In the tenth century, the emperors of Constantinople being unable any longer to retain Italy, other powers arose, some from conquests, others by good fortune, and others from circumstances which history has much difficulty in indicating. The influence of the popes sometimes defended the independence of Italy against the invasions and the yoke of the German emperors; but the struggle was so long, and the war between the two powers exhibited so many vicissitudes, that it only served to perpetuate trouble and discord; during several centuries, the Guelphs and the Ghibellines desolated Italy without defending it. In every nation of Europe there was then a power, or rather a preponderating authority, which was as a rallying-point, or centre, around which society formed and united its forces to defend its political existence. Italy had not, like France and other countries, this precious means of conservation. Nothing proves better the dissolution in which this rich country was plunged, than the manner by which it endeavoured to establish its independence in the middle ages. That division into many states, that parcelling out of territory, that numerous population split into a thousand fractions, all announced the absence of any tie, of any common centre. Italy comprised many nations; twenty republics had each their own laws, their own interests, and their own history. Those perpetual wars between the citizens of the same cities; those animosities between republic and republic; that necessity of the inhabitants for calling in strangers in their internal quarrels; those mistrusts which bore harder upon the citizens than upon the stipendiary adventurers, tended to efface the true sentiment of patriotism, and at length caused even the name of the Italian nation to be forgotten. The feudal system was abolished earlier in Italy than elsewhere; but with feudalism departed the ancient honour of brave knights, and the virtues of chivalry. In republics defended by mercenaries, bravery, and all the generous sentiments that accompany it, ceased to be esteemed. Violent passions had no longer any check, either in the laws or in the opinions of men; it was at this unhappy period that those hatreds and vengeances displayed themselves which appear so improbable to us in our tragedies; no spectacle can be more afflicting than that of Italy in the fourteenth century; and we may safely say that Dante had but to look around him to find the model for his Hell.