The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

The struggle between the Popes and the Hohenstaufen left Italy in a political condition which differed essentially from that of other countries of the West.  While in France, Spain and England the feudal system was so organized that, at the close of its existence, it was naturally transformed into a unified monarchy, and while in Germany it helped to maintain, at least outwardly, the unity of the empire, Italy had shaken it off almost entirely.  loc: 26

The Emperors of the fourteenth century, even in the most favourable case, were no longer received and respected as feudal lords, but as possible leaders and supporters of powers already in existence; while the Papacy, with its creatures and allies, was strong enough to hinder national unity in the future, but not strong enough itself to bring about that unity.  Between the two lay a multitude of political units—­republics and despots—­in part of long standing, in part of recent origin, whose existence was founded simply on their power to maintain it.  In them for the first time we detect the modern political spirit of Europe, loc: 29

The internal condition of the despotically governed States had a memorable counterpart in the Norman Empire of Lower Italy and Sicily, after its transformation by the Emperor Frederick Il.  Bred amid treason and peril in the neighbourhood of the Saracens, Frederick, the first ruler of the modern type who sat upon a throne, had early accustomed himself to a thoroughly objective treatment of affairs.  loc: 38

Frederick’s measures (especially after the year 1231) are aimed at the complete destruction of the feudal State, at the transformation of the people into a multitude destitute of will and of the means of resistance, but profitable in the utmost degree to the exchequer.  He centralized, in a manner hitherto unknown in the West, the whole judicial and political administration.  loc: 43

Frederick, on the other hand, crowned his system of government by a religious inquisition, which will seem the more reprehensible when we remember that in the persons of the heretics he was persecuting the representatives of a free municipal life.  Lastly, the internal police, and the kernel of the army for foreign service, was composed of Saracens who had been brought over from Sicily to Nocera and Lucera—­ men who were deaf to the cry of misery and careless of the ban of the Church.  loc: 54

At the side of the centralizing Emperor appeared a usurper of the most peculiar kind; his vicar and son-in-law, Ezzelino da Romano.  loc: 59

as a political type he was a figure of no less importance for the future than his imperial protector Frederick.  The conquests and usurpations which had hitherto taken place in the Middle Ages rested on real or pretended inheritance and other such claims, or else were effected against unbelievers and excommunicated persons.  Here for the first time the attempt was openly made to found a throne by wholesale murder and endless barbarities, by the adoption in short, of any means with a view to nothing but the end pursued.  loc: 61

Despots of the Fourteenth Century loc: 71

The illegitimacy of his rule isolated the tyrant and surrounded him with constant danger, the most honorable alliance which he could form was with intellectual merit, without regard to its origin.  loc: 83

In the company of the poet and the scholar he felt himself in a new position, almost, indeed, in possession of a new legitimacy. loc: 86

Absolute power, with its temptations to luxury and unbridled selfishness, and the perils to which he was exposed from enemies and conspirators, turned him almost inevitably into a tyrant in the worst sense of the word.  Well for him if he could trust his nearest relations!  But where all was illegitimate, there could be no regular law of inheritance, either with regard to the succession or to the division of the ruler’s property; and consequently the heir, if incompetent or a minor, was liable in the interest of the family itself to be supplanted by an uncle or cousin of more resolute character.  The acknowledgment or exclusion of the bastards was a fruitful source of contest and most of these families in consequence were plagued with a crowd of discontented and vindictive kinsmen.  This circumstance gave rise to continual outbreaks of treason and to frightful scenes of domestic bloodshed.  loc: 102

The most complete and instructive type of the tyranny of the fourteenth century is to be found unquestionably among the Visconti of Milan, from the death of the Archbishop Giovanni onwards (1354).  The family likeness which shows itself between Bernabo and the worst of the Roman Emperors is unmistakable; the most important public object was the prince’s boar-hunting; loc: 128

Despots of the Fifteenth Century loc: 157

A striking feature of this epoch is the attempt of the Condottieri to found independent dynasties of their own.  Facts and the actual relations of things, apart from traditional estimates, are alone regarded; talent and audacity win the great prizes.  loc: 160

Closely connected with the political illegitimacy of the dynasties of the fifteenth century was the public indifference to legitimate birth, which to foreigners —­ for example, to Commines —­ appeared so remarkable.  loc: 206

The fitness of the individual, his worth and capacity, were of more weight than all the laws and usages which prevailed elsewhere in the West.  It was the age, indeed, in which the sons of the Popes were founding dynasties.  loc: 216

But the highest and the most admired form of illegitimacy in the fifteenth century was presented by the Condottiere, who whatever may have been his origin, raised himself to the position of an independent ruler.  loc: 222

In fact the Condottieri had reason to fear none so much as their employers:  if they were successful, they became dangerous, and were put out of the way like Roberto Malatesta just after the victory he had won for Sixtus IV (1482); if they failed, the vengeance of the Venetians on Carmagnola showed to what risks they were exposed (1432).  It is characteristic of the moral aspect of the situation that the Condottieri had often to give their wives and children as hostages, and notwithstanding this, neither felt nor inspired confidence.  They must have been heroes of abnegation, natures like Belisarius himself, not to be cankered by hatred and bitterness; only the most perfect goodness could save them from the most monstrous iniquity.  No wonder then if we find them full of contempt for all sacred things, cruel and treacher- ous to their fellows men who cared nothing whether or no they died under the ban of the Church.  At the same time, and through the force of the same conditions, the genius and capacity of many among them attained the highest conceivable development, and won for them the admiring devotion of their followers; their armies are the first in modern history in which the personal credit of the leader is the one moving power.  loc: 238

Against a class of men who themselves stuck at nothing, everything was held to be permissible.  loc: 279

From the death of Piccinino onwards, the foundations of new States by the Condottieri became a scandal not to be tolerated.  The four great Powers, Naples, Milan, the Papacy, and Venice, formed among themselves a political equilibrium which refused to allow of any disturbance.  In the States of the Church, which swarmed with petty tyrants, who in part were, or had been, Condottieri, the nephews of the Popes, since the time of Sixtus IV, monopolized the right to all such undertakings.  But at the first sign of a political crisis, the soldiers of fortune appeared again upon the scene.  loc: 281

The Smaller Despotisms loc: 295

It may be said in general of the despotisms of the fifteenth century that the greatest crimes are most frequent in the smallest States.  In these, where the family was numerous and all the members wished to live in a manner befitting their rank, disputes respecting the inheritance were unavoidable.  loc: 295

What ferocity and bloodthirstiness is found, on the other hand, among the Varani of Camerino, the Malatesta of Rimini, the Manfreddi of Faenza, and above all among the Baglioni of Perugia.  loc: 303

The Greater Dynasties loc: 383

The despotism of the Dukes of Milan, whose government from the time of Giangaleazzo onwards was an absolute monarchy of the most thorough-going sort, shows the genuine Italian character of the fifteenth century.  The last of the Visconti Filippo Maria (1412-1447), is a character of peculiar interest, and of which fortunately an admirable description has been left us.  What a man of uncommon gifts and high position can be made by the passion of fear, is here shown with what may be called a mathematical completeness.  All the resources of the State were devoted to the one end of securing his personal safety, though happily his cruel egotism did not degenerate into a purposeless thirst for blood.  loc: 419

His son-in-law and successor, the fortunate Condottiere Francesco Sforza (1450- 1466), was perhaps of all the Italians of the fifteenth century the man most after the heart of his age.  Never was the triumph of genius and individual power more brilliantly displayed than in him; and those who would P.et recognize his merit were at least forced to wonder at him as the spoilt child of fortune.  The Milanese claimed it openly as an honour to be governed by so distinguished a master; when he entered the city the thronging populace bore him on horseback into the cathedral, without giving him the chance to dismount.  loc: 437

Lodovico il Moro, threw his nephew into prison, and took the government into his own hands.  From this usurpation followed the French intervention, and the disasters which befell the whole of Italy. Lodovico Sforza, called ‘il Moro,’ the Moor, is the most perfect type of the despot of that age, and, as a kind of natural product, almost disarms our moral judgement.  Notwithstanding the profound immorality of the means he employed, he used them with perfect ingenuousness; no o ne would probably have been more astonished than himself to learn that for the choice of means as well as of ends a human being is morally.responsible; he would rather have reckoned it as a singular virtue that, so far as possible, he had abstained from too free a use of the punishment of death.  loc: 458

The house of Gonzaga at Mantua and that of Montefeltro of Urbino were among the best ordered and richest in men of ability during the second half of the fifteenth century.  loc: 487

The Marquis Francesco Gonzaga and his wife, Isabella of Este, in spite of some few irregularities, were a united and respectable couple, and brought up their sons to be successful and remarkable men at a time when their small but most important State was exposed to incessant danger.  loc: 489

her own letters show her to us as a woman of unshaken firmness, full of kindliness and humorous observation.  Bembo, Bandello, Ariosto, and Bernardo Tasso sent their works to this court, small and powerless as it was, and empty as they found its treasury.  A more polished and charming circle was not to be seen in Italy, since the dissolution (1508) of the old Court of Urbino; loc: 495

In the great Federigo (1444-1482), whether he were a genuine Montefeltro or not, Urbino possessed a brilliant representative of the princely order.  As a Condottiere he shared the political morality of soldiers of fortune, a morality of which the fault does not rest with them alone; as ruler of his little territory he adopted the plan of spending at home the money he had earned abroad, and taxing his people as lightly as possible.  Of him and his two successors, Guidobaldo and Francesco Maria, we read:  ’They erected buildings, furthered the cultivation of the land, lived at home, and gave employment to a large number of people:  their subjects loved them.’  But not only the State, but the court too, was a work of art and organization, and this in every sense of the word.  loc: 500

here, by the concentration of the official classes and the active promotion of trade, was formed for the first time a true capital; wealthy fugitives from all parts of Italy, Florentines especially, settled and built their palaces at Ferrara.  loc: 506

It is undeniable that the dangers to which these princes were constantly exposed developed in them capacities of a remarkable kind.  In so artificial a world only a man of consummate address could hope to succeed; each candidate for distinction was forced to make good his claims by personal merit and show himself worthy of the crown he sought.  Their characters are not without dark sides; but in all of them lives something of those qualities which Italy then pursued as its ideal.  loc: 525

The Opponents of the Despots loc: 584

In face of this centralized authority, all legal opposition within the borders of the State was futile.  The elements needed for the restoration of a republic had been for ever destroyed, and the field prepared for violence and despotism.  The nobles, destitute of political rights, even where they held feudal possessions, might call themselves Guelphs or Ghibellines at will, might dress up their bravos in padded hose and feathered caps or how else they pleased; thoughtful men like Machiavelli knew well enough that Milan and Naples were too ‘corrupt’ for a republic.  Strange judgements fell on these two so-called parties, which now served only to give official sanction to personal and f family disputes. loc: 585

the despots of the Renaissance.  loc: 597

they sought only to give a vent to the universal hatred, or to take vengeance for some family misfortune or personal affront.  Since the governments were absolute, and free from all legal restraints, the opposition chose its weapons with equal freedom.  loc: 601

So well was the tyrant guarded that it was almost impossible to lay hands upon him elsewhere than at solemn religious services; and on no other occasion was the whole family to be found assembled together.  loc: 608

A popular radicalism in the form in which it is opposed to the monarchies of later times, is not to be found in the despotic States of the Renaissance.  Each individual protested inwardly against despotism but was disposed to make tolerable or profitable terms with it rather than to combine with others for its destruction.  Things must have been as bad as at Camerino, Fabriano, or Rimini, before the citizens united to destroy or expel the ruling house.  They knew in most cases only too well that this would but mean a change of masters.  The star of the Republics was certainly on the decline. loc: 651

The Republics:  Venice and Florence loc: 655

during the struggles of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, great and formidable leagues actually were formed by the cities; and Sismondi is of opinion that the time of the final armaments of the Lombard confederation against Barbarossa (from 1168 on) was the moment when a universal Italian league was possible.  But the more powerful States had already developed characteristic features which made any such scheme impracticable.  In their commercial dealings they shrank from no measures, however extreme, which might damage their competitors; they held their weaker neighbors in a condition of helpless dependence in short, they each fancied they could get on by themselves without the assistance of the r est, and thus paved the way for future usurpation.  loc: 657

The tyrants destroyed the freedom of most of the cities; here and there they were expelled, but not thoroughly, or only for a short time; and they were always restored, since the inward conditions were favourable to them, and the opposing forces were exhausted. loc: 665

Venice recognized itself from the first as a strange and mysterious creation the fruit of a higher power than human ingenuity.  The solemn foundation of the city was the subject of a legend:  on March 25, 1413, at midday, emigrants from Padua laid the first stone at the Rialto, that they might have a sacred, inviolable asylum amid the devastations of the barbarians.  loc: 670

The cause of the stability of Venice lies rather in a combination of circumstances which were found in union nowhere else.  Unassailable from its position, it had been able from the beginning to treat of foreign affairs with the fullest and calmest reflection, and ignore nearly altogether the parties which divided the rest of Italy, to escape the entanglement of permanent alliances, and to set the highest price on those which it thought fit to make.  The keynote of the Venetian character was, consequently, a spirit of proud and contemptuous isolation, which, joined to the hatred felt for the city by the other States of Italy, gave rise to a strong sense of solidarity within loc: 712

The Council of Ten, which had a hand in everything, which disposed without appeal of life and death, of S financial affairs and military appointments, which included the Inquisitors among its number, and which overthrew Foscari, as it had overthrown so many powerful men before this Council was yearly chosen afresh from the whole governing body, the Gran Consiglio, and was consequently the most direct expression of its will.  loc: 726

But violent and mysterious as the proceedings of this and other authorities might be, the genuine Venetian courted rather than fled their sentence, not only because the Republic had long arms, and if it could not catch him might punish his family, but because in most cases it acted from rational motives and not from a thirst for blood.  No State, indeed, has ever exercised a greater moral influence over its subjects, whether abroad or at home.  loc: 731

Venice can fairly make good its claim to be the birthplace of statistical science, together, perhaps, with Florence, and followed by the more enlightened despotisms.  loc: 760

In the Italian States a clear political consciousness, the pattern of Mohammedan administration, and the long and active exercise of trade and commerce, combined to produce for the first time a true science of statistics.  loc: 766

In Venice, on the contrary, the supreme objects were the enjoyment of life and power, the increase of inherited advantages, the creation of the most lucrative forms of industry. and the opening of new channels for commerce. loc: 768

If Venice, by this spirit of calculation, and by the practical turn which she gave it, was the first fully to represent one important side of modern political life, in that culture, on the other hand, which Italy then prized most highly she did not stand in the front rant.  The literary impulse, in general, was here wanting, and especially that enthusiasm for classical antiquity which prevailed elsewhere.  loc: 785

We shall say nothing of the piety of the masses, and of their firm belief in the indulgences of an Alexander vi.  But the State itself, after absorbing the Church to a degree unknown elsewhere, had in truth a certain ecclesiastical element in its composition, and the Doge, the symbol of the State, appeared in twelve great processions (’andate’) in a half-clerical character.  They were almost all festivals in memory of political events, and competed in splendor with the great feasts of the Church; the most brilliant of all, the famous marriage with the sea, fell on Ascension Day. loc: 803

The most elevated political thought and the most varied forms of human development are found united in the history of Florence, which in this sense deserves the name of the first modern State in the world.  loc: 807

Here too trade and commerce had given the impulse to economic as well as political science.  Nowhere else in the world was such accurate information to be had on financial affairs.  loc: 838

Here only, at Florence, do we meet with colossal loans like that which the King of England contracted loc: 840

in comprehensiveness of thought and in the rational development of the story, none will bear comparison with the Florentines.  The rule of the nobility, the tyrannies, the struggles of the middle class with the proletariat, limited and unlimited democracy, pseudo-democracy, the primacy o? a single house, the theocracy of Savonarola, and the mixed forms of government which prepared the way for the Medicean despotism all are so described that the inmost motives of the actors are laid bare loc: 881

The evil which was for ever troubling the peace of the city was its rule over once powerful and now conquered rivals like Pisa-a rule of which the necessary consequence was a chronic state of violence.  The only remedy, certainly an extreme one and which none but Savonarola could have persuaded Florence to accept, and that only with the help of favourable chances, would have been the well-timed dissolution of Tuscany into a federal union of free cities.  loc: 893

But who does not admire the people which was wrought up by its venerated preacher to a mood of such sustained loftiness that for the first time in Italy it set the example of sparing a conquered foe while the whole history of its past taught nothing but vengeance and extermination?  loc: 898

But of all who thought it possible to construct a State, the greatest beyond all comparison was Machiavelli.  He treats existing forces as living and active, takes a large and accurate view of alternative possibilities, and seeks to mislead neither himself nor others.  loc: 914

The objectivity of his political Judgement is sometimes appalling in its sincerity; but it is the sign of a time of no ordinary need and peril, when it was a hard matter to believe in right, or to credit others with just dealing loc: 919

But free as he was, like most of his contemporaries, in speech and morals, the welfare of the State was yet his first and last thought. loc: 923

Foreign Policy loc: 950

As the majority of the Italian States were in their internal constitution works of art, that is, the fruit of reflection and careful adaptation, so was their relation to one another and to foreign countries also a work of art.  That nearly all of them were the result of recent usurpations, was a fact which exercised as fatal an influence in their foreign as in their internal policy.  Not one of them recognized another without reserve; the same play of chance which had helped to found and consolidate one dynasty might upset another.  loc: 950

Intrigues, armaments, leagues, corruption and treason make up the outward history of Italy at this period.  Venice in particular was long accused on all hands of seeking to conquer the whole peninsula, or gradually so to reduce its strength that one State after another must fall into her hands.  But on a closer view it is evident that this complaint did not come from the people, but rather from the courts and official classes, which were commonly abhorred by their subjects, while the mild government of Venice had secured for it general confidence loc: 958

At last the League of Cambrai actually did strike a serious blow at the State which all Italy ought to have supported with united strength. loc: 963

Lodovico il Moro, the Aragonese kings of Naples, and Sixtus IV—­to say nothing of the smaller powers—­ kept Italy in a constant perilous agitation.  It would have been well if the atrocious game had been confined to Italy; but it lay in the nature of the case that intervention sought from abroad—­in particular the French and the Turks. loc: 965

The sympathies of the people at large were throughout on the side of France.  Florence had never ceased to confess with shocking naïveté its old Guelph preference for the French.  And when Charles VIII actually appeared on the south of the Alps, all Italy accepted him with an enthusiasm which to himself and his followers seemed unaccountable.  In the imagination of the Italians, to take Savonarola for an example the ideal picture of a wise, just, and powerful savior and ruler was still living, with the difference that he was no longer the emperor invoked by Dante, but the Capetian king of France.  loc: 967

Thoughtful men, indeed, foresaw the foreign conquest long before the expedition of Charles VIII.  And when Charles was back again on the other side of the Alps, it was plain to every eye that an era of intervention had begun.  Misfortune now followed on misfortune; it was understood too late that France and Spain, the two chief invaders, had become great European powers, that they would be no longer satisfied with verbal homage, but would fight to the death for influence and territory in Italy.  loc: 986

Italy, however, was a striking exception to this rule.  Great as was the terror felt for the Turks, and the actual danger from them, there was yet scarcely a government of any consequence which did not conspire against other Italian States with Mohammed II and his successors.  loc: 996

It was a poor but not wholly groundless consolation for the enslavement of Italy then begun by the Spaniards, that the country was at least secured from the relapse into barbarism which would have awaited it under the Turkish rule.  By itself, divided as it was, it could hardly have escaped this fate. loc: 1015

Here was no feudal system after the northern fashion, with its artificial scheme of rights; but the power which each possessed he held in practice as in theory.  Here was no attendant nobility to foster in the mind of the prince the mediaeval sense of honour with all its strange consequences; but princes and counsellors were agreed in acting according to the exigencies of the particular case and to the end they had in view.  loc: 1019

With such men negotiation was possible; it might be presumed that they would be convinced and their opinion modified when practical reasons were laid before them.  loc: 1026

War as a Work of Art loc: 1041

Italy, on the contrary, was the first country to adopt the system of mercenary troops, which demanded a wholly different organization; and the early intro- duction of firearms did its part in making war a democratic pursuit, not only because the strongest castles were unable to withstand a bombardment, but because the skill of the engineer, of the gunfounder, and of the artillerist—­ men belonging to another class than the nobility—­was now of the first importance in a campaign.  loc: 1045

In Italy, earlier than elsewhere, there existed a comprehensive science and art of military affairs; here, for the first time, that impartial delight is taken in able generalship for its own sake, which might, indeed, be expected from the frequent change of party and from the wholly unsentimental mode of action of the Condottieri.  loc: 1056

The result of these combats was no longer regarded as a Divine judgement, but as a triumph of personal merit, and to the minds of the spectators seemed to be both the decision of an exciting competition and a satisfaction for the honour of the army or the nation. loc: 1070

The Papacy loc: 1080

Sixtus IV… was the first Pope who had Rome and the neighbourhood thoroughly under his control, especially after his successful attack on the House of Colonna, and consequently, both in his Italian policy and in the internal affairs of the Church, he could venture to act with a defiant audacity, loc: 1120

A corruption so universal might sooner or later bring disastrous consequences on the Holy See, but they lay in the uncertain future.  It was otherwise with nepotism, which threatened at one time to destroy the Papacy altogether.  loc: 1124

From this time the ‘nipoti,’ by their endeavors to found principalities for themselves, became a new source of confusion to Italy.  loc: 1131

But who, at times and in circumstances like these, could guarantee the continued obedience of ‘nipoti’ and their descendants, now turned into sovereign rulers, to Popes with whom they had no further concern?  Even in his lifetime the Pope was not always sure of his own son or nephew, and the temptation was strong to expel the ‘nipote’ of a predecessor and replace him by one of his own.  The reaction of the whole system on the Papacy itself was of the most serious character; all means of compulsion, whether temporal or spiritual, were used without scruple for the most questionable ends, and to these all the other objects of the Apostolic See were made subordinate.  And when they were attained, at whatever cost of revolutions and proscriptions, a dynasty was founded which had no stronger interest than the destruction of the Papacy. loc: 1137

Two cardinals, who, at the same time, were princes of ruling houses, Giovanni d’Aragona, son of King Ferrante, and Ascanio Sforza, brother of Lodovico il Moro, sold their votes with shameless effrontery; so that, at any rate, the ruling houses of Naples and Milan became interested, by their participation in the booty, in the continuance of the papal system.  Once again, in the following conclave, when all the cardinals but five sold themselves, Ascanio received enormous sums in bribes, not without cherishing the hope that at the next election he would himself be the favored candidate. loc: 1145

State.  If Sixtus had filled his treasury by the sale of spiritual dignities and favours, Innocent and his son, for their part, established an office for the sale of secular favours, in which pardons for murder and manslaughter were sold for large sums of money.  loc: 1155

But the Roman corruption, which seemed to culminate in this family, was already far advanced when they came to the city. What they were and what they did has been often and fully described.  Their immediate purpose, which, in fact, they attained, was the complete subjugation of the pontifical State.  All the petty despots, who were mostly more or less refractory vassals of the Church, were expelled or destroyed; and in Rome itself the two great factions were annihilated, the so-called Guelph Orsini as well as the so-called Ghibelline Colonna.  But the means employed were of so frightful a character that they must certainly have ended in the ruin of the Papacy, had not the contemporaneous death of both father and son by poison suddenly intervened to alter the whole aspect of the situation.  The moral indignation of Christendom was certainly no great source of danger to Alexander; at home he was strong enough to extort terror and obedience; foreign rulers were won over to his side, and Louis XII even aided him to the utmost of his power.  The mass of the people throughout Europe had hardly a conception of what was passing in Central Italy.  The only moment which was really fraught with danger—­when Charles VIII was in Italy—­went by with unexpected fortune, and even then it was not the Papacy as such that was in peril, but Alexander, who risked being supplanted by a more respectable Pope.  The great, permanent, and increasing danger for the Papacy lay in Alexander himself, and, above all, in his son Cesare Borgia. loc: 1173

But when the Pope in course of time fell under the influence of his son Cesare Borgia, his violent measures assumed that character of devilish wickedness which necessarily reacts upon the ends pursued.  What was done in the struggle with the Roman nobles and with the tyrants of Romagna exceeded in faithlessness and barbarity even that measure to which the Aragonese rulers of Naples had already accustomed the world; and the genius for deception was also greater.  The manner in which Cesare isolated his father, murdering brother, brother-in-law, and other relations or courtiers, whenever their favour with the Pope or their position in any other respect became inconvenient to him, is literally appalling.  Alexander was forced to acquiesce in the murder of his best-loved son, the Duke of Gandia, since he himself lived in hourly dread of Cesare. loc: 1190

Here, too, Cesare’s hopes of the Papacy are chiefly spoken of; but now and then a supremacy over all Italy is hinted at, and finally we are given to understand that as temporal ruler Cesare’s projects were of the greatest, and that for their sake he had formerly surrendered his cardinalate.  In fact, there can be no doubt whatever that Cesare, whether chosen Pope or not after the death of Alexander, meant to keep possession of the pontifical State at any cost, and that this, after all the enormities he had committed, he could not as Pope have succeeded in doing permanently.  He, if anybody, could have secularized the States of the Church, and he would have been forced to do so in order to keep them.  loc: 1205

Whether it were that father and son had drawn up a formal list of proscribed persons, or that the murders were resolved upon one by one, in either case the Borgias were bent on the secret destruction of all who stood in their way or whose inheritance they coveted.  Of this, money and movable goods formed the smallest part; it was a much greater source of profit for the Pope that the incomes of the clerical dignitaries in question were suspended by their death, and that he received the revenues of their offices while vacant, and the price of these offices when they were filled by the successors of the murdered men.  loc: 1221

As early as the year 1499 the despair was so great and so general that many of the Papal guards were waylaid and put to death- But those whom the Borgias could not assail with open violence fell victims to their poison.  For the cases in which a certain amount of discretion seemed requisite, a white powder of an agreeable taste was made use of, which did not work on the spot, but slowly and gradually, and which could be mixed without notice in any dish or goblet.  Prince Djem had taken some of it in a sweet draught, before Alexander surrendered him to Charles VIII (1495), and at the end of their career father and son poisoned themselves with the same powder by accidentally tasting a sweetmeat intended for a wealthy cardinal.  loc: 1229

Alexander.…‘He would,’ says Panvinio elsewhere, ’have put all the other rich cardinals and prelates out of the way, to get their property, had he not, in the midst of his great plans for his son, been struck down by death.’  loc: 1243

Whatever may have been the private morals of Julius II, in all essential respects he was the savior of the Papacy.  His familiarity with the course of events since the pontificate of his uncle Sixtus had given him a profound insight into the grounds and conditions of the Papal authority.  On these he founded his own policy, and devoted to it the whole force and passion of his unshaken soul.  He ascended the steps of St. Peter’s chair without simony and amid general applause, and with him ceased, at all events, the undisguised traffic in the highest offices of the Church.  loc: 1248

What Julius elsewhere acquired, either on the field of battle or by diplomatic means, he proudly bestowed on the Church, not on his family; the ecclesiastical territory, which he found in a state of dissolution, he bequeathed to his successor completely subdued, and increased by Parma and Piacenza.  loc: 1255

He could even, with comparatively clear conscience, venture to summon a council to Rome, and so bid defiance to that outcry for a council which was raised by the opposition all over Europe.  A ruler of this stamp needed some great outward symbol of his conceptions; Julius found it in the reconstruction of St. Peter’s.  The plan of it, as Bramante wished to have it, is perhaps the grandest expression of power in unity which can be imagined.  loc: 1266

But a reaction, chiefly arising from the younger members of the Sacred College, who, above all things, desired a liberal Pope, rendered the miserable combination futile; Giovanni Medici was elected —­the famous Leo X. We shall often meet with him in treating of the noonday of the Renaissance; here we wish only to point out that under him the Papacy was again exposed to great inward and outward dangers.  loc: 1275

He did on compulsion and without credit what, if it had been done voluntarily, would have been to his lasting honour.  What he attempted against Alfonso of Ferrara, and actually achieved against a few petty despots and Condottieri, was assuredly not of a kind to raise his reputation.  And this was at a time when the monarchs of the West were yearly growing more and more accustomed to political gambling on a colossal scale, of which the stakes were this or that province of Italy.  Who could guarantee that, since the last decades had seen so great an increase of their power at home, their ambition would stop short of the States of the Church?  Leo himself witnessed the prelude of what was fulfilled in the year 1527; a few bands of Spanish infantry appeared of their own accord, it seems—­ at the end of 1520, on the borders of the Pontifical territory, with a view to laying the Pope under contribution, but were driven back by the Papal forces.  The public feeling, too, against the corruptions of the hierarchy had of late years been drawing rapidly to a head, and men with an eye for the future, like the younger Pico della Mirandola, called urgently for reform.  Meantime Luther had already appeared upon the scene. loc: 1286

Under Clement VII the whole horizon of Rome was filled with vapors, loc: 1298

The Pope was no less detested at home than abroad.  Thoughtful people were filled with anxiety, hermits appeared upon the streets and squares of Rome, foretelling the fate of Italy and of the world, and calling the Pope by the name of Antichrist; the faction of the Colonna raised its head defiantly; the indomitable Cardinal Pompeo Colonna, whose mere existence was a permanent menace to the Papacy, ventured to surprise the city in 1526, hoping with the help of Charles V, to become Pope then and there, as soon as Clement was killed or captured.  It was no piece of good fortune for Rome that the latter was able to escape to the Castel Sant’ Angelo, and the fate for which he himself was reserved may well be called worse than death.  loc: 1299

By a series of those falsehoods which only the powerful can venture on, but which bring ruin upon the weak, Clement brought about the advance of the Germano-Spanish army under Bourbon and Frundsberg (1527).  It is certain that the Cabinet of Charles V intended to inflict on him a severe castigation, and that it could not calculate beforehand how far the zeal of its unpaid hordes would carry them.  loc: 1304

The Catholic King and Emperor owed it to his luck and nothing else that Pope and cardinals were not murdered by his troops.  Had this happened, no sophistry in the world could clear him of his share in the guilt.  The massacre of countless people of less consequence, the plunder of the rest, and all the horrors of torture and traffic in human life, show clearly enough what was possible in the ‘Sacco di Roma.’ loc: 1309

But if such projects really existed, they cannot have lasted long:  from the devastated city arose a new spirit of reform both in Church and State.  loc: 1316

In point of fact, this critical year, 1527, so far bore fruit that the voices of serious men could again make themselves heard.  Rome had suffered too much to return, even under a Paul III, to the gay corruption of Leo X. The Papacy, too, when its sufferings became so great, began to excite a sympathy half religious and half political.  The kings could not tolerate that one of their number should arrogate to himself the right of Papal gaoler, and concluded (August 18, 1527) the Treaty of Amiens, one of the objects of which was the deliverance of Clement.  loc: 1320

In the following years the plan of a Council enabled Charles to keep the Papacy in all essential points under his control, and at one and the same time to protect and to oppress it.  The greatest danger of all--secularization—­the danger which came from within, from the Popes themselves and their ‘nipoti,’ was adjourned for centuries by the German Reformation.  Just as this alone had made the expedition against Rome (1527) possible and successful, so did it compel the Papacy to become once more the expression of a world-wide spiritual power, to raise itself from the soulless debasement in which it lay, and to place itself at the head of all the enemies of this reformation.  loc: 1333

Patriotism loc: 1345

For Italy, the existence of the ecclesiastical State, and the conditions under which alone it could continue, were a permanent obstacle to national unity, an obstacle whose removal seemed hopeless.  loc: 1354

Part Two: THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL loc: 1359

Personality loc: 1359

In the character of these States, whether republics or despotisms, lies, not the only, but the chief reason for the early development of the Italian.  To this it is due that he was the firstborn among the sons of modern Europe. loc: 1359

In the Middle Ages both sides of human consciousness—­that which was turned within as that which was turned without—­ lay dreaming or half awake beneath a common veil.  The veil was woven of faith, illusion, and childish prepossession, through which the world and history were seen clad in strange hues.  Man was conscious of himself only as a member of a race, people, party, family, or corporation—­only through some general category.  loc: 1361

In Italy this veil first melted into air; an objective treatment and consideration of the State and of all the things of this world became possible.  The subjective side at the same time asserted itself with corresponding emphasis; man became a spiritual individual, recognized himself as such.  loc: 1364

this result was due above all to the political circumstances of Italy. loc: 1367

But at the close of the thirteenth century Italy began to swarm with individuality; the ban laid upon human personality was dissolved; and a thousand figures meet us each in its own special shape and dress.  Dante’s great poem would have been impossible in any other country of Europe, if only for the reason that they all still lay under the spell of race.  loc: 1371

Banishment, too, has this effect above all, that it either wears the exile out or develops whatever is greatest in him.  loc: 1399

The cosmopolitanism which grew up in the most gifted circles is in itself a high stage of individualism.  loc: 1403

When this impulse to the highest individual development was combined with a powerful and varied nature, which had mastered all the elements of the culture of the age, then arose the ’all-sided man’—­’l’uomo universale’—­who belonged to Italy alone.  loc: 1415

But in Italy at the time of the Renaissance, we find artists who in every branch created new and perfect works, and who also made the greatest impression as men.  Others, outside the arts they practiced, were masters of a vast circle of spiritual interests. loc: 1419

The fifteenth century is, above all, that of the many-sided men.  There is no biography which does not, besides the chief work of its hero, speak of other pursuits all passing beyond the limits of dilettantism.  The Florentine merchant and statesman was often learned in both the classical languages; the most famous humanists read the Ethics and Politics of Aristotle to him and his sons; even the daughters of the house were highly educated.  It is in these circles that private education was first treated seriously.  The humanist, on his side, was compelled to the most varied attainments, since his philological learning was not limited, as it is now, to the theoretical knowledge of classical antiquity, but had to serve the practical needs of daily life.  loc: 1427

In all by which praise is won, Leon Battista was from his childhood the first.  loc: 1439

But the deepest spring of his nature has yet to be spoken of —­ the sympathetic intensity with which he entered into the whole life around him.  loc: 1455

men.  It need not be added that an iron will pervaded and sustained his whole personality; like all the great men of the Renaissance, he said, ‘Men can do all things if they will.’ loc: 1460

Glory loc: 1464

To this inward development of the individual corresponds a new sort of outward distinction—­the modern form of glory. loc: 1464

The new race of poet-scholars which arose soon after Dante quickly made themselves masters of this fresh tendency.  They did so in a double sense, being themselves the most acknowledged celebrities of Italy, and at the same time, as poets and historians, consciously disposing of the reputation of others.  loc: 1480

This new incense, which once was offered only to saints and heroes, was given in clouds to Petrarch, who persuaded himself in his later years that it was but a foolish and troublesome thing.  His letter ’To Posterity’ is the confession of an old and famous man, who is forced to gratify the public curiosity.  He admits that he wishes for fame in the times to come, but would rather be without it in his own day.  loc: 1486

And now the Italian cities began again to remember their ancient citizens and inhabitants.  loc: 1509

History and the new topography were now careful to leave no local celebrity unnoticed.  loc: 1518

In the Middle Ages, the cities were proud of their saints and of the bones and relics in their churches.  With these the panegyrist of Padua in 1450, Michele Savonarola, begins his list; from them he passes to ’the famous men who were no saints, but who, by their great intellect and force (virtus) deserve to be added (adnecti) to the saints’—­just as in classical antiquity the distinguished man came close upon the hero.  The further enumeration is most characteristic of the time.  loc: 1521

By and by this new and comparatively modern element was treated with greater emphasis; the historians began to insert descriptions of character, and collections arose of the biographies of distinguished contemporaries, like those of Filippo Villani, Vespasiano Fiorentino, Bartolommeo I Fazio, and lastly of Paolo Giovio. loc: 1540

The North of Europe, until Italian influence began to tell upon its writers—­ for instance, on Trithemius, the first German who wrote the lives of famous men- -possessed only either legends of the saints, or descriptions of princes and churchmen partaking largely of the character of legends and showing no traces of the idea of fame, that is, of distinction won by a man’s personal efforts.  loc: 1543

The poet-scholar in Italy had, as we have already said, the fullest consciousness that he was the giver of fame and immortality, or, if he chose, of oblivion.  loc: 1547

Amid all these preparations outwardly to win and secure fame, the curtain is now and then drawn aside, and we see with frightful evidence a boundless ambition and thirst after greatness, regardless of all means and consequences.  loc: 1560

be.  In more than one remarkable and dreadful undertaking the motive assigned by serious writers is the burning desire to achieve something great and memorable.  This motive is not a mere extreme case of ordinary vanity, but something demonic, involving a surrender of the will, the use of any means, however atrocious, and even an indifference to success itself.  loc: 1566

and Wit loc: 1573

The corrective, not only of this modern desire for fame, but of all highly developed individuality, is found in ridicule, especially when expressed in the victorious form of wit.  loc: 1573

Often the place of wit is taken by mere insolence, clumsy trickery, blasphemy, and obscenity; one or two jokes told of Condottieri are among the most brutal and malicious which are recorded.  Many of the ‘burle’ are thoroughly comic, but many are only real or supposed evidence of personal superiority, of triumph over another.  How much people were willing to put up with, how often the victim was satisfied with getting the laugh on his side by a retaliatory trick, cannot be said; there was much heartless and pointless malice mixed up with it all, and life in Florence was no doubt often made unpleasant enough from this cause.  loc: 1590

How wit should be used among people of position is taught by Baldassare Castiglione in his ‘Cortigiano.’  Its chief function is naturally to enliven those present by the repetition of comic or graceful stories and sayings; personal jokes, on the contrary, are discouraged on the ground that they wound unhappy people, show too much honour to wrong-doers, and make enemies of the powerful and the spoiled children of fortune; loc: 1636

Italy had, in fact, become a school for scandal, the like of which the world cannot show, not even in France at the time of Voltaire.  loc: 1643

Florence, the great market of fame, was in this point, as we have said, in advance of other cities.  ‘Sharp eyes and bad tongues’ is the description given of the inhabitants.  An easygoing contempt of everything and everybody was probably the prevailing tone of society.  loc: 1651

Next to Florence comes the Papal court, which had long been a rendezvous of the bitterest and wittiest tongues.  loc: 1654

In course of time calumny became universal, and the strictest virtue was most certain of all to challenge the attacks of malice.  loc: 1661

After the disaster which befell Rome in 1527, slander visibly declined along with the unrestrained wickedness of private life. loc: 1678

But while it was still flourishing was developed, chiefly in Rome the greatest railer of modern times, Pietro Aretino.  loc: 1679

Aretino affords the first great instance of the abuse of publicity to such ends.  The polemical writings which a hundred years earlier Poggio and his opponents interchanged, are just as infamous in their tone and purpose, but they were not composed for the press, but for a sort of private circulation.  Aretino made all his profit out of a complete publicity, and in a certain sense may be considered the father of modern journalism.  loc: 1689

Aretino laid great stress upon it—­ whether from the insanity of conceit or by way of caricaturing famous men—­that he himself should be called divine, as one of his flatterers had already begun to do; and he certainly attained so much personal celebrity that his house at Arezzo passed for one of the sights of the place.  loc: 1711

Part Three: The Revival of Antiquity loc: 1731

We must insist upon it, as one of the chief propositions of this book, that it was not the revival of antiquity alone, but its union with the genius of the Italian people, which achieved the conquest of the western world.  loc: 1738

The general result of it consists in this—­that by the side of the Church which had hitherto held the countries of the West together (though it was unable to do so much longer) there arose a new spiritual influence which, spreading itself abroad from Italy, became the breath of life for all the more instructed minds in Europe.  loc: 1747

But the great and general enthusiasm of the Italians for Classical antiquity did not display itself before the fourteenth century.  For this a development of civic life was required, which took place only in Italy, and there not till then.  It was needful that noble and burgher should first learn to dwell together on equal terms, and that a social world should arise which felt the want of culture, and had the leisure and the means to obtain it.  loc: 1782

The general condition of the country was favourable to this transformation.  The medieval empire, since the fall of the Hohenstaufen, had either renounced, or was unable to make good, its claims on Italy.  The Popes had migrated to Avignon.  Most of the political powers actually existing owed their origin to violent and illegitimate means.  The spirit of the people, now awakened to self-consciousness, sought for some new and stable ideal on which to rest.  And thus the vision of the world-wide empire of Italy and Rome so possessed the popular mind that Cola di Rienzi could actually attempt to put it in practice.  loc: 1788

Ruins of Rome loc: 1795

Rome itself, the city of ruins, now became the object of a holly different sort of piety from that of the time when the ‘Mirabilia Roma’ and the collection of William of Malmesbury ere composed.  The imaginations of the devout pilgrim, or of the seeker after marvels and treasures, are supplanted in contemporary records by the interests of the patriot and the historian.  loc: 1796

With Nicholas V (1447-1455) that new monumental spirit which was distinctive of the age of the Renaissance appeared on the papal throne.  The new passion for embellishing the city brought with it on the one hand a fresh danger for the ruins, on the other a respect for them, as forming one of Rome’s claims to distinction.  Pius II was wholly possessed by antiquarian enthusiasm, loc: 1829

Nor was the enthusiasm for the classical past of Italy confined at this period to the capital.  loc: 1845

Collections of antiquities of all sorts now became common.  loc: 1847

To return to Rome.  The inhabitants, ’who then called themselves Romans,’ accepted greedily the homage which was offered them by the rest of Italy.  Under Paul II, Sixtus IV and Alexander VI, magnificent processions formed part of the Carnival, representing the scene most attractive to the imagination of the time- -the triumph of the Roman Imperator.  The sentiment of the people expressed itself naturally in this shape and others like it.  loc: 1859

Meanwhile the material knowledge of old Rome was increased by excavations.  Under Alexander VI the so-called ‘Grotesques,’ that is, the mural decorations of the ancients, were discovered, and the Apollo of the Belvedere was found at Porto d’Anzio.  Under Julius II followed the memorable discoveries of the Laocoon, of the Venus of the Vatican, of the Torso of the Cleopatra.  The palaces of the nobles and the cardinals began to be filled with ancient statues and fragments.  loc: 1873

the ruins within and outside Rome awakened not only archaeological zeal and patriotic enthusiasm, but an elegiac of sentimental melancholy.  loc: 1893

The Classics loc: 1900

But the literary bequests of antiquity, Greek as well as Latin, were of far more importance than the architectural, and indeed than all the artistic remains which it had left.  They were held in the most absolute sense to be the springs of all knowledge.  loc: 1900

But with the fifteenth century began the long list of new discoveries, the systematic creation of libraries by means of copies, and the rapid multiplication of translations from the Greek. Had it not been for the enthusiasm of a few collectors of that age, who shrank from no effort or privation in their researches, we should certainly possess only a small part of the literature, especially that of the Greeks, which is now in our hands.  loc: 1908

We have, further, a good deal of information as to the way in which manuscripts and libraries were multiplied.  The purchase of an ancient manuscript, which contained a rare, or the only complete, or the only existing text of an old writer, was naturally a lucky accident of which we need take no further account.  Among the professional copyists those who understood Greek took the highest place, and it was they especially who bore the honorable name of ‘scrittori.’  Their number was always limited, and the pay they received very large.  The rest, simply called ‘copisti,’ were partly mere clerks who made their living by such work, partly schoolmasters and needy men of learning, who desired an addition to their income.  loc: 1946

Where there was so much care to show honour to the contents of a book by the beauty of its outward form, it is intelligible that the sudden appearance of printed books was greeted at first with anything but favour.  loc: 1962

But the weary copyists—­not those who lived by the trade, but the many who were forced to copy a book in order to have it—­rejoiced at the German invention.  It was soon applied in Italy to the multiplication first of the Latin and then of the Greek authors, and for a long period nowhere but in Italy, yet it spread with by no means the rapidity which might have been expected from the general enthusiasm for these works.  After a while the modern relation between author and publisher began to develop itself, and under Alexander VI, when it was no longer easy to destroy a book, as Cosimo could make Filelfo promise to do, the prohibitive censorship made its appearance. loc: 1964

Greek scholarship was chiefly confined to Florence and to the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries.  The impulse which had proceeded from Petrarch and Boccaccio, superficial as was their own acquaintance with Greek, was powerful, but did not tell immediately on their contemporaries, except a few; on the other hand, the study of Greek literature died out about the year 1520 with the last of the colony of learned Greek exiles, and it was a singular piece of fortune that northerners like Erasmus, the Stephani, and Budaeus had meanwhile made themselves masters of the language.  loc: 1972

But after the subjection of Greece by the Turks was completed, the succession of scholars was maintained only by the sons of the fugitives and perhaps here and there by some Candian or Cyprian refugee.  That the decay of Hellenistic studies began about the time of the death of Leo X was due partly to a general change of intellectual attitude, and to a certain satiety of classical influences which now made itself felt; but its coincidence with the death of the Greek fugitives was not wholly a matter of accident.  loc: 1978

Hellenistic studies owed a priceless debt to the press of Aldo Manuzio at Venice, where the most important and voluminous writers were for the first time printed in the original.  Aldo ventured his all in the enterprise; he was an editor and publisher whose like the world has rarely seen. loc: 1985

We must here linger for a moment over Pico della Mirandola, before passing on to the general effects of humanism.  He was the only man who loudly and vigorously defended the truth and science of all ages against the one-sided worship of classical antiquity.  loc: 1997

Looking at Pico, we can guess at the lofty flight which Italian philosophy would have taken had not the counter-reformation annihilated the higher spiritual life of the people. loc: 2005

The Humanists loc: 2006

The rapid progress of humanism after the year 1400 paralysed native impulses.  Henceforth men looked only to antiquity for the solution of every problem, and consequently allowed literature to turn into mere quotation.  Nay, the very fall of civil freedom is partly ascribed to all this, since the new learning rested on obedience to authority, sacrificed municipal rights to Roman law, and thereby both sought and found the favour of the despots. loc: 2020

But neither Italy nor Western Europe produced another Dante, and he was and remained the man who first thrust antiquity into the foreground of national culture.  In the ‘Divine Comedy’ he treats the ancient and the Christian worlds, not indeed as of equal authority, but as parallel to one another.  loc: 2029

Petrarch, who lives in the memory of most people nowadays chiefly as a great Italian poet, owed his fame among his contemporaries far rather to the fact that he was a kind of living representative of antiquity, that he imitated all styles of Latin poetry, endeavored by his voluminous historical and philosophical writings not to supplant but to make known the works of the ancients, and wrote letters that, as treatises on matters of antiquarian interest, obtained a reputation which to us is unintelligible, but which was natural enough in an age without handbooks. loc: 2035

It was the same with Boccaccio.  For two centuries, when but little was known of the ‘Decameron’ north of the Alps, he was famous all over Europe simply on account of his Latin compilations on mythology, geography and biography.  loc: 2038

There was a symbolical ceremony peculiar to the first generation of poet-scholars which lasted on into the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, though losing the higher sentiment which inspired it—­the coronation of the poets with the laurel wreath.  The origin of this custom in the Middle Ages is obscure, and the ritual of the ceremony never became fixed.  It was a public demonstration, an outward and visible expression of literary enthusiasm, and naturally its form was variable.  loc: 2054

Then came the Italian journey of Charles IV, whom it amused to flatter the vanity of ambitious men, and impress the ignorant multitude by means of gorgeous ceremonies.  loc: 2067

But from henceforth the emperors crowned poets wherever they went on their travels; and in the fifteenth century the popes and other princes assumed the same right, till at last no regard whatever was paid to place or circumstances.  loc: 2072

Universities and Schools loc: 2077

Few of the Italian universities show themselves in their full vigor till the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when the increase of wealth rendered a more systematic care for education possible.  At first there were generally three sorts of professorships—­one for civil law, another for canonical law, the third for medicine; in course of time professorships of rhetoric, of philosophy, and of astronomy were added, the last commonly, though not always, identical with astrology.  The salaries varied greatly in different cases.  Sometimes a capital sum was paid down.  With the spread of culture, competition became so active that the different universities tried to entice away distinguished teachers from one another, under which circumstances Bologna is said to have sometimes devoted the half of its public income (20,000 ducats) to the university.  The appointments were as a rule made only for a certain time, sometimes for only half a year, so that the teachers were forced to lead a wandering life, like actors.  loc: 2079

There were Latin schools in every town of the least importance, not by any means merely as preparatory to higher education, but because, next to reading, writing, and arithmetic, the knowledge of Latin was a necessity; and after Latin came logic.  It is to be noted particularly that these schools did not depend on the Church, but on the municipality; some of them, too, were merely private enterprises. loc: 2113

At the court of Giovan Francesco Gonzaga at Mantua (1407-1444) appeared the illustrious Vittorino da Feltre, one of those men who devote their whole life to an object for which their natural gifts constitute a special vocation. He directed the education of the sons and daughters of the princely house, and one of the latter became under his care a woman of learning.  When his reputation extended far and wide over Italy, and members of great and wealthy families came from long distances, even from Germany, in search of his instructions, Gonzaga was not only willing that they should be received, but seems to have held it an honour for Mantua to be the chosen school of the aristocratic world.  Here for the first time gymnastics and all noble bodily exercises were treated along with scientific instruction as indispensable to a liberal education.  Besides these pupils came others, whose instruction Vittorino probably held to be his highest earthly aim, the gifted poor, whom he supported in his house and educated, ‘per l’amore di Dio,’ along with the highborn youths who here learned to live under the same roof with untitled genius.  loc: 2118

Not only in these two courts, but generally throughout Italy, the education of the princely families was in part and for certain years in the hands of the humanists, who thereby mounted a step higher in the aristocratic world.  The writing of treatises on the education of princes, formerly the business of theologians, fell now within their province. loc: 2135

We have here first to speak of those citizens, mostly Florentines, who made antiquarian interests one of the chief objects of their lives, and who were themselves either distinguished scholars, or else distinguished dilettanti who maintained the scholars.  They were of peculiar significance during the period of transition at the beginning of the fifteenth century, since it was in them that humanism first showed itself practically as an indispensable element in daily life.  It was not till after this time that the popes and princes began seriously to occupy themselves with it. loc: 2142

A man in Cosimo’s position—­a great merchant and party leader, who also had on his side all the thinkers, writers and investigators, a man who was the first of the Florentines by birth and the first of the Italians by culture such a man was to all intents and purposes already a prince.  To Cosimo belongs the special glory of recognizing in the Platonic philosophy the fairest flower of the ancient world of thought, of inspiring his friends with the same belief, and thus of fostering within humanistic circles themselves another and a higher resuscitation of antiquity.  loc: 2178

on the personal enthusiasm of Cosimo himself in his last years, which was such that the great Marsilio Ficino could style himself, as far as Platonism was concerned, the spiritual son of Cosimo.  loc: 2182

The enthusiastic teacher declares in several passages of his writings that Lorenzo had sounded all the depths of the Platonic philosophy, and had uttered his conviction that without Plato it would be hard to be a good Christian or a good citizen.  The famous band of scholars which surrounded Lorenzo was united together, and distinguished from all other circles of the kind, by this passion for a higher and idealistic philosophy.  Only in such a world could a man like Pico della Mirandola feel happy.  loc: 2185

But it is now time to speak of humanism at the Italian courts.  The natural alliance between the despot and the scholar, each relying solely on his personal talent, has already been touched upon; that the latter should avowedly prefer the princely courts to the free cities, was only to be expected from the higher pay which he there received.  loc: 2205

Taking all things together, it is greatly to the honour of the latter that they felt bound to place themselves at the head of the culture of their age and country, one-sided though this culture was.  In some of the popes, the fearlessness of the consequences to which the new learning might lead strikes us as something truly, but unconsciously, imposing.  Nicholas V was confident of the future of the Church, since thousands of learned men supported her.  loc: 2210

Whatever influence in Europe the Italian humanists have had since 1520 depends in some way or other on the impulse which was given by Leo.  He was the Pope who in granting permission to print the newly found Tacitus, could say that the great writers were a rule of life and a consolation in misfortune; that helping learned men and obtaining excellent books had ever been one of his highest aims; and that he now thanked heaven that he could benefit the human race by furthering the publication of this book. loc: 2232

The sack of Rome in the year 1527 scattered the scholars no less than the artists in every direction, and spread the fame of the great departed Maecenas to the farthest boundaries of Italy. loc: 2235

Among the secular princes of the fifteenth century, none displayed such enthusiasm for antiquity as Alfonso the Great of Aragon, King of Naples.  It appears that his zeal was thoroughly unaffected, and that the monuments and writings of the ancient world made upon him, from the time of his arrival in Italy, an impression deep and powerful enough to reshape his life.  loc: 2236

Alfonso was far surpassed in learning by Federigo of Urbino, who had but few courtiers around him, squandered nothing, and in his appropriation of antiquity, as in all other things, went to work considerately.  It was for him and for Nicholas V that most of the translations from the Greek, and a number of the best commentaries and other such works, were written.  loc: 2257

Duke Francesco probably looked on humanistic culture as a matter of course in the education of his children, if only for political reasons.  It was felt universally to be an advantage if a prince could mix with the most instructed men of his time on an equal footing.  loc: 2267

Propagators of Antiquity loc: 2287

We have here first to speak of those citizens, mostly Florentines, who made antiquarian interests one of the chief objects of their lives, and who were themselves either distinguished scholars, or else distinguished dilettanti who maintained the scholars.  They were of peculiar significance during the period of transition at the beginning of the fifteenth century, since it was in them that humanism first showed itself practically as an indispensable element in daily life.  It was not till after this time that the popes and princes began seriously to occupy themselves with it. loc: 2288

intercourse with learned men, interest in antiquarian matters, and the passion for elegant Latin correspondence were necessities for the princes of that age.  loc: 2419

Propagators of Antiquity; Epistolography:  Latin Orators loc: 2434

There were two purposes, however, for which the humanist was as indispensable to the republics as to princes or popes, namely, the official correspondence of the State, and the making of speeches on public and solemn occasions. loc: 2434

Not only was the secretary required to be a competent Latinist, but conversely, only a humanist was credited with the knowledge and ability necessary for the post of secretary.  And thus the greatest men in the sphere of science during the fifteenth century mostly devoted a considerable part of their lives to serve the State in this capacity.  loc: 2436

The social position of the speaker was a matter of perfect indifference; what was desired was simply the most cultivated humanistic talent.  loc: 2469

With the practical purpose of fitting his countrymen to speak with ease and effect in public, he treated, after the pattern of the ancients, invention, declamation, bearing, and gesticulation, each in its proper connection.  Elsewhere too we read of an oratorical training directed solely to practical application.  No accomplishment was more highly esteemed than the power of elegant improvisation in Latin.  The growing study of Cicero’s speeches and theoretical writings, of Quintilian and of the imperial panegyrists, the appearance of new and original treatises, the general progress of antiquarian learning, and the stores of ancient matter and thought which now could and must be drawn from, all combined to shape the character of the new eloquence. loc: 2524

For oratory, as for the other arts, the death of Leo X (1521) and the sack of Rome (1527) mark the epoch of decadence.  loc: 2552

The Treatise, and History in Latin loc: 2562

Among these must be placed the treatise, which often took the shape of a dialogue.  In this case it was borrowed directly from Cicero.  In order to do anything like justice to this class of literature—­in order not to throw it aside at first sight as a bore two things must be taken into consideration.  The century which escaped from the influence of the Middle Ages felt the need of something to mediate between itself and antiquity in many questions of morals and philosophy; and this need was met by the writer of treatises and dialogues.  Much which appears to us as mere commonplace in their writings, was for them and their contemporaries a new and hard-won view of things upon which mankind had been silent since the days of antiquity.  loc: 2563

From the time of Petrarch’s letters and treatises down to near the end of the fifteenth century, the heaping up of learned quotations, as in the case of the orators, is the main business of most of these writers.  loc: 2571

A historical criticism of the Middle Ages was practicable, just because the rational treatment of all subjects by the humanists had trained the historical spirit.  loc: 2617

The great Florentine historians at the beginning of the sixteenth century were men of a wholly different kind from the Latinists Bembo and Giovio.  They wrote Italian, not only because they could not vie with the Ciceronian elegance of the philologists, but because, like Machiavelli, they could only record in a living tongue the living results of their own immediate observations and we may add in the case of Machiavelli, of his observation of the past—­and because, as in the case of Guicciardini, Varchi, and many others, what they most desired was, that their view of the course of events should have as wide and deep a practical effect as possible.  loc: 2626

Antiquity as the Common Source loc: 2634

The position and influence of Italian culture throughout the world depended on the fact that certain subjects were treated in Latin—­’urbi et orbi’—­while Italian prose was written best of all by those to whom it cost an inward struggle not to write in Latin. loc: 2672

From the fourteenth century Cicero was recognized universally as the purest model of prose.  This was by no means due solely to a dispassionate opinion in favour of his choice of language, of the structure of his sentences, and of his style of composition, but rather to the fact that the Italian spirit responded fully and instinctively to the amiability of the letter writer, to the brilliancy of the orator, and to the lucid exposition of the philosophical thinker.  loc: 2674

What was then tolerated and demanded, in this shape, is best shown by the didactic poetry of the time.  Its popularity in the fifteenth century is something astounding.  The most distinguished humanists were ready to celebrate in Latin hexameters the most commonplace, ridiculous, or disgusting themes, such as the making of gold, the game of chess, the management of silkworms, astrology, and venereal diseases (morbus gallicus), to say nothing of many long Italian poems of the same kind.  Nowadays this class of poem is condemned unread, and how far, as a matter of fact, they are really worth the reading, we are unable to say.  One thing is certain:  epochs far above our own in the sense of beauty—­the Renaissance and the Greco-Roman world—­could not dispense with this form of poetry.  loc: 2794

The Latin epigram finally became in those days an affair of serious importance, since a few clever lines, engraved on a monument or quoted with laughter in society, could lay the foundation of a scholar’s celebrity.  loc: 2836

The epigram was prized for what it was, in truth, to all the educated classes of that age—­the concentrated essence of fame.  Nor, on the other hand, was any man then so powerful as to be above the reach of a satirical epigram, loc: 2844

Fall of the Humanists in the Sixteenth Century loc: 2878

men were far too dependent on the scholars for their knowledge of antiquity—­that the scholars were personally the possessors and diffusers of ancient culture.  But the spread of printed editions of the classics, and of large and well-arranged handbooks and dictionaries, went far to free the people from the necessity of personal intercourse with the humanists, and, as soon as they could be but partly dispensed with, the change in popular feeling became manifest.  loc: 2880

All means were held lawful, if one of them saw a chance of supplanting another.  From literary discussion they passed with astonishing suddenness to the fiercest and the most groundless vituperation.  Not satisfied with refuting, they sought to annihilate an opponent.  loc: 2885

Three facts explain and perhaps diminish their guilt:  the overflowing excess of fervour and fortune, when the luck was on their side; the uncertainty of the future, in which luxury or misery depended on the caprice of a patron or the malice of an enemy; and finally, the misleading influence of antiquity.  This undermined their morality, without giving them its own instead; and in religious matters, since they could never think of accepting the positive belief in the old gods, it affected them only on the negative and sceptical side.  Just because they conceived of antiquity dogmatically—­that is, took it as the model or all thought and action—­its influence was here pernicious.  But that an age existed which idolized the ancient world and its products with an exclusive devotion was not the fault of individuals.  It was the work of an historical providence, and if the culture of the ages which have followed, and of the ages to come, rests upon the fact that it was so, and that all the ends of life but this one were then deliberately put aside. loc: 2899

The career of the humanists was, as a rule, of such a kind hat only the strongest characters could pass through it unscathed.  loc: 2906

But the worst of all was, that the position of the humanist was almost incompatible with a fixed home, since it either made frequent changes of dwelling necessary for a livelihood, or so affected the mind of the individual that he could never be happy for long in one place.  He grew tired of the people, and had no peace among the enmities which he excited, while the people themselves in their turn demanded something new.  loc: 2913

Warning examples from ancient and modern times the moral disorder and the wretched existence of the scholars meet us in astonishing abundance, and along with these, accusations of the most serious nature are brought formally against them.  Among these are anger, vanity, obstinacy, self-adoration, dissolute private life, immorality of all descriptions, heresy, theism; further, the habit of speaking without conviction, a sinister influence on government, pedantry of speech, thanklessness towards teachers, and abject flattery of the great, who st give the scholar a taste of their favours and then leave m to starve.  The description is closed by a reference to the den age, when no such thing as science existed on the earth. these charges, that of heresy soon became the most dangers, loc: 2929

The mendicant friar, who had lived from his boyhood in the monastery, and never eaten or slept except by rule, ceased to feel the com- pulsion under which he lived.  Through the power of this habit he led, amid all outward hardships, a life of inward peace, by which he impressed his hearers far more than by his teaching.  Looking at him, they could believe that it depends on ourselves whether we bear up against misfortune or surrender to it.  ’Amid want and toil he was happy, because he willed to be so, because he had contracted no evil habits, was not capricious, inconstant, immoderate; but was always contented with little or nothing.’  loc: 2959

PART FOUR: THE DISCOVERY OF THE WORLD AND OF MAN loc: 3009

Journeys of the Italians loc: 3009

The Crusades had opened unknown distances to the European mind, and awakened in all the passion for travel and adventure.  It may be hard to indicate precisely the point where this passion allied itself with, or became the servant of, the thirst for knowledge; but it was in Italy that this was first and most completely the case.  loc: 3012

From time immemorial the Mediterranean Sea had given to the nations that dwelt on its shores mental impulses different from those which governed the peoples of the North; and never, from the very structure of their character, could the Italians be adventurers in the sense which the word bore among the Teutons.  After they were once at home in all the eastern harbors of the Mediterranean, it was natural that the most enterprising among them should be led to join that vast inter- national movement of the Mohammedans which there found its outlet.  A new half of the world lay, as it were, freshly discovered before them.  loc: 3016

The fuller proof of this assertion belongs to the special history of discoveries.  Yet ever and again we turn with admiration to the august figure of the great Genoese, by whom a new continent beyond the ocean was demanded, sought and found; and who was the first to be able to say:  ’il mondo e poco’—­the world is not so large as men have thought.  loc: 3028

A superficial comparison of their achievements with those of other nations shows an early and striking superiority on their part.  Where, in the middle of the fifteenth century, could be found, anywhere but in Italy, such a union of geographical, statistical, and historical knowledge as was found in Aeneas Sylvius?  loc: 3036

The Natural Sciences in Italy loc: 3051

The Italian students of nature trace with pride in the ‘Divine Comedy’ the hints and proofs of Dante’s scientific in-terest in nature.  On his claim to priority in this or that discovery or reference, we must leave the men of science to decide; but every layman must be struck by the wealth of his observations on the external world, shown merely in his picture and comparisons.  He, more than any other modern poet, takes them from reality, whether in nature or human life, and uses them never as mere ornament, but in order to give the reader the fullest and most adequate sense of his meaning.  loc: 3060

The Church treated this and other pseudo-sciences nearly always with toleration; and showed itself actually hostile even to genuine science only when a charge of heresy together with necromancy was also in question—­which certainly was often the case.  A point which it would be interesting to decide is this:  whether and in what cases the Dominican (and also the Franciscan) Inquisitors in Italy were conscious of the falsehood of the charges, and yet condemned the accused, either to oblige some enemy of the prisoner or from hatred to natural science, and particularly to experiments.  The latter doubtless occurred, but it is not easy to prove the fact.  What helped to cause such persécutions in the North, namely, the opposition made to the innovators by the upholders of the received official, scholastic system of nature, was of little or no weight in Italy.  loc: 3072

Tyrants and free cities in the fourteenth century treated the clergy at times with such sovereign contempt that very different matters from natural science went unpunished.  But when, with the fifteenth century, antiquity became the leading power in Italy, the breach it made in the old system was turned to account by every branch of secular science.  Humanism, nevertheless, attracted to itself the best strength of the nation, and thereby, no doubt, did injury to the inductive investigation of nature.  Here and there the Inquisition suddenly started into life, and punished or burned physicians as blasphemers or magicians.  In such cases it is hard to discover what was the true motive underlying the condemnation.  But even so, Italy, at the close of the fifteenth century, with Paolo Toscanelli, Luca Pacioli and Leonardo da Vinci, held incomparably the highest place among European nations in mathematics and the natural sciences, and the learned men of every country, even Regiomontanus and Copernicus, confessed themselves its pupils.  This glory survived the Counter-reformation, and even today the Italians would occupy the first place in this respect if circumstances had not made it impossible for the greatest minds to devote themselves to tranquil research. loc: 3082

A significant proof of the widespread interest in natural history is found in the zeal which showed itself at an early period for the collection and comparative study of plants and animals.  loc: 3090

By the end of the fifteenth century, however, true menageries (serragli), now reckoned part of the suitable appointments of a court, were kept by many of the princes.  loc: 3111

A practical fruit of these zoological studies was the establishment of studs, of which the Mantuan, under Francesco Gonzaga, was esteemed the first in Europe.  loc: 3117

Even human menageries were not wanting.  The famous Cardinal Ippolito Medici, bastard of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, kept at his strange court a troop of barbarians who talked no less than twenty different languages, and who were all of them perfect specimens of their races.  loc: 3124

Discovery of the Beauty of Landscape loc: 3132

The Italians are the first among modern peoples by whom the outward world was seen and felt as something beautiful. loc: 3133

To the Italian mind, at all events, nature had by this time lost its taint of sin, and had shaken off all trace of demoniacal powers.  Saint Francis of Assisi, in his Hymn to the Sun, frankly praises the Lord for creating the heavenly bodies and the four elements. loc: 3150

But the unmistakable proofs of a deepening effect of nature on the human spirit begin with Dante.  Not only does he awaken in us by a few vigorous lines the sense of the morning air and the trembling light on the distant ocean, or of the grandeur of the storm-beaten forest, but he makes the ascent of lofty peaks, with the only possible object of enjoying the view—­the first man, perhaps, since the days of antiquity who did so.  loc: 3152

But the significance of nature for a receptive spirit is fully and clearly displayed by Petrarch—­one of the first truly modern men.  loc: 3156

Petrarch was not only a distinguished geographer—­the first map of Italy is said to have been drawn by his direction—­and not only a reproducer of the sayings of the ancients, but felt himself the influence of natural beauty.  loc: 3159

A description of the view from the summit would be looked for in vain, not because the poet was insensible to it, but, on the contrary, because the impression was too overwhelming.  His whole past life, with all its follies, rose before his mind; he remembered that ten years ago that day he had quitted Bologna a young man, and turned a longing gaze towards his native country; he opened a book which then was his constant companion, the ‘Confessions’ of St. Augustine, and his eye fell on the passage in the tenth chapter, ’and men go forth, and admire lofty mountains and broad seas, and roaring torrents, and the ocean, and the course of the stars, and forget their own selves while doing so.’  loc: 3174

In the fifteenth century, the great masters of the Flemish school, Hubert and Jan van Eyck, suddenly lifted the veil from nature.  Their landscapes are not merely the fruit of an endeavor to reflect the real world in art, but have, even if expressed conventionally, a certain poetical meaning—­in short, a soul.  loc: 3184

On this point, as in the scientific description of nature, Aeneas Sylvius is again one of the most weighty voices of his time.  Even if we grant the justice of all that has been said against his character, we must nevertheless admit that in few other men was the picture of the age and its culture so fully reflected, and that few came nearer to the normal type of the men of the early Renaissance.  loc: 3188

He here claims our attention as the first who not only enjoyed the magnificence of the Italian landscape, but described it with enthusiasm down to its minutest details.  loc: 3192

The second great age of Italian poetry, which now followed at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries, as well as the Latin poetry of the same period, is rich in proofs of the powerful effect of nature on the human mind.  loc: 3224

Discovery of Man loc: 3241

To the discovery of the outward world the Renaissance added a still greater achievement, by first discerning and bringing to light the full, whole nature of man.  loc: 3241

Happily the study of the intellectual side of human nature began, not with the search after a theoretical psychology—­for that, Aristotle still sufficed—­but with the endeavor to observe and to describe.  The indispensable ballast of theory was limited to the popular doctrine of the four temperaments, in its then habitual union with the belief in the influence of the planets.  loc: 3251

Thus the world of Italian sentiment comes before us in a series of pictures, clear, concise, and most effective in their brevity.  loc: 3287

Even apart from the ‘Divine Comedy,’ Dante would have marked by these youthful poems the boundary between medievalism and modern times.  The human spirit had taken a mighty step towards the consciousness of its own secret life. loc: 3308

The question, be it remembered, is not to know whether eminent men of other nations did not feel as deeply and as nobly, but who first gave documentary proof of the widest knowledge of the movements of the human heart. loc: 3343

Biography and in the in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance loc: 3505

Under the influence of the prevailing conception of fame an art of comparative biography arose which no longer found it necessary, like Anastasius, Agnellus, and their successors, or like the biographers of the Venetian doges, to adhere to a dynastic or ecclesiastical succession.  It felt itself free to describe a man if and because he was remarkable.  loc: 3520

The first great original effort is the life of Dante by Boccaccio.  Lightly and rhetorically written, and full, as it is, of arbitrary fancies, this work nevertheless gives us a lively sense of the extraordinary features in Dante’s nature.  Then follow, at the end of the fourteenth century, the ‘vite’ of illustrious Florentines, by Filippo Villani.  loc: 3526

A profound self-analysis is not to be looked for in the ‘Commentaries’ of Pius II.  What we here learn of him as a man seems at first sight to be chiefly confined to the account which he gives of the various steps in his career.  But further reflection will lead us to a different conclusion with regard to this remarkable book.  There are men who are by nature mirrors of what surrounds them.  It would be irrelevant to ask incessantly after their convictions, their spiritual struggles, their inmost victories and achievements.  Aeneas Sylvius lived wholly in the interest which lay near, without troubling himself about the problems and contradictions of life.  His Catholic orthodoxy gave him all the help of this kind which he needed.  And at all events, after taking part in every intellectual movement which interested his age, and notably furthering some of them, he still at the close of his earthly course retained character enough to preach a crusade against the Turks, and to die of grief when it came to nothing. loc: 3566

Nor is the autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, any more than that of Pius II, founded on introspection.  And yet it describes the whole man—­ not always willingly—­with marvelous truth and completeness.  loc: 3573

He is a man who can do all and dares do all, and who carries his measure in himself.  Whether we like him or not, he lives, such as he was, as a significant type of the modern spirit. loc: 3578

But from the first the Italians surpassed all others in their quick apprehension of the mental differences among cities and populations.  Their local patriotism, stronger probably than in any other medieval people, soon found expression in literature, and allied itself with the current conception of ‘Fame.’  Topography became the counterpart of biography; while all the more important cities began to celebrate their own praises in prose and verse, writers appeared who made the chief towns and districts the subject partly of a serious comparative description, partly of satire, and sometimes of notices in which jest and earnest are not easy to be distinguished.  loc: 3635

Description of the Outward Man loc: 3659

But something must here be said of that universal education of the eye, which rendered the judgement of the Italians as to bodily beauty or ugliness perfect and final. On reading the Italian authors of that period attentively, we are astounded at the keenness and accuracy with which outward features are seized, and at the completeness with which personal appearance in general is described.  loc: 3663

Description of Human Life loc: 3718

The comical and satirical literature of the Middle Ages could not dispense with pictures of everyday events.  But it is another thing, when the Italians of the Renaissance dwelt on this picture for its own sake—­for its inherent interest—­ and because it forms part of that great, universal life of the world whose magic breath they felt everywhere around them.  loc: 3720

And here we are again met by the man who had a heart for everything—­ Aeneas Sylvius.  Not only natural beauty, not only that which has an antiquarian or a geographical interest, finds a place in his descriptions, but any living scene of daily life.  loc: 3731

But by the side of all this there appeared in Italian poetry, towards the close of the fifteenth century, signs of a more realistic treatment of rustic life.  This was not possible out of Italy; for here only did the peasant, whether laborer or proprietor, possess human dignity, personal freedom, and the right of settlement, hard as his lot might sometimes be in other respects.  loc: 3748

everywhere there was a human stream flowing from the country into the cities, and some mountain populations seemed born to supply this current.  loc: 3753

In the next part of this work we shall show how differences of birth had lost their significance in Italy.  Much of this was doubtless owing to the fact that men and mankind were here first thoroughly and profoundly understood.  This one single result of the Renaissance is enough to fill us with everlasting thankfulness.  The logical notion of humanity was old enough—­but here the notion became a fact. loc: 3780

The loftiest conceptions on this subject were uttered by Pico della Mirandola in his Speech on the Dignity of Man, which may justly be called one of the noblest of that great age.  God, he tells us, made man at the close of the creation, to know the laws of the universe, to love its beauty, to admire its greatness.  He bound him to no fixed place, to no prescribed form of work, and by no iron necessity, but gave him freedom to will and to love.  loc: 3783

ever.  To thee alone is given a growth and a development depending on thine own free will.  Thou bearest in thee the germs of a universal life.’ loc: 3790

Part Five: SOCIETY AND FESTIVALS loc: 3791

Equality of Classes loc: 3791

Italian customs at the time of the Renaissance offer in these respects the sharpest contrasts to medievalism.  The foundation on which they rest is wholly different.  Social intercourse in its highest and most perfect form now ignored all distinctions of caste, and was based simply on the existence of an educated class as we now understand the word.  Birth and origin were without influence, unless combined with leisure and inherited wealth.  loc: 3794

But the main current of the time went steadily towards the fusion of classes in the modern sense of the phrase. loc: 3799

The fact was of vital importance that, from certainly the twelfth century onwards, the nobles and the burghers dwelt together within the walls of the cities.  The interests and pleasures of both classes were thus identified, and the feudal lord learned to look at society from another point of view than that of his mountain castle.  loc: 3800

In the age of despots and absolute princes which followed, the nobility in most of the cities had the motives and the leisure to give themselves up to a private life free from the political danger and adorned with all that was elegant and enjoyable, but at the same time hardly distinguishable from that of the wealthy burgher.  And after the time of Dante, when the new poetry and literature were in the hands of all Italy, when to this was added the revival of ancient culture and the new interest in man as such, when the successful Condottiere became a prince, and not only good birth, but legitimate birth, ceased to be indispensable for a throne, it might well seem that the age of equality had dawned, and the belief in nobility vanished for ever. loc: 3806

And in the ‘Convito’ he disconnects ‘nobile’ and ‘nobilita’ from every condition of birth, and identifies the idea with the capacity for moral and intellectual eminence, laying a special stress on high culture by calling ‘nobilita’ the sister of ‘filosofia.’ loc: 3815

And as time went on, the greater the influence of humanism on the Italian mind, the firmer and more widespread became the conviction that birth decides nothing as to the goodness or badness of a man.  In the fifteenth century this was the prevailing opinion.  loc: 3817

there is no other nobility than that of personal merit.  loc: 3820

Tournaments had not yet ceased to be practiced, and no one could take part in them who was not a knight.  But the combat in the lists, and especially the difficult and perilous tilting with the lance, offered a favourable opportunity for the display of strength, skill, and courage, which no one, whatever might be his origin, would willingly neglect in an age which laid such stress on personal merit. loc: 3865

But, great as were individual ambitions, and the vanities of nobles and knights, it remains a fact that the Italian nobility took its place in the centre of social life, and not at the extremity.  We find it habitually mixing with other classes on a footing of perfect equality, and seeking its natural allies in culture and intelligence.  loc: 3882

nor did it follow from this rule that the prince was limited to the nobility for his society.  It meant simply that the perfect man—­the true courtier—­should not be wanting in any conceivable advantage, and therefore not in this.  If in all the relations of life he was specially bound to maintain a dignified and reserved demeanor, the reason was not found in the blood which flowed in h-s veins, but in the perfection of manner which was demanded from him.  loc: 3887

Costumes and Fashions loc: 3892

It is nevertheless beyond a doubt that nowhere was so much importance attached to dress as in Italy.  The nation was, and is, vain; and even serious men among it looked on a handsome and becoming costume as an element in the perfection of the individual.  loc: 3900

In other respects also, the ‘Galateo’ is a graceful and in- telligent guide to good manners—­a school of tact and delicacy.  Even now it may be read with no small profit by people of all classes, and the politeness of European nations is not likely to outgrow its precepts.  So far as tact is an affair of the heart, it has been inborn in some men from the dawn of civilization, and acquired through force of will by others; but the Italians were the first to recognize it as a universal social duty and a mark of culture and education.  loc: 3947

Language and Society loc: 3965

If we are to take the writers of dialogues literally, the loftiest problems of human existence were not excluded from the conversation of thinking men, and the production of noble thoughts was not, as was commonly the case in the North, the work of solitude, but of society.  loc: 4026

Social Etiquette loc: 4029

The most famous woman of Italy, Vittoria Colonna (b. 1490, d. 1547), the friend of Castiglioni and Michelangelo, enjoyed the reputation of a saint.  It is hard to give such a picture of the unconstrained intercourse of these circles in the city, at the baths, or in the country, as will furnish literal proof of the superiority of Italy in this respect over the rest of Europe.  loc: 4055

No doubt the supreme achievements of the human mind were then produced independently of the help of the drawing-room.  Yet it would be unjust to rate the influence of the latter on art and poetry too low, if only for the reason that society helped to shape that which existed in no other country—­a widespread interest in artistic production and an intelligent and critical public opinion.  And apart from this, society of the kind we have described was in itself a natural flower of that life and culture which was then purely Italian, and which since then has extended to the rest of Europe. loc: 4059

Education of the ‘Cortigiano’ loc: 4076

It was for this society—­or rather for his own sake—­that the ‘Cortigiano,’ as described to us by Castiglione, educated himself.  He was the ideal man of society, and was regarded by the civili- zation of that age as its choicest flower; and the court existed for him rather than he for the court.  loc: 4076

Among outward accomplishments, the so-called knightly exercises were expected in thorough perfection from the courtier, and besides these much that could only exist at courts highly organized and based on personal emulation, such as were not to be found out of Italy.  Other points obviously rest on an abstract notion of individual perfection.  The courtier must be at home in all noble sports, among them running, leaping, swimming and wrestling; he must, above all things, be a good dancer and, as a matter of course, an accomplished rider.  He must be master of several languages, at all events of Latin and Italian; he must be familiar with literature and have some knowledge of the fine arts.  In music a certain practical skill was expected of him, which he was bound, nevertheless, to keep as secret as possible.  All this is not to be taken too seriously, except what relates to the use of arms.  The mutual interaction of these gifts and accomplishments results in the perfect man, in whom no one quality usurps the place of the rest. loc: 4089

So much is certain, that in the sixteenth century the Italians had all Europe for their pupils both theoretically and practically in every noble bodily exercise and in the habits and manners of good society.  loc: 4096

But we may infer, not only from the general character of the people, but from positive evidence which has been left for us, that not only strength and skill, but grace of movement was one of the main objects of physical training.  loc: 4101

Equality of Men and Women loc: 4144

To understand the higher forms of social intercourse at this period, we must keep before our minds the fact that women stood on a footing of perfect equality with men.  loc: 4145

There is, indeed, a certain amount of truth in what he says.  Just because the educated woman was on a level with the man, that communion of mind and heart which comes from the sense of mutual dépendance and completion, could not be developed in marriage at this time, as it has been developed later in the cultivated society of the North. loc: 4148

The education given to women in the upper classes was essentially the same as that given to men.  The Italian, at the time of the Renaissance, felt no scruple in putting sons and daughters alike under the same course of literary and even philological instruction.  loc: 4150

For, with education, the individuality of women in the upper classes was developed in the same way as that of men.  Till the time of the Reformation, the personality of women out of Italy, even of the highest rank, comes forward but little.  loc: 4160

The same intellectual and emotional development which perfected the man, was demanded for the perfection of the woman.  loc: 4167

Even the intercourse with courtesans seems to have assumed a more elevated character, reminding us of the position of the Hetairae in classical Athens.  The famous Roman courtesan Imperia was a woman of intelligence and culture, had learned from a certain Domenico Campana the art of making sonnets, and was not without musical accomplishments.  The beautiful Isabella de Luna, of Spanish extraction, who was reckoned amusing company, seems to have been an odd compound of a kind heart with a shockingly foul tongue, which latter sometimes brought her into trouble.  At Milan, Bandello knew the majestic Caterina di San Celso, who played and sang and recited superbly.  It is clear from all we read on the subject that the distinguished people who visited these women, and from time to time lived with them, demanded from them a considerable degree of intelligence and instruction, and that the famous courtesans were treated with no slight respect and consideration.  loc: 4184

Domestic Life loc: 4202

For the moment we must content ourselves with pointing out that conjugal infidelity has by no means so disastrous an influence on family life in Italy as in the North, so long at least as certain limits are not overstepped. loc: 4204

The spirit of the Renaissance first brought order into domestic life, treating it as a work of deliberate contrivance.  Intelligent economical views, and a rational style of domestic architecture served to promote this end.  But the chief cause of the change was the thoughtful study of all questions relating to social intercourse, to education, to domestic service and organization. loc: 4209

A considerable landed estate, whose produce furnishes the table of the house, and serves as the basis of the family fortune, is combined with some industrial pursuit, such as the weaving of wool or silk.  The dwelling is solid and the food good.  All that has to do with the plan and arrangement of the house is great, durable and costly, but the daily life within it is as simple as possible.  loc: 4215

Nothing is considered of so much importance as education, which the head of the house gives not only to the children, but to the whole household.  loc: 4219

One feature of that book must be referred to, which is by no means peculiar to it, but which it treats with special warmth—­ the love of the educated Italian for country life.  In northern countries the nobles lived in the country in their castles, and the monks of the higher orders in their well-guarded monasteries, while the wealthiest burghers dwelt from one year’s end to another in the cities.  But in Italy, so far as the neighbourhood of certain towns at all events was concerned, the security of life and property was so great, and the passion for a country residence was so strong, that men were willing to risk a loss in time of war.  Thus arose the villa, the country-house of the well-to-do citizen.  This precious inheritance of the old Roman world was thus revived, as soon as the wealth and culture of the people were sufficiently advanced. loc: 4223

The economical side of the matter is that one and the same property must, if possible, contain everything- corn, wine, oil, pastureland and woods, and that in such cases the property was paid for well, since nothing needed then to be got from the market.  loc: 4229

Festivals loc: 4238

The two chief forms of festal display were originally here, as elsewhere in the West, the Mystery, or the dramatization of sacred history and legend, and the Procession, the motive and character of which was also purely ecclesiastical. loc: 4246

Part Six: MORALITY AND RELIGION loc: 4496

Morality and Judgement loc: 4497

Morality and Immorality loc: 4517

it was Machiavelli, who, in one of his best-considered works, said openly:  ’We Italians are irreligious and corrupt above others.’  Another man would perhaps have said, ’We are individually highly developed; we have outgrown the limits of morality and religion which were natural to us in our undeveloped state, and we despise outward law, because our rulers are illegitimate, and their judges and officers wicked men.’  Machiavelli adds, ’because the Church and her representatives set us the worst example.’ loc: 4520

Shall we add also, ’because the influence exercised by antiquity was in this respect unfavorable’?  The statement can only be received with many qualifications.  It may possibly be true of the humanists, especially as regards the profligacy of their lives.  Of the rest it may perhaps be said with some approach to accuracy that, after they became familiar with antiquity, they substituted for holiness—­the Christian ideal of life—­the cult of historical greatness.  loc: 4524

Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that Italy at the beginning of the sixteenth century found itself in the midst of a grave moral crisis, out of which the best men saw hardly any escape. loc: 4532

Let us begin by saying a few words about that moral force which was then the strongest bulwark against evil.  The highly gifted man of that day thought to find it in the sentiment of honour.  This is that enigmatic mixture of conscience and egotism which often survives in the modern man after he has lost, whether by his own fault or not, faith, love, and hope.  This sense of honour is compatible with much selfishness and great vices, and may be the victim of astonishing illusions; yet, nevertheless, all the noble elements that are left in the wreck of a character may gather around it, and from this fountain may draw new strength.  loc: 4534

’who esteems honour highly succeeds in all that he undertakes, since he fears neither trouble, danger, nor expense; I have found it so in my own case, and may say it and write it; vain and dead are the deeds of men which have not this as their motive.’  loc: 4546

This is that same faith in the goodness of human nature which inspired the men of the second half of the eighteenth century, and helped to prepare the way for the French Revolution.  loc: 4554

A force which we must constantly take into account in judging of the morality of the more highly developed Italian of this period, is that of the imagination.  loc: 4560

It was to the imagination of the Italians that the peculiar character of their vengeance was due.  The sense of justice was, indeed, one and the same throughout Europe, and any violation of it, so long as no punishment was inflicted, must have been felt in the same manner.  But other nations, though they found it no easier to forgive, nevertheless forgot more easily, while the Italian imagination kept the picture of the wrong alive with frightful vividness.  The fact that, according to the popular morality, the avenging of blood is a duty—­a duty often performed in a way to make us shudder—­gives to this passion a peculiar and still firmer basis.  The government and the tribunals recognize its existence and justification, and only attempt to keep it within certain limits.  loc: 4572

And such ‘vendette,’ handed down from father to son, and extending to friends and distant relations, were not limited to the lower classes, but reached to the highest.  The chronicles and novels of the period are full of such instances, especially of vengeance taken for the violation of women.  loc: 4584

This personal need of vengeance felt by the cultivated and highly placed Italian, resting on the solid basis of an analogous popular custom, naturally displays itself under a thousand different aspects, and receives the unqualified approval of public opinion, as reflected in the works of the novelists.  All are at one on the point that, in the case of those injuries and insults for which Italian justice offered no redress, and all the more in the case of those against which no human law can ever adequately provide, each man is free to take the law into his own hands.  Only there must be art in the vengeance, and the satisfaction must be compounded of the material injury and moral humiliation of the offender.  loc: 4602

In these he attempted to deceive neither himself nor others.  Accordingly, revenge was declared with perfect frankness to be a necessity of human nature.  Cool-headed people declared that it was then most worthy of praise when it was disengaged from passion, and worked simply from motives of expedience, ’in order that other men may learn to leave us unharmed.’  loc: 4609

What seems characteristic of Italy at this time, is that here marriage and its rights were more often and more deliberately trampled underfoot than anywhere else.  The girls of the higher classes were carefully secluded, and of them we do not speak.  All passion was directed to the married women. loc: 4631

The opinion mentioned above of the equality of the two sexes is of great importance in relation to this subject.  The highly developed and cultivated woman disposes of herself with a freedom unknown in Northern countries; and her unfaithfulness does not break up her life in the same terrible manner, so long as no outward consequences follow from it.  The husband’s claim on her fidelity has not that firm foundation which it acquires in the North through the poetry and passion of courtship and betrothal.  After the briefest acquaintance with her future husband, the young wife quits the convent or the paternal roof to enter upon a world in which her character begins rapidly to develop.  loc: 4648

The latter seems indeed as good as justified when there is unfaithfulness on the part of the husband.  The woman, conscious of her own dignity, feels this not only as a pain, but also as a humiliation and deceit, and sets to work, often with the calmest consciousness of what she is about, to devise the vengeance which the husband deserves.  loc: 4656

Where these motives are absent, where his wife’s unfaithfulness exposes him or may expose him to the derision of outsiders, the affair becomes tragical, and not seldom ends in murder or other vengeance of a violent sort.  It is characteristic of the real motive from which these deeds arise, that not only the husbands, but the brothers and the father of the woman feel themselves not only justified in taking vengeance, but bound to take it.  Jealousy, therefore, has nothing to do with the matter, moral reprobation but little; the real reason is the wish to spoil the triumph of others.  loc: 4663

In the imagination then, which governed this people more than any other, lies one general reason why the course of every passion was violent, and why the means used for the gratification of passion were often criminal.  There is a violence which cannot control itself because it is born of weakness; but in Italy we find what is the corruption of powerful natures.  Sometimes this corruption assumes a colossal shape, and crime seems to acquire almost a personal existence of its own. loc: 4714

The restraints of which men were conscious were but few.  Each individual, even among the lowest of the people, felt himself inwardly emancipated from the control of the State and its police, whose title to respect was illegitimate, and itself founded on violence; and no man believed any longer in the justice of the law.  loc: 4718

But one thing is certain, that premeditated crimes, committed professionally and for hire by third parties, occurred in Italy with great and appalling frequency. loc: 4740

A worse symptom than brigandage of the morality of that time was the frequency of paid assassination.  In that respect Naples was admitted to stand at the head of all the cities of Italy.  ‘Nothing,’ says Pontano, ‘is cheaper here than human life.’  loc: 4761

The thirst for blood on its own account, the devilish delight in destruction, is most clearly exemplified in the case of the Spaniard Cesare Borgia, whose cruelties were certainly out of all proportion to the end which he had in view.  In Sigismondo Malatesta, tyrant of Rimini, the same disinterested love of evil may also be detected.  loc: 4802

If we now attempt to sum up the principal features in the Italian character of that time, as we know it from a study of the life of the upper classes, we shall obtain something like the following result.  The fundamental vice of this character was at the same time a condition of its greatness, namely, excessive individualism.  The individual first inwardly casts off the authority of a State which, as a fact, is in most cases tyrannical and illegitimate, and what he thinks and does is, rightly or wrongly, now called treason.  The sight of victorious egotism in others drives him to defend his own right by his own arm.  And, while thinking to restore his inward equilibrium, he falls, through the vengeance which he executes, into the hands of the powers of darkness.  His love, too, turns mostly for satisfaction to another individuality equally developed, namely, to his neighbor’s wife.  In face of all objective facts, of laws and restraints of whatever kind, he retains the feeling of his own sovereignty, and in each single instance forms his decision independently, according as honour or interest, passion or calculation, revenge or renunciation, gain the upper hand in his own mind. loc: 4808

Religion in Daily Life loc: 4825

It is nevertheless true that the monks were the most unpopular class of all, and that they were reckoned a living proof of the worthlessness of conventual life, of the whole ecclesiastical organization, of the system of dogma, and of religion altogether, according as men pleased, rightly or wrongly, to draw their conclusions.  loc: 4859

And that spiritual police which was permanently entrusted to the Dominicans certainly never excited any other feeling than secret hatred and contempt. loc: 4864

A splendid contrast to all this is offered by the power exercised over the nation by its great Preachers of Repentance.  Other countries of Europe were from time to time moved by the words of saintly monks, but only superficially, in comparison with the periodical upheaval of the Italian conscience.  loc: 4949

This impression consisted chiefly in the awakening of the conscience.  The sermons were moral exhortations free from abstract notions and full of practical application, rendered more impressive by the saintly and ascetic character of the preacher, and by the miracles which, even against his will, the inflamed imagination of the people attributed to him.  loc: 4955

The most immediate consequences which follow from the preacher’s denunciations of usury, luxury, and scandalous fashions, are the opening of the gaols—­which meant no more than the discharge of the poorest debtors—­and the burning of various instruments of luxury and amusement, whether innocent or not.  Among these are dice, cards, games of all kinds, written incantations, masks, musical instruments, song-books, false hair, and so forth.  All these would then be gracefully arranged on a scaffold (’talamo’), a figure of the devil fastened to the top, and then the whole set on fire. loc: 4977

But the most important aim of the preacher was, as has been already said, to reconcile enemies and persuade them to give up thoughts of vengeance.  loc: 4989

It appears that these ‘Paci’ were on the whole faithfully observed, even after the mood which prompted them was over; and then the memory of the monk was blessed from generation to generation.  loc: 4993

During the decades in which the fate of Italy was decided, the spirit of prophecy was unusually active, and nowhere where it displayed itself was it confined to any one particular class.  loc: 5012

The eloquence of Savonarola was the expression of a lofty and commanding personality, the like of which was not seen again till the time of Luther.  He himself held his own influence to be the result of a divine illumination, and could therefore, without presumption, assign a very high place to the office of the preacher, loc: 5034

Fancy and asceticism tended more and more to produce in him a state of mind to which Florence appeared as the scene of the kingdom of God upon earth. loc: 5045

He only undertook the reorganization of the State for the reason that otherwise his enemies would have got the government into their own hands.  loc: 5059

He was at bottom the most unsuitable man who could be found for such a work.  His idea was a theocracy, in which all men were to bow in blessed humility before the Unseen, and all conflicts of passion wert not even to be able to arise.  loc: 5061

This temper comes out clearly in his opinions on ancient literature:  ’The only good thing which we owe to Plato and Aristotle, is that they brought forward many arguments which we can use against the heretics.  Yet they and other philosophers are now in Hell.  An old woman knows more about the Faith than Plato.  It would be good for religion if many books that seem useful were destroyed.  When there were not so many books and not so many arguments ("ragioni naturali”) and disputes, religion grew more quickly than it has done since.’  loc: 5066

he admits that science as a whole is harmful.  loc: 5072

How mighty must have been the soul which dwelt side by side with this narrow intellect!  And what a flame must have glowed within him before he could constrain the Florentines, possessed as they were by the passion for knowledge and culture, to surrender themselves to a man who could thus reason! loc: 5080

How much of their heart and their worldliness they were ready to sacrifice for his sake is shown by those famous bonfires by the side of which all the ‘talami’ of Bernardino da Siena and others were certainly of small account. loc: 5082

On the last day of the Carnival in the year 1497, and on the same day the year after, the great ‘Auto da Fe’ took place on the Piazza della Signoria.  In the center of it rose a high pyramid of several tiers, like the ‘rogus’ on which the Roman Emperors were commonly burned.  On the lowest tier were arranged false beards, masks, and carnival disguises; above came volumes of the Latin and Italian poets, among others Boccaccio, the ‘Morgante’ of Pulci, and Petrarch, partly in the form of valuable printed parchments and illuminated manuscripts; then women’s ornaments and toilet articles, scents, mirrors, veils and false hair; higher up, lutes, harps, chessboards, playing-cards; and finally, on the two uppermost tiers, paintings only, especially of female beauties, loc: 5090

When the pile was lighted, the Signoria appeared on the balcony, and the air echoed with song, the sound of trumpets, and the pealing of bells.  The people then adjourned to the Piazza di San Marco, where they danced round in three concentric circles.  loc: 5098

The more tragic the fortunes of Italy became, the brighter grew the halo which in the recollection of the survivors surrounded the figure of the great monk and prophet.  Though his predictions may not have been confirmed in detail, the great and general calamity which he foretold was fulfilled with appalling truth. loc: 5103

Strength of the Old Faith loc: 5107

Yet an absolute and positive result cannot be reached.  We meet with contrasts hard to explain.  While architects, painters, and sculptors were working with restless activity in and for the churches, we hear at the beginning of the sixteenth century the bitterest complaints of the neglect of public worship and of these churches themselves. loc: 5173

It is to this excess of imagination that we must attribute the epidemic of religious revivals upon which we shall again say a few words.  They must be clearly distinguished from the excitement called forth by the great preachers.  They were rather due to general public calamities, or to the dread of such. loc: 5178

In the Middle Ages all Europe was from time to time flooded by these great tides, which carried away whole peoples in their waves.  The Crusades and the Flagellant revival are instances.  Italy took part in both of these movements.  The first great companies of flagellants appeared, immediately after the fall of Ezzelino and his house, in the neighbourhood of the same Perugia which has been already spoken of as the headquarters of the revivalist preachers.  Then followed the flagellants of 1310 and 1334, and then the great pilgrimage without encouraging in the year 1349, which Corio has recorded.  It is not impossible that the Jubilees were founded partly in order to regulate and render harmless this sinister passion for vagabondage which seized on the whole populations at times of religious excitement.  loc: 5180

But terrible crises had still at a much later time the power to reawaken the glow of mediaeval penitence, and the conscience — stricken people, often still further appalled by signs and wonders, sought to move the pity of Heaven by wailings and scourgings.  loc: 5186

Religion and the Spirit of the Renaissance loc: 5217

But their powerful individuality made them in religion, as in other matters, altogether subjective, and the intense charm which the discovery of the inner and outer universe exercised upon them rendered them markedly worldly.  loc: 5220

Further, the close and frequent relations of Italy with Byzantium and the Mohammedan peoples had produced a dispassionate tolerance which weakened the ethnographical conception of a privileged Christendom.  And when classical antiquity with its men and institutions became an ideal of life) as well as the greatest of historical memories, ancient speculation and skepticism obtained in many cases a complete mastery over the minds of Italians.  loc: 5224

Since, again, the Italians were the first modern people of Europe who gave themselves boldly to speculations on freedom and necessity, and since they did so under violent and lawless political circumstances, in which evil seemed often to win a splendid and lasting victory, their belief in God began to waver, and their view of the government of the world became fatalistic.  And when their passionate natures refused to rest in the sense of uncertainty, they made a shift to help themselves out with ancient, Oriental, or medieval superstition.  They took to astrology and magic. loc: 5227

To the study of man, among many other causes, was due the tolerance and indifference with which the Mohammedan religion was regarded.  The knowledge and admiration of the remarkable civilization which Islam, particularly before the Mongol inundation, had attained, was peculiar to Italy from the time of the Crusades.  loc: 5253

His God leaves all the details of the world’s government to a deputy, Fortune, whose sole work it is to change and change again all earthly things, and who can disregard the wailings of men in unalterable beatitude.  Nevertheless, Dante does not for a moment fail to insist on the moral responsibility of man; he believes in free will.  loc: 5311

The fourteenth century was chiefly stimulated by the writings of Cicero, who, though in fact an eclectic, yet, by his habit of setting forth the opinions of different schools, without coming to a decision between them, exercised the influence of a skeptic.  Next in importance came Seneca, and the few works of Aristotle which had been translated into Latin.  The immediate fruit of these studies was the capacity to reflect on great subjects, if not in direct opposition to the authority of the Church, at all events independently of it. loc: 5323

In the course of the fifteenth century the works of antiquity were discovered and diffused with extraordinary rapidity.  All the writings of the Greek philosophers which we ourselves possess were now, at least in the form of Latin translations, in everybody’s hands.  It is a curious fact that some of the most zealous apostles of this new culture were men of the strictest piety, or even ascetics.  loc: 5327

The result of all these tendencies was that the Platonic Academy at Florence deliberately chose for its object the reconciliation of the spirit of antiquity with that of Christianity.  It was a remarkable oasis in the humanism of the period. loc: 5334

If they sought for any leading principle, it must have been a kind of superficial rationalism—­a careless inference from the many and contradictory opinions of antiquity with which they busied themselves, and from the discredit into which the Church and her doctrines had fallen loc: 5340

Through the connexion of rationalism with the newly born science of historical investigation, some timid attempts at biblical criticism may here and there have been made.  loc: 5360

Influence of Ancient Superstition loc: 5406

But when the belief in immortality began to waver, then Fatalism got the upper hand, or sometimes the latter came first and had the former as its consequence. The gap thus opened was in the first place filled by the astrology of antiquity, or even of the Arabs.  loc: 5412

At the beginning of the thirteenth century this superstition suddenly appeared in the foreground of Italian life.  loc: 5419

The influence of astrology in war was confirmed by the fact that nearly all the Condottieri believed in it.  loc: 5463

In the circle of Lorenzo the Magnificent, among his most distinguished Platonists, opinions were divided on this question.  Marsilio Ficino defended astrology, and drew the horoscope of the children of the house, promising the little Giovanni, afterwards Leo X, that he would one day be Pope.  Pico della Mirandola, on the other hand, made an epoch in the subject by his famous refutation.  He detects in this belief the root of all impiety and immorality.  If the astrologer, he maintains, believes in anything at all, he must worship not God, but the planets, from which all good and evil are derived.  loc: 5496

But his main achievement was to set forth, in the Fourth Book, a positive Christian doctrine of the freedom of the will and the government of the universe, which seems to have made a greater impression on the educated classes throughout Italy than all the revivalist preachers put together.  The latter, in fact, often failed to reach these classes. loc: 5503

The first result of his book was that the astrologers ceased to publish their doctrines, and those who had already printed them were more or less ashamed of what they had done.  loc: 5505

General Spirit of Doubt loc: 5780

With these superstitions, as with ancient modes of thought generally, the decline in the belief of immortality stands in the closest connection.  loc: 5780

These are the men of whom Ariosto says:  ‘Their faith goes no higher than the roof.’  In Italy, and especially in Florence, it was possible to live as an open and notorious unbeliever, if a man only refrained from direct acts of hostility against the Church.  loc: 5785

If unbelief in this respect made such progress among the more highly cultivated natures, the reason lay partly in the fact that the great earthly task of discovering the world and representing it in word and form, absorbed most of the higher spiritual faculties.  We have already spoken of the inevitable worldliness of the Renaissance.  But this investigation and this art were necessarily accompanied by a general spirit of doubt and inquiry.  loc: 5813

It cannot but be recognized that such views of the state of man after death partly presuppose and partly promote the dissolution of the most essential dogmas of Christianity.  The notion of sin and of salvation must have almost entirely evaporated.  loc: 5858

The passive and contemplative form of Christianity, with its constant reference to a higher world beyond the grave, could no longer control these men.  Machiavelli ventured still further, and maintained that it could not be serviceable to the State and to the maintenance of public freedom. loc: 5867

The form assumed by the strong religious instinct which, notwithstanding all, survived in many natures, was Theism or Deism, as we may please to call it.  The latter name may be applied to that mode of thought which simply wiped away the Christian element out of religion, without either seeking or finding any other substitute for the feelings to rest upon.  loc: 5869

One chief centre of theistic modes of thought lay in the Platonic Academy at Florence, and especially in Lorenzo il Magnifico himself.  loc: 5888

But in the hymns of Lorenzo, which we are tempted to regard as the highest product of the spirit of this school, an unreserved Theism is set forth a Theism which strives to treat the world as a great moral and physical Cosmos. loc: 5891

here, in this circle of chosen spirits, the doctrine is upheld that the visible world was created by God in love, that it is the copy of a pattern pre-existing in Him, and that He will ever remain its eternal mover and restorer.  The soul of man can by recognizing God draw Him into its narrow boundaries, but also by love of Him expand itself into the Infinite—­and this is blessedness on earth. loc: 5894

One of the most precious fruits of the knowledge of the world and of man here comes to maturity, on whose account alone the Italian Renaissance must be called the leader of modern ages. loc: 5898