papal States was confirmed. Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, and Milan belonged to Spain and were governed by Spanish viceroys. Savoy, Mantua, Ferrara, and Urbino were allowed to keep their local princes on condition of good behavior. Genoa and Siena retained their republican forms but became Spanish protectorates. Florence was forced to accept another line of Medici rulers established through cooperation with Spain.

Spanish domination ended the internal wars of the Italian city-states for a time and stopped foreign battles on Italian soil from 1559 to 1796. It gave some continuity of political order and calmed the intense individualism that had sometimes built and sometimes ruined the Renaissance. Those who longed for order accepted Spanish rule with relief; those who wanted liberty lamented. But soon the heavy price of peace under subjection hurt the economy and broke Italy’s spirit. Heavy taxes, severe laws, and state monopolies on grain and other necessities brought industry and trade to stagnation. Local princes competed in useless luxury and followed the same fiscal policy to the point of sterilizing economic activity. Shipping declined so far that existing galleys could not protect themselves from Barbary pirates. These corsairs attacked vessels and coasts and carried Italians into Muslim slavery. Foreign soldiers quartered in Italian homes openly despised the people and civilization that had once been unrivaled and contributed more than their share to the sexual looseness of the age.

Another misfortune befell Italy whose consequences were more lasting than the ravages of war or the evils of Spanish domination. The rounding of the Cape of Good Hope (1488) and the opening of an all-water route to India (1498) gave the Atlantic nations a cheaper means of transport than the laborious route over the Alps to Genoa or Venice. Turkish domination of the Mediterranean made that route dangerous through exactions, piracy, and war. After 1498 the commerce of Venice and Genoa and the finance of Florence declined. German merchants began transferring their purchasing activity to Portugal. A Venetian statesman proposed reopening the old canal between the Nile and the Red Sea, but the Turkish conquest of Egypt in 1517 nullified the plan.

The Reformation was both cause and result of Italy’s economic decline. It reduced the number of pilgrims from northern Europe and the revenues derived from them. The change of the Mediterranean-Egyptian route to India into a sea route and the development of Europe’s trade with America enriched the Atlantic nations and impoverished Italy. Germany became commercially independent of Italy.

The discovery of America had even more lasting effects. The Mediterranean nations declined because they were left aside from the main paths of travel and goods; the Atlantic nations forged ahead. This was a revolution in trade routes greater than any since the Greek conquest of Troy.

The last factor in the decline of the Renaissance was the Catholic Reformation. To Italy’s political disorder, moral decay, subjection under foreign domination, loss of trade, and loss of revenues was added the Church’s shift from tolerance to fearful conservatism. The Inquisition grew stricter, the Index of Forbidden Books appeared in 1559, and press supervision increased. The Society of Jesus was founded by Ignatius Loyola. The popes adopted the Spanish system of uniting Church and state in severe control over religious and intellectual life.

Science and Philosophy

Progress was modest. Varolio, Eustachio, and Fallopio became famous in anatomy. Tartaglia solved cubic equations and revealed his method to Cardano, who published it under his own name. Cardano wrote a candid autobiography. Medicine was the only science that made relatively important progress. Colombo described pulmonary circulation. Fallopio discovered the tubes carrying ova. Eustachi described the Eustachian tube and valve.

Literature

The great age of Latin scholarship ended and Italian became dominant. The novella remained popular. Matteo Bandello was the best novella writer and narrated the story of Romeo and Juliet. Academies devoted themselves more to linguistic criticism and limited genius.

Florence under Cosimo I (1537–1574)

Cosimo brought order with efficient but authoritarian rule, levied taxes, conquered Siena, and received the title of grand duke. He revived trade and industry, drained marshes, and supported art. He patronized Vasari and Cellini and founded an academy of design.

The Last Great Artists

Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese shone in Venice. Michelangelo worked until the age of 89 and designed the dome of St. Peter’s. His last sculptures include the unfinished Pietà. Cellini created Perseus and wrote his adventurous autobiography.

Outlook

Despite political and economic decline, the Renaissance left a magnificent artistic and intellectual legacy that influenced all Europe and kept alive the spirit of intellectual freedom and aesthetic sensibility.