W. C a r e w H a z l i t t Coinage of the European Continent

Descriptive Outline of the Coinages of Europe 423
art of assimilating themselves to the country and people,
because they persisted in the false and artificial principle
of grasping more than they could hold, and sought no
bond with the Italians except that of the sword.
The Holy See, at a very early date, was permitted to
relinquish this class of external testimony to subordination ;
and elsewhere, as at Ancona, Rimini, Aquileia, and Arezzo,
the name of a saint or a spiritual superior often disguised the
existence and growth of temporal dominion.
The internal dissensions of Germany and constant disputes
as to the succession, which have tended to render the
lists of rulers so intricate and confused, operated
The
in
-Republics facilitating the establishment of a large body of
and
. .
self-governed Powers throughout Italy under a
Principalities. /
variety of titles and constitutions. Some chose
the republican system, some the municipal ; some, after a
brief lease of democracy, fell into the hands of an individual,
who occasionally founded a strong, durable, and hereditary
dynasty, but who at the outset clothed his authority and
acts with popular or vicarious attributes. Such is the
history, modified by local conditions, of Venice, Florence,
Mantua, Padua, Milan, and many other places, whose original
rulers were consuls or tribunes, standard-bearers, captains,
or lieutenants of the emperor. The middle period of feudal
suzerainty was characterised by the efforts of the reigning
sovereign to conceal his weakness and of the Italian States
to conceal their strength.
A very
full account has been given in the Catalogues of
the numismatic transactions of the governments into which
the Peninsula found itself gradually divided. The products
of each mint have been described under their respective
heads in the order of the alphabet ;
and in a work which is
obviously incapable of grasping technical mimitice, a general
numismatic survey of Italy, while it formed the home of so
extensive a group of independent communities, appears
all that is requisite and feasible.
to be
Collectors or students, when they
first enter upon an
investigation of this field, find, as in the case of other