Milanese people

“ A large figure astride a devil, supposed to be a satirical portrait of Barbarossa, was once on the same gate, together with an insulting figure of the Empress which is also in this room. Here is, besides that precious memorial of Milan’s freedom, the Stone of the Milanese Consuls, once fixed also on Porta Romana, a tablet recording the return of the people to their city in 1167, and the erection of the towers and gates, together with the names of the consuls. ”

“ The Milanese are a gay people, hospitable and fond of pleasure: they are more addicted to the pleasures of the table than the other people of Italy, and dinner parties are in consequence much more frequent here than in other Italian towns. The women here are said to be much better educated than in the rest of Italy, for Napoleon took great pains to promote and encourage female instruction, well knowing that to be the best means of regenerating a country. ”

“ The noble count who held his cap in his hand, and was decently but negligently dressed, though he was only forty years old, told me with high-born modesty that his brother had done wrong to bring me here to see their miserable place, where I should find none of those luxuries to which I had been accustomed, but he promised me a good old-fashioned Milanese welcome instead. This is a phrase of which the Milanese are very fond, but as they put it into practice it becomes them well. They are generally most worthy and hospitable people, and contrast favourably with the Piedmontese and Genoese. ”

“ For the three preceding centuries, Milan, the oldest archbishopric of Lombardy, had been the central point at which the collision between the secular and ecclesiastical power took place in Europe. The Guelph and Ghibelline naturally met and warred throughout the plain of Lombardy; but the intense civic stubbornness and courage of the Milanese population formed a kind of rock in their tide-way, where the quarrel of burgher with noble confused itself with, embittered, and brought again and again to trial by battle, that of pope with emperor. ”

“ There is no place in Italy, perhaps I might have said in Europe, where strangers are received in such an easy, hospitable manner, as at Milan. Formerly the Milanese Nobility displayed a degree of splendour and magnificence, not only in their entertainments, but in their usual style of living, unknown in any other country in Europe. They are under a necessity at present of living at less expence, but they still shew the same obliging and hospitable disposition. ”

“ Lombardy has ever been considered the real paradise and land of riches of all Italy, and even now, in a certain luxuriousness of attitude towards life, it lives up to its repudiation of the days of the dominating Visconti and Sforza.
Milan is to-day the luxurious capital of Lombardy, as was Pavia in the past. At one time, be it recalled, Milan was a Duchy in its own right. Years of despotism at the hands of a man of genius made Milan a great city and the intellectual capital of Italy. Milanese art and architecture of the fifteenth century reached a great height. ”

“ The rich produce of the East, transmitted from Venice and the other Italian ports, and the exports of the country itself, passed through the Milanese warehouses to the marts of the North. The Milanese woollen fabrics clothed all well-to-do Europe, and her smiths forged the panoply of the knights and men-at-arms on every battlefield and in every jousting-list of Christendom and of civilised Heathenesse as well. ”

“ It lacks their spontaneity and daring, their lofty imagination and idealism, has little of their sense of beauty, falls short in sheer ability. But it is distinguished by sincerity, a love of realism, a humble and zealous industry, and also by certain marked and inveterate mannerisms. And though the Milanese, or rather the 209Lombards who peopled the wide Duchy of the Visconti and Sforza, remained always very receptive, looking for a lead, and owing their strongest artistic impulses to some genius from abroad, their work keeps always its strong native character. ”

“ In the course of the last two centuries, Milan, in whose development is mirrored that of all Lombardy, had completely asserted and defined her nationality. In her Church, in her constitution, law and sentiment, she was now one at last with the rest of Italy. It remained for her, leader in the long struggle now happily determined, to produce in the epoch of Strong Men which was about to succeed the epoch of the People, the man strong enough to overthrow all rivals and to weld the many independent cities and States of the peninsula into a united Italy under an Italian king. ”

“ The terror of the Hunnish invasion, in 899, further assisted the people in their progress towards freedom, for it compelled them to take arms and to fortify their city, rendering Milan more than ever independent of the feudal lords who lived in their castles in the country. The tyranny of these nobles drove the peasantry and smaller vassals to seek the protection for life and property, the equality of taxation and of justice, which could be found only inside the walled city and under the rule of the archbishop. Thus Milan grew populous, and learned to govern itself. ”

“ His imperious will came into conflict with the governors, but his powerful influence in the bigoted Court of Spain gave him supremacy, and he was in fact the ruler of Milan. His 207splendid temper of Milanese patrician vented itself in grandiose schemes for the building, restoration and ornamentation of churches and religious institutions. But as his authority was exerted to suppress all individuality and spontaneity in literature and thought, so his rich patronage was lent only to the decadence in art. ”

“ The six Milanese had nothing remarkable in their countenances or in their talk; they possessed the characteristic energy and volubility of their countrymen, with something of the masculine dignity which distinguishes the Lombard from the Southern, and a little of the French polish, which the inhabitants of Milan seldom fail to contract. ”

“ The triumph of Francesco Sforza in 1450 began a new era of prosperity for Milanese art. A long peace, a succession of sovereigns in whom a policy of splendour was assisted by stupendous wealth and a genuine love of beauty and culture, the concourse of strangers of genius to their Court, bringing the inspiration of the great classic revival from Tuscany and Central Italy, roused the Lombards to an enthusiasm and activity which carried them to their highest pitch of achievement at the end of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. ”

“ Milanese arms and embroideries were sought after, woollen-weavers were very busy in Como and the capital. The work of canalisation went on. Milan passed as Italy’s most populous city and had 150,000 inhabitants. But at Naples the exigencies and venality of the [478] administration exhausted all sources of prosperity. Whilst rich families in Lombardy, the Marignani, the Sforza, the Serboni, the Borromei, and the Trivulzi, displayed a princely luxuriousness, the Neapolitan nobility, quickly ruined by court life, retired to their châteaux and lived by oppressing the peasants. ”

“ The great majority of the population of Milan was, and is, conservative and loyal to the King, although not pleased with the doings of the Government. Only a minority, but a very noisy and active minority, is against monarchical institutions. For some time past the revolutionary party of Milan have made no mystery of their political aspirations towards the establishment of a Milanese republic, to be called 'Republica Ambrogiana.' ... Milan is also the headquarters of Socialism and Anarchism. Socialists and Republicans once upon a time were implacable foes. ”

“ Since then Milan has been visited—Milan, with its mammoth marble cathedral, done in Irish-point pattern and with a papier-mâché interior—but beautiful 91 withal. Several days were spent at Menaggio on this lovely lake; another at Villa Carlotta, where Canova's original and divinely beautiful marble, "Cupid and Psyche," stands in all its purity; many more, sailing up and down these enchanting waters, made green by the reflection of the forest on the mountains surrounding, and by the grounds of the wealthy Milanese, whose summer villas line its banks. ”

“ Around these Gardens is the fashionable drive, which is thronged on Sundays, when the people assemble to criticise the élite in their carriages.
The ladies of Milan are handsome, carry themselves gracefully, and dress remarkably well—no small praise in these days of pinching, deforming, and [309] demoralizing French fashions; but it is strange how many men—young men especially—one sees at Milan, bent, stunted, and weak-kneed.
Milan is surrounded by a delightful country, and is most conveniently situated for excursions to the beautiful Italian lakes. ”

“ This order is said to have been founded early in the eleventh century by some Milanese nobles who had been captives in Germany, and who, converted to serious thoughts by the weariness of confinement, vowed that on their return they would live a holy and Christian life. It was a society of men and women, living in their own homes with their families, but distinguished from their neighbours by humility, industry and devoutness. ”

“ You perceive, Madame, by what I have already said of Milan, that ’tis a very agreeable Place to live in: I forgot to mention one distinguishing Quality of the Milanese, which is, that they are not at all jealous, a Fault that seems so predominant in the Temper of the Italians, that I cannot imagine how they escape it.
You must know, that never was City subject to more Revolutions than Milan: It has been besieg’d 40 times, and 22 times taken, but was never worse treated than it was by the Emperor Frederic I. surnam’d Barbarossa. ”

“ The old Church of Chiaravalle, with its incomparable Lombard-Gothic tower and its trecento frescoes, and picturesque Monza, where that historic emblem and wonder of twelfth century goldsmiths’ art, the Iron Crown of Lombardy, is preserved with other priceless treasures, ought not to be missed by the traveller.
The main facts of Milanese story are well known, and may be found, not only in the native chroniclers and historians, but also in many modern books dealing with Milan and with Italian history generally. ”

“ Among them were Milan, Pisa, Florence, Genoa, and Venice.
MILAN Milan, a city of Roman origin, lay in the fertile valley of the Po, at a point where the trade routes through several Alpine passes converged. Milan early rose to importance, and it still remains the commercial metropolis of Italy. Manufacturing also flourished there. Milanese armor was once celebrated throughout Europe. The city is rich in works of art, the best known being the cathedral, which, after St. Peter's at Rome and the cathedral of Seville, is the largest church in Europe. ”

“ To satisfy rapacious allies and favourites, he flung away his fiefs, seeming, as a chronicler says, to follow the proverb—The fewer possessions, the fewer cares. While the light-minded youth forgot all duties and cares of State, in feasting, jousting and the dance, the resentment of the people was rising against him, his ministers and captains were intriguing with his foes, and the roar of the great guns at intervals from the Castello might have reminded him that the key of Milan was still held by the enemy, and that Louis in France was quickly preparing an expedition to reconquer Lombardy. ”

“ After a brief half century of the Sforza rule, the Duchy of Milan was become a vast garden, supporting an enormous population of hardworking peasants. Commerce flourished more than ever, every way being opened to it by wise and considerate measures. In the higher branches of industry the Moro’s vitalising interest and enthusiasm was as effective. His splendid patronage of art and letters made this city of prosperous traders the richest centre in Italy of the æsthetic culture of the Renaissance. ”

“ The Sforzas, the successful usurpers, claimed possession as nine points of the law, and Maximilian the Emperor demanded Milan by right of his overlordship. Each was equally resolved to possess in that city the key of Italy. But these words, Milan, Italy, meant more to Francis than a mere political position. To his intensely artistic temperament, a corner of Italy was more precious than the whole of France. Milan to him meant beauty, poetry; gardened villas in which to pass a soft abandoned leisure; women more fair than those of his kingdom ”

“ Pretenders sprang up on every side, and the old faction trouble threatened to overwhelm all order. The cities subject to Milan rebelled, and once more the great State of the Visconti broke up into independent fragments. Meanwhile, in the midst of the tumult in the capital itself, the beautiful word Liberty, still remembered from the glorious days of Milan’s Republican freedom, was breathed by a few noble and disinterested citizens. It was acclaimed by the people, who thought it meant relief from taxation, and was accepted by the various factions, each 127hoping to make profit out of it. ”

“ At Piacenza, the King of Spain, out of his abundant caution, still maintained a Spanish garrison in the castle, "badly paid as they told me." Thence they proceeded into the duchy of Milan.
At Pavia Montaigne remarks, that from Rome northward the best inn he had lodged at was the Post at Piacenza, and the worst the Falcon at Pavia: "You pay extra for wood, and there are no mattresses on the beds." Milan was the largest city in Italy, not unlike Paris, full of merchandise and craftsmen; it lacked the palaces of other cities, but in size excelled them all, and in throng of people rivalled Venice. ”