Out of this income the expenses of the little court, of
the bodyguard, of the mercenary troops, and of the public buildings were met,
as well as of the buffoons and men of talent who belonged to the personal
attendants of the prince. The illegitimacy of his rule isolated the tyrant and
surrounded him with constant danger, the most honorable alliance which he could
form was with intellectual merit, without regard to its origin. The liberality
of the northern princes of the thirteenth century was confined to the knights,
to the nobility which served and sang. It was otherwise with the Italian
despot. With his thirst for fame and his passion for monumental works, it was
talent, not birth, which he needed. In the company of the poet and the scholar
he felt himself in a new position, almost, indeed, in possession of a new
legitimacy.
No prince was more famous in this respect than the ruler
of Verona, Can Grande della Scala, who numbered among the illustrious exiles
whom he entertained at his court representatives of the whole of Italy. The men
of letters were not ungrateful. Petrarch, whose visits at the courts of such
men have been so severely censured, sketched an ideal picture of a prince of
the fourteenth century. He demands great things from his patron, the lord of
Padua, but in a manner which shows that he holds him capable of them. 'Thou
must not be the master but the father of thy subjects, and must love them as
thy children; yea, as members of thy body. Weapons, guards, and soldiers thou
mayest employ against the enemy---with thy subjects goodwill is sufficient. By
citizens, of course, I mean those who love the existing order; for those who
daily desire change are rebels and traitors, and against such a stern justice
may take its course.'
