themselves in the policy of Papal Rome. Both Goths and Lombards
committed the mistake of sparing the Eternal City; or it may be more
accurate to say that neither of them were strong enough to lay hands of
violence upon the sacred and mysterious metropolis and hold it as their
seat of monarchy against the world. So long as Rome remained
independent, neither Ravenna nor Pavia could head a kingdom in the
peninsula. Meanwhile Rome lent her prestige to the advancement of a
spiritual power which, subject to no dynastic weakness, with the
persistent force of an idea that cannot die, was bent on subjugating
Europe. The Papacy needed Italy as the basis of its operations, and
could not brook a rival that might reduce the See of S. Peter to the
level of an ordinary bishopric. Rome therefore, generation after
generation, upheld the so-called liberties of Italy against all comers;
and when she summoned the Franks, it was to break the growing power of
the Lombard monarchs. The pact between the Popes and Charles the Great,
however we may interpret its meaning, still further removed the
possibility of a kingdom by dividing Italy into two sections with
separate allegiances; and since the sway of neither Pope nor Emperor,
the one unarmed, the other absent, was stringent enough to check the
growth of independent cities, a third and all-important factor was added
to the previous checks upon national unity.

[1] Guicciardini (_Op. Ined._ i. 29) remarks: 'O sia per qualche
fato d' Italia, o per la complessione degli uomini temperata in modo
che hanno ingegno e forze, non è mai questa provincia stata facile a
ridursi sotto uno imperio.' He speaks again of her disunion as
'quello modo di vivere che è più secondo la antiquissima
consuetudine e inclinazione sua.' But Guicciardini, with that defect
of vision which rendered him incapable of appreciating the whole
situation while he analyzed its details so profoundly, was reckoning