Was the execution wise?
The previous post broke off in the middle of a sentence about what Charles might have done had he beaten his enemies. The source finishes it this way: had he won, he would most probably have punished Cromwell, Ireton, Fairfax and many others in the manner usual for traitors. (The details of that punishment are left out here.)
Was the execution wise? Probably not. Cromwell evidently thought that the king, even if held in a very safe place, would cause Royalist risings again and again. But the king's son could cause such risings too. He lived in France or Holland, had not yet committed his father's mistakes, and before long marvelous stories about his adventures went around. The execution of Charles I changed the national mood, and within eleven years it brought the Stuart line back to power. When James II, Charles's son, later caused discontent in his turn, those who took part in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and led it with an aristocrat's finesse deliberately let James escape to France, and the result of that act was lasting.
Still, it must be said that it was the earlier rebellion that made the later revolution easier and quicker.
The Great Rebellion in perspective
The Great Rebellion resembled both the Protestant revolts of sixteenth-century France and, despite many differences, the great French Revolution of 1789. In the first case, Calvin's followers, plain and strict people backed by merchants, rose against the church's ceremonies and the tyranny of the government. In the second, the National Assembly, which represented money and the middle class, rose against the landed aristocracy, led by a well-meaning but mistaken king. By 1789 the English had forgotten their two earlier revolts, and looked with horror on a revolution that, like their own, drenched a country in blood and ended with a king put to death, since the past had tried to stand still.
Book Two: Italy in the struggle for power, 1556 to 1648
The second book of the volume turns to Italy. Its ninth chapter is called 'Italy the Foster Mother, 1558 to 1649,' and its first section 'The Magic Boot,' a play on the peninsula's shape on the map.
After the twin movements of the Renaissance and the Reformation, Italy fell under Spain's domination and into poverty, found calm in religion, and enjoyed peace. By the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis (1559) Savoy was given to Emmanuel Philibert. Genoa, Lucca, Venice and San Marino remained independent republics. Mantua stayed under the Gonzaga dukes, Ferrara under the Este family and Parma under the Farnese. The Medici ruled Tuscany, though under Spanish influence. Spain, through its viceroys, governed Milan and also Naples, which took in Sicily and all of southern Italy. The Papal States, stretching across the peninsula from the Mediterranean to the Adriatic, were governed by the popes, whose territory Spain had surrounded.
Spain was not militarily aggressive and did not meddle in the internal affairs of the Italian states other than Naples and Milan, but its distaste for trade and its fear of free culture made life in Italy gloomy. The passing of the eastern and American trade into the hands of the countries on the Atlantic carried to them the wealth that had once served the Renaissance, and at this time made Spanish, English and Dutch culture bloom. Italy also suffered from the fall in papal income that the Reformation caused. Its patient farmers worked and prayed. So did its countless monks. Merchants lost their guild privileges and their wealth, and nobles squandered their property on titles and on showy display.
Even so, amid political disorder Italy produced the greatest scientist of the age, Galileo, the daring and far-seeing philosophy of Bruno, the greatest sculptor, Bernini, the most important composer, Monteverdi, and the boldest religious preachers, along with one of the greatest poets, Tasso. In Bologna, Naples and Rome the schools of painting rivaled those of rich Holland. In culture, Italy still stood high.
In the Alpine foothills
If we can once more sweep in imagination and in writing through the garden and hall called Italy, it will still be pleasant.
Turin, under the strong rule of Emmanuel Philibert and thanks to the encouragement that Margaret of France, Duchess of Savoy, gave to letters and art, became a respected capital. Milan, though subject, was still splendid. John Evelyn in 1643 counted it among the finest cities of Europe, with a hundred churches, seventy-one convents, forty thousand inhabitants (the book's figures), splendid palaces and rare artists. After the church of San Lorenzo Maggiore suffered damage, Carlo Borromeo, the devout archbishop of Milan, commissioned Martino Bassi to rebuild its interior in the lavish early Christian style, like San Vitale in Ravenna. Carlo's nephew (the book's word; other sources call him a cousin), Cardinal Federigo Borromeo, built the Ambrosian palace in 1609 and founded a notable library there. The Brera palace, given to the Jesuits for a school in 1615, became from 1776 the seat of the Academy of Fine Arts and from 1809 of the famous Brera Gallery, and though it was damaged in the Second World War it has been fully restored. There one can see the work of the Procaccini and the Crespi, two families who dominated Milanese painting.
Quiet Genoa, from hills dotted with palaces, still looked proudly down on the ships that plied the Mediterranean. This trading republic had lost its eastern possessions to the Ottoman Turks, and part of its trade with the East had passed to the Atlantic countries, but its large natural harbor made the city a fine port, and it is still Italy's main port. Here the rich and the great merchants built the finest houses in Italy. Evelyn thought the 'New Street,' whose plan the source credits to Rubens and which faced marble palaces, far better than any other street in Europe. (Rubens published drawings of Genoese palaces, but the street's planner was Galeazzo Alessi, whom the source also names.) Alessi and his pupils drew many plans for these aristocratic houses, which were famed for their halls of art objects, grand stairways, paneled walls or walls painted with frescoes, and sumptuous furniture. Many tables and beds in these houses were made of embossed silver. The nobles of Genoa knew how to turn sweat into gold.
In 1587 Giacomo della Porta raised the church of Santissima Annunziata, whose fluted columns, handsome pulpit and ornamented vault were Genoa's pride. This church and the other churches of Genoa suffered badly in the Second World War.
Florence, Parma and Mantua
Even in Vasari's time Florence was known as the Athens of Italy, for its fame in letters, sciences and the several arts, and students came to it from every side. Everything flourished there except chastity. In the time of Grand Duke Francesco I the famous Medici family was notorious for its scandalous private life. Cardinal Ferdinand de' Medici gave up his church offices to take the title of Grand Duke Ferdinand I. For twenty-two years (1587 to 1609) he ruled Tuscany justly, promoted learning and letters, widened Tuscan trade by opening the port of Livorno to all merchants and all religious sects, and lifted the people's spirits by the example of his own life. His successors Cosimo II and Ferdinand II made their names famous by helping Galileo. Bartolomeo Ammannati carved the Neptune fountain in Florence and built a palace in Lucca. In 1583 Giovanni da Bologna made The Rape of the Sabine Women, which stands in the Loggia dei Lanzi, and also the statue of Henry IV, which Cosimo II presented to Marie de' Medici and which adorned the Pont Neuf in Paris. Alessandro Allori and his son Cristofano used new colors in the paintings they made in Florence, and Pietro da Cortona showed his mastery in the plaster-ceiling paintings of the Pitti Palace, with scenes praising Duke Cosimo I.
Parma in this period had a famous duke, Alessandro Farnese, who, leading Spanish armies against the Dutch, never had the chance to sit on his throne. Under his son Ranuccio the University of Parma became widely known in Europe, and in 1618 Aleotti built the Farnese Theatre, whose semicircular amphitheater held thousands. In modern Italian history only the Teatro Olimpico, built by Aleotti's master Palladio, equals it.
Mantua at this time made progress that recalled the great days of Isabella d'Este. Its textile industry grew greatly, and its cloths found buyers even in England and France, Mantua's rivals. The Gonzaga family, which had ruled the city since 1328, still produced capable men. Duke Vincenzo I became one of the Renaissance princes: a handsome, good-looking man, a patron of fortunate Rubens and unlucky Tasso, who collected old Chinese works of art, musical instruments, Flemish tapestries, Dutch tulips and beautiful women. He also loved poetry and gambling, and in battle... (the source's sentence breaks off here and continues in the next section of the text).