But, before entering upon the proper subject of this chapter, it may be well briefly to consider the influence which the petty princes of Italy exercised upon the revival and cultivation of letters and arts. The dominion of these chiefs, though hereditary in name, was in general maintained, as it had been gained, by the sword. To them, as to the savage, arms were an instinctive pursuit, warfare a primary occupation. For their frequent intervals of truce (and in no other sense was peace known to them), their circumscribed sovereignty gave little occupation. Domestic polity was still an undeveloped science, and their leisure fell to be spent upon intellectual objects, or in grovelling debaucheries. The number who preferred the nobler alternative is very remarkable, when compared with the like class in other parts of Europe. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries literature was cultivated and art was encouraged by a large proportion of the sovereigns and feudatories of Italy, when the bravest condottieri were often their most liberal patrons. Such were the impetuous Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, the gallant Francesco Sforza, the treacherous Ludovico il Moro; whilst the Gonzaga of Mantua, and the d'Este of Ferrara, but most especially the ducal houses of Urbino, extended, during successive generations, an enlightened and almost regal protection to genius of every shade. Nothing akin to this is to be found in the republics. Siena, Pisa, and Lucca produced many great artists, but literature found in them neither a cradle nor an asylum. The commercial communities of Venice and Genoa belonged to an entirely different category of circumstances; and Florence, though an exception to our remark, owed its pre-eminence not less perhaps to the patronage of the Medici than to an unparalleled prevalence of talent and public spirit among its citizens. In times when the popular will, if not the source of power, was its best support, it became the interest of the dominant prince or party so to use authority as to please and flatter the masses; to cloak their own usurpations by throwing a lustre around their administration, and to preserve the confidence of their subjects by institutions calculated to promote the national glory. In this way individual talent might be stimulated, and public civilisation might advance, even whilst freedom was on the decline; and, as the means commanded by the seigneurs were ample, they could patronise genius, and surround their courts with literary retainers, who in democratic communities were left to their own resources. Thus the Sforza and the d'Este, even the savage Malatesta of Rimini, befriended genius, which found no haven in the republics of Genoa and Lucca, and, the fashion having once been established among their princely houses, letters were cultivated by not a few of these soldiers of fortune, but more especially by the ladies of their families.