Undoubtedly some of this propensity came from other causes, but the main cause was this domineering aristocracy in its midst, giving tone to its ideas. Free cities in other parts of Europe disliked each other,--a few fought each other,--but none with a tithe of the insane hate and rage shown by the city republics of Italy.[26] Hence arose that political product sure to rise in every nation where an aristocracy shape policy, the _Spirit of Disunion_. Its curse has been upon Italy for five hundred years. Dante felt it when he sketched the torments of Riniero of Corneto and Riniero Pazzo,[27] and the woes brought on Florence by the feuds of the Neri and Bianchi.[28] Sismondi felt it when his thoughts of Italian disunion wrung from his liberty-loving heart a longing for Despotism.[29] All Italy felt it when Genoa, in these last years, solemnly restored to Pisa the trophies gained in those old civil wars, and hung them up in the Campo Santo behind the bust of Cavour. No other adequate reason for the chronic spirit of disunion in Italy than the oppressive aristocratic spirit can be given. Italy was blest with every influence for unity;--a most favorable position and conformation, boundaries sharply defined on three sides by seas and on the remaining side by lofty mountains, a great devotion to trade, a single great political tradition, a single great religious tradition, both drawing the nation toward one great central city. Had Italy been left to herself without the disturbing influence of this chivalric, uneasy, plotting, fighting caste, who can doubt that petty rivalries would have been extinguished and all elements fused into a great, strong Nationality? Turn from this history and construct such a society with your own reason. You shall find it all very simple. Put into energetic free cities or states a body of men accustomed to lord it over an inferior caste, whose main occupation is to brood over wrongs and to hatch revenges, and you ensure disunion between that state and sister states speedily. To such men every movement of a sister state is cause for suspicion, every betterment cause for quarrel. But you ensure more than that. Under such circumstances _disunion is always followed by disintegration_. They are two inevitable stages of one disease. In the first stage the idea of country is lost; in the second, the idea of government is lost; disintegration is closely followed by Anarchy, and Despotism has generally been the only remedy. To Italy in this strait despotism was the remedy. Disunion between _all_ Italian Republics was followed by disintegration between factions in _each_ Italian Republic. A multitude of city tyrants rose to remedy disintegration,--a single tyrant rose above all to remedy disunion.