So great was the
enmity against Venice that the formidable League of Cambrai, entered
into by the emperor, the pope, France, and Spain in 1508, wrung many
concessions from her.
[Sidenote: Genoa]
Second only to Venice in commercial importance, Genoa, in marked
contrast with her rival, passed through all manner of political
vicissitudes until in 1499 she fell prey to the invasion of King Louis
XII of France. Thereafter Genoa remained some years subject to the
French, but in 1528 the resolution of an able citizen, Andrea Doria,
freed the state from foreign invaders and restored to Genoa her
republican institutions.
The famed city-state of Florence may be taken as the best type of the
democratic community, controlled by a political leader. The city, as
famous for its free institutions as for its art, in the first half of
the fifteenth century had come under the tutelage of a family of
traders and bankers, the wealthy Medici, who preserved the republican
forms, and for a while, under Lorenzo de' Medici (1449-1492), surnamed
the Magnificent, made Florence the center of Italian culture and
civilization.
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