Andrea Gamberini, Università di Milano The Emotions of the State. A Survey of the Visconti Chancery Language (Mid 14TH- Mid 15TH Centuries) Although emotions as a field of historical research have come to the fore since the late 1990s, the interest aroused by this subject among the scholars of the Italian Renaissance state has been limited, at least so far. Apart from an important study on Lombard factions by Marco Gentile, and the very recent insight of Isabella Lazzarini into the Florentine diplomatic records, nothing else has been published. 1 On these grounds I have decided to take up some suggestions coming from scholars of other periods of the Middle Ages, and to analyze the case-study of the duchy of Milan from the angle of the relationship between politics and emotions. 2 Unlike Isabella Lazzarini, I am not going to predominantly focus on diplomatic records, which also, of course, represent an extraordinary source for the duchy of Milan but I am more interested in probing into the relations between governors and governed; between the duke and his subjects. In order to appreciate the distinctive features of the latter, it is probably necessary to take the former as a starting point, to have a term of comparison. Therefore let us have a very quick look at the language of diplomatic practice and its emotional register. Since the beginning of their rise to power, the Visconti deployed emotionality in their diplomatic correspondences. Politics was, and still is, the art of persuading, so it is hardly surprising that foreign affairs were edged by the Visconti’s chancellors within the framework of friendship/enmity, love/hatred or happiness/sadness. Let’s consider first a letter sent by Galeazzo II to Ludovico Gonzaga and brothers, lords of Mantua in 1366. In concerns a very minor subject, the Visconti laments the bad treatment received in Mantua by a merchant from Monza, but in its very ordinariness rests its significance: “Magnifici fratres carissimi (= close familiarity). Mercatores nostri Modoetie nuper coram nobis lacrimabiliter sunt conquesti (= sadness and complaint) [...] die quarto seu quinto mensis instantis ipsa mercimonia conductoribus eorum fuerunt per vestros super teritorio vestro Mantuae nequiter derobate et in civitate Mantue violenter conducte (= frustrated rage)”. 3 In a sole document, moreover a routine document, the Visconti’s chancery could display a very large gamut of feelings and emotions. Let alone in letters concerning state-affairs, like a declaration of war. We can think of the letter by Gian Galeazzo to Antonio Della Scala in 1387, which is entirely formed on the contrast between the love of Gian Galeazzo for Antonio and the hatred of Antonio for Gian Galeazzo. For the record, Antonio’s reply turned around the argument: in line with the platonic philosophy, he calls on mankind’s distinctive features, sense and reason, which are supposed to tackle passions. Gian Galeazzo is represented as being gripped with disordered feelings, which are contrasted to the purity of Antonio’s emotions. Indeed, it is with a bleeding heart and after renewing his love for Gian Galeazzo that Antonio pleases the lord of Milan by restraining himself from taking revenge. It is also interesting that the Visconti’s chancery immediately got possession of this argument and in a letter sent just a few days later to the Florentine signoria , the decision to wage war on Della Scala could be justified by arguing that it was Antonio who was excited by war and got carried away by disorderly passions! 4 The Visconti’s chancery could also switch to a different emotional register, depending on the 1 M. Gentile, “Discorsi sulle fazioni, discorsi delle fazioni. «Parole et demonstratione partiale» nella Lombardia del secondo Quattrocento”, in Linguaggi politici nell’Italia del Rinascimento, ed. by A. Gamberini and G. Petralia, Rome 2007, pp. 381-408; I. Lazzarini, “Argument and Emotion in Italian Diplomacy in the Early Fifteenth Century: the Case of Rinaldo degli Albizzi (Florence, 1399-1430)”, in The Languages of Political Society, ed. by A. Gamberini, J.-Ph. Genet, and A. Zorzi, Rome 2011, pp. 339-364. 2 B. Rosenwein, Emotional Communities in the Early Middle Ages, Ithaca and London 2006; D.L. Smail, “Hatred as a Social Institution in Late Medieval Society”, Speculum, 76 (2001), pp. 90-126; D. L. Smail, The Consumption of Justice. Emotions, Publicity and Legal Culture in Marseille, 1264-1423, Ithaca-London 2003; C. Lansing, Passion and order: restraint of grief in the medieval Italian Communes, Ithaca-London 2008; J.-Cl. Mühlethaler, “Tristesses de l’engagement : l’affectivité dans le discours politique sous le règne de Charles VI”, Cahiers de Recherches Médiévales et Humanistes, 24 (2012),, pp. 21-36. 3 Documenti diplomatici tratti dagli archivj milanesi, ed. by L. Osio, I, Milan 1864, pp. 136-137; 1368 November 22, Milan. 4 For Gian Galeazzo’s letter and Antonio’s reply see B. Corio, Storia di Milano, ed. by A. Morisi Guerra, I, Turin 1978, p. 887 ss. On moral legitimacy or illegitimacy of anger for a prince see G. Althoff, “Ira regis. Prolegomena to the Royal Anger”, in Anger’s Past: The Social Uses of an Emotion in the Middle Ages, ed. by B. H. Rosenwein, Ithaca and London, 1998, 59- 74. effect desired. Let us consider the letter sent in 1428 by Filippo Maria Visconti to the Emperor, who had just reported his decision to set off to Italy, after a long period of vacillation: “Liberarunt me littere serenitatis vestre, quas cum debita reverentia nuper accepi, a multa expectatione et cura, in qua meus erat animus constitutus. Prestolabar enim dietim cum desiderio ea grata nova sentire, que nunc scribit vestra maiestas de suo ad has partes accessu, et exinde quidam ita letus et consolatus factus sum ut iam oblitus videar omnium malorum eventum, qui michi actenus contingerunt [sic]. Gratulor, princeps invictissime, et ultra modum exulto. Ridet animus, ridet spiritus, cum iucundam scriptionem literarum vestrarum intueor, que non solum pollicentur quod semper optavi, sed affirmant et in actu esse dicunt”. 5 In summing up, it is possible to argue that there are three main aspects that emerge from this look at the Visconti’s diplomatic records: - Firstly, the chancery was very familiar with the emotional register. - Secondly, the chancery could deploy the entire scale of emotions, none excluded, depending on the occasion and relevant audience. - Thirdly, and lastly, discursive resources became, at the turn of the fifteenth century, richer and more subtle than in the late fourteenth century, mainly thanks to an increased prevalence of a sophisticated humanistic culture. The revival of classics offered a wider array of argumentative strategies. 6 If we bear in mind these features and turn our attention to the Visconti’s communications with their subjects, we cannot help noticing the stark difference – in terms of tones, emotions displayed, categories and constructions – between the diplomatic records and the internal correspondence. The letters addressed by the Visconti to their subjects, especially at the outset of the Signoria, in the 1330s and 1340s, were very bald and dry. There was little room for emotions. 7 We must not get misled by the letter sent in 1329 to the XXIV presidents negociorum Communis Mediolani, which is a very peculiar document, but needs to be put in context. After the Emperor Ludwig the Baverian in 1327 had ordered Galeazzo Visconti to be arrested and the commune of Milan to be taken over by an imperial vicar assisted by a council of 24 Milanese nobles, Azzone managed to reconcile with the Emperor and to get the appointment of imperial vicar over Milan. In the letter announcing the novelty, Giovanni, Azzone and Marco Visconti addressed the XXIV presidentes negotis communis Mediolani as “amicis carissimis” (dearest friends) and appealed to the happiness that the 24 members were supposed to feel on the grounds of their friendship for the Visconti’s family (“ad gaudium amicitiae vestrae”). 8 In actual fact, the joy attributed to the 24 members of the Council was wishful thinking, or, someone else would say “an emotive”, 9 as the Council of the 24 represented a sector of the Milanese society which traditionally did not smile on the Visconti’s signoria (and indeed a few weeks later some of those nobles were arrested). 10 From then on, the idea of friendship was no longer deployed on the subjects but was limited to foreign political players, both individuals and communities. A letter of Bernabò Visconti, bestowing a pass to Conradolo da Ponte, makes plain this point: “Nos Bernabos etc. Cum mittimus Conradolum de pontem, familiarem nostrum, ad diversas partes, rogamus amicos et nostri subditis percipiendo mandamus, quatenus [...]”. 11 5 Documenti diplomatici tratti dagli archivj milanesi, II, p. 362 ss.; 1428 March 2, Milan. 6 See Lazzarini, Argument and emotion in Italian Diplomacy. 7 La politica finanziaria dei Visconti, ed. by C. Santoro, Milan 1976, passim. 8 F. Cengarle, “La signoria di Azzone Visconti tra prassi, retorica e iconografia (1329-1339)”, in Tecniche del potere. Regimi comunali e signorie in Italia, ed. by M. Vallerani, Rome 2010, p. 94. 9 M. Reddy, The Navigation of Feeling: a Framework for the History of Emotions, Cambridge 2001, p. 205, and also B. Rosenwein, Emotional Communities, p. 17. 10 F. Somaini, “Processi costitutivi, dinamiche politiche e strutture istituzionali dello Stato visconteo-sforzesco”, in Storia d’Italia (dir. G. Galasso), VI, Comuni e signorie nell’Italia settentrionale: la Lombardia, Turin 1998, p. 694 ff. 11 A. R. Natale, “Frammenti di un registro dell’archivio signorile (Reg. di Bernabò, a. 1364)”, Archivio Storico Lombardo, CII (1977), p. 74. One the one hand the Lord of Milan asks the friends (who are outside the dominion), and on the other hand he orders imperatively to his subjects.