Note 798 — Chapter VIII · DESCRIPTIONS OF LIFE IN MOVEMENT.
S. G. C. (Samuel George Chetwynd) Middlemore translation
On the condition of the Italian peasantry in general, and especially of the details of that condition in several provinces, we are unable to particularise more fully. The proportions between freehold and leasehold property, and the burdens laid on each in comparison with those borne at the present time, must be gathered from special works which we have not had the opportunity of consulting. In stormy times the country people were apt to have appalling relapses into savagery (Arch. Stor. xvi. i. pp. 451 sqq., ad. a. 1440; Corio, fol. 259; Annales Foroliv. in Murat. xxii. col. 227, though nothing in the shape of a general peasants’ war occurred. The rising near Piacenza in 1462 was of some importance and interest. Comp. Corio, Storia di Milano, fol. 409; Annales Placent. in Murat. xx. col. 907; Sismondi, x. p. 138. See below, part vi. cap. 1.