states of the Renaissance could now only ‘bemoan’ their ‘servil condition’ and do so largely in private.
Before leaving Italy, Milton visited Venice, the most tolerant state of the region, probably of Europe. It maintained lay jurisdiction over the Inquisition and the censors, and continued to forbid entry to all Jesuits, until 1657. It even supported the sovereignty of the Protestant Grisons, in neighbouring Valtellina, against attempted Spanish incursions. Milton made no reference to his impressions of the city state but one wonders if its admirable yet precipitous condition inspired the passage in Areopagitica in which he expresses hope for the future of England, despite unpropitious circumstances: ‘I took it as a pledge of future happines, that other Nations were so perswaded of her liberty.’
Fifteen years after his visit he reflected on how he felt about his time in Italy, specifically Florence.
In that city, which I have always admired above all others because of the elegance, not just of its tongue, but also of its wit, I lingered for about two months. There I at once became the friend of many gentlemen eminent in rank and learning, whose private academies I frequented – a Florentine institution which great praise not only for promoting humane studies but also for encouraging friendly intercourse. Time will never destroy my recollection – ever welcome and delightful – of you Jacopo Gaddi, Carlo Dati, Frescobaldi, Coltellini, Buonmatthei, Chimentelli, Francini and many others.
(CPW, 1V 1, pp. 615–17)
This is from his Second Defence written in support of Cromwell’s government after the execution of Charles I. The academies and young men to which he refers were part of an environment that resembled Oxford and Cambridge but only superficially. Florence’s ‘private academies’ were informal gatherings of scholars and thinkers willing to exchange unconventional ideas on art, literature, politics and philosophy; there were few if any restrictions of the nature of opinions, unlike the prescriptive regimes of contemporary universities. Milton seems to have deliberately omitted any mention of the fact that each of the figures he recalls with such affection was Roman Catholics, implying that in Florence in 1638 such differences were overlooked by individuals sufficiently impressed by each other’s intellectual capabilities. And while one would not doubt his commitment to the Cromwellian Protectorate there is also a sense that during his ‘Defence’ of it he allows himself a moment to look back to a time when, albeit briefly, he experienced an earthly paradise so different from the intolerance and brutality of the years that would follow.
He went from Italy to Geneva, from the home of Catholicism to the hub of radical Protestantism; there he spent time with Giovanni Diodati, an eminent Calvinist theologian and uncle of his friend Charles Diodati. Milton was with Giovanni when he was informed by letter from England of Charles’s untimely death, though some believe that he first heard of it by word of mouth when staying with Manso in Naples. Parts of London were in 1638–9 stricken by the plague and Diodati was thought to have contracted the disease. He had been Milton’s closest friend and most intimate confidant and it is possible that his sense of tragic loss coalesced, however obliquely, with his other perceptions of what was unfolding in England. It is certain that while in Italy he had been informed of the so-called Bishops’ War, an inconclusive conflict which had arisen out of Charles I and Laud’s attempts to force the Scots to accept Episcopal liturgy. In Geneva he learned of a related but potentially more devastating conflict that was brewing between the King and Parliament. Before 1639 Milton would have perceived for himself a multiplicity of destinies, as poet, philosopher, and commentator upon his age. Suddenly he found that these honourable but somewhat unfocused commitments were becoming specified. His country would soon be at war with itself. He went home.
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