the wrath of God, and that the way was now open for an amelioration of manners and laws.[1] No force of arms could prevent the Holy City from returning to a better life, and proving that the Christian priesthood was not a mere mockery and sham.[2] In truth the Counter-Reformation may be said to date historically from 1527.
[1] It was universally recognized in Italy that the sack of Rome was a punishment inflicted by Providence upon the godless city. Without quoting great authorities like Sadoleto or the Bishop of Fossombrone, one of whose letters gives a really awful picture of Roman profligacy (Opere di M.G. Guidiccioni, Barbera, vol. i. p. 193), we find abundant testimony to this persuasion regarding the intolerible vice of Rome, even in men devoid of moral conscience. Aretino (La Cortegiana, end of Act i. Sc. xxiii.) writes: 'Io mic redeva che il castigo, che l' ha dato Cristo per mano degli Spagnuoli, l'avesse fatta migliore, et è più scellerata che mai.' Bandello (Novelle, Parte ii. xxxvii.) alluding to the sack, remarks in a parenthesis, 'benche i peccati di quella città meritassero esser castigati.' After adducing two such witnesses, it would weaken the case to cite Trissino or Vettori, both of whom expressed themselves with force upon the iniquities of Papal Rome.
[2] Compare Lettere de' Princ. ii. 77; Cardinal Cajetanus, and other testimonies quoted by Greg. Stadt Rom, vol. viii. pp. 568, 578.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE CHURCH AND MORALITY.
Corruption of the Church—Degradation and Division of Italy—Opinions of Machiavelli, Guicciardini, and King Ferdinand of Naples—Incapacity of the Italians for thorough Reformation—The Worldliness and Culture of the Renaissance—Witness of Italian Authors against the Papal Court and the Convents—Superstitious Respect for Relics—Separation between Religion and Morality—Mixture of Contempt and Reverence for the Popes—Gianpaolo Baglioni—Religious Sentiments of the Tyrannicides—Pietro Paolo Boscoli—Tenacity of Religions—The direct Interest of the Italians in Rome—Reverence for the Sacraments of the Church—Opinions pronounced by Englishmen on Italian Immorality—Bad Faith and Sensuality—The Element of the Fancy in Italian Vice—The Italians not Cruel, or Brutal, or Intemperate by Nature—Domestic Murders—Sense of Honor in Italy—Onore and Onesta—General Refinement—Good Qualities of the People—Religious Revivalism.
The corruption of the Papal Court involved a corresponding moral weakness throughout Italy. This makes the history of the Popes of the Renaissance important precisely in those details which formed the subject of the preceding chapter. Morality and religion suffered an almost complete separation in the fifteenth century. The chiefs of the Church with cynical effrontery violated every tradition of Christ and the Apostles, so that the example of Rome was in some sense the justification of fraud, violence, lust, filthy living, and ungodliness to the whole nation.
The contradiction between the spiritual pretensions of the Popes and their actual worldliness was not so glaring to the men of the Renaissance, accustomed by long habit to the spectacle of this anomaly, as it is to us. Nor would it be scientific to imagine that any Italian in that age judged by moral standards similar to ours. Æsthetic propriety rather than strict conceptions of duty ruled the conduct even of the best, and it is wonderful to observe with what artless simplicity the worst sinners believed they might make peace in time of need with heaven. Yet there were not wanting profound thinkers who traced the national decay of the Italians to the corruption of the Church. Among these Machiavelli stands foremost. In a celebrated passage of the Discorsi,[1] after treating the whole subject of the connection between good government and religion, he breaks forth into this fiery criticism of the Papacy: 'Had the religion of Christianity been preserved according to the ordinances of its founder, the states and commonwealths of Christendom would have been far more united and far happier than they are. Nor is it possible to form a better estimate of its decay than by observing that, in proportion as we approach nearer to the Roman Church, the head of this religion, we find less piety prevail among the nations. Considering the primitive constitution of that Church, and noting how diverse are its present customs, we are forced to judge that without doubt either ruin or a scourge is now impending over it. And since some men are of opinion that the welfare of Italy depends upon the Church, I wish to put forth such arguments as occur to my mind to the contrary; and of these I will adduce two, which, as I think, are irrefutable. The first is this: that owing to the evil ensample of the Papal Court, Italy has lost all piety and all religion: whence follow infinite troubles and disorders; for as religion implies all good, so its absence implies the contrary. Consequently, to the Church and priests of Rome we Italians owe this obligation first—that we have become void of religion and corrupt. But we also owe them another, even greater, which is the cause of our ruin. I mean that the Church has maintained and still maintains Italy divided. Of a truth no province ever was united and prosperous, unless it were reduced beneath the sway of one republic or one monarch, as is the case with France and Spain. And the reason why Italy is not in this condition, but has neither commonwealth nor monarch for her head, is none other than the Church: for the Church, established in our midst and exercising a temporal authority, has never had the force or vigor to extend its sway over the whole country and to become the ruling power in Italy. Nor on the other hand has it been so feeble as not to be able, when afraid of losing its temporalities, to call in a foreign potentate, as a counterpoise in its defense against those powers which threatened to become supreme. Of the truth of this, past history furnishes many instances; as when, by the help of Charlemagne, the Popes expelled the Lombards; and when in our own days they humbled Venice by the aid of France, and afterwards drove out the French by calling in the Swiss. So then the Church, being on the one hand too weak to grasp the whole of Italy, and at the same time too jealous to allow another power to do so, has prevented our union beneath one head, and has kept us under scattered lords and princes. These have caused so much discord and debility that Italy has become the prey not only of powerful barbarians, but also of every assailant. And this we owe solely and entirely to the Church. In order to learn by experience the truth of what I say, one ought to be able to send the Roman Court, armed with like authority to that it wields in Italy, to take up its abode among the Swiss, who at the present moment are the only nation living, as regards religion and military discipline, according to the antique fashion; he would then see that the evil habits of that Court would in no long space of time create more disorders than any other misfortune that could arise there in any period whatever.' In this scientific and deliberate opinion pronounced by the profoundest thinker of the sixteenth century, the Papacy is accused of having caused both the moral depravation and the political disunion of Italy. The second of these points, which belongs to the general history of the Italian nation, might be illustrated abundantly: but one other sentence from the pen of Machiavelli exposes the ruinous and selfish policy of the Church more forcibly than could be done by copious examples:[2] 'In this way the Pontiffs at one time by love of their religion, at other times for the furtherance of their ambitious schemes, have never ceased to sow the seeds of disturbance and to call foreigners into Italy, spreading wars, making and unmaking princes, and preventing stronger potentates from holding the province they were too feeble to rule.'
[1] Lib. i. cap. 12.
[2] Ist. Fior. lib. i.
Guicciardini, commenting upon the Discorsi of Machiavelli, begins his gloss upon the passage I have just translated, with these emphatic words:[1] 'It would be impossible to speak so ill of the Roman Court