The Renaissance developed, to a very great degree, the consciousness of individuality in Matthias's contemporaries; no longer were they merely subordinate parts of some vast machine, they felt themselves free as air. At such a time there were many who, in the intoxication of their newly found freedom, would brook no restraint of their passions or ambitions, and so we meet some very strong personalities and some very violent ones. The effect of this new development upon political life was to create autocrats and tyrants. Italy was full of despotic rulers in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
The same unbridled strength appeared in Matthias, and often led him to extremes. For instance, in defiance of popular opinion, he bestowed the title of Primate of Hungary on a handsome, seven-year-old Italian boy, so that from Ferrara people sent the Primate toys; he imprisoned his own uncle; he suddenly raised his friends to the highest posts and, if it pleased him, as suddenly hurled them down.
Notwithstanding, he possessed features which distinguish him from all the other tyrants, and raise him to the level of the "great Italians" of the age. He never failed to select the necessary means to achieve his end. In politics, as in all else, his plans were on a grand scale, and covered the whole political stage of his time, the Holy Land as well as Bosnia, Bohemia and Turkey, Brandenburg and Venice. They were all as pieces on his chess-board, as also were France, Spain, and the Pope.
The subtle threads of his diplomacy stretched from the Court of Burgundy to Teheran. He was in touch alike with Turkish dignitaries and with the Czar. He threatened the Turks with the Pope; the Pope, again, with the Turks.
