s, suits of armor of wrought steel, helmets
decorated with crests, tunics adorned with pearls, belts, precious
jewels set in gold, and great quantities of cloth of gold and crimson
stuff for the making of garments. Such was the profusion at this banquet
that the remnants taken from the table were more than enough to supply
ten thousand men." Not every heiress in Italy could have gloried in such
a wedding feast as the one given in honor of Violante Visconti, but the
wealth of these petty rulers was something almost incredible, and the
general prosperity of the common people passes belief. As has always
been the case under such circumstances, increasing wealth has brought
about increased expenditure, principally in matters of dress, and the
women in particular seem to have made the most of this opportunity.
Vanity and frivolity multiplied on every hand as a natural consequence;
the Church was growing daily less able to cope with the moral degeneracy
of the time on account of its own immoral condition; thus, the
foundations were being laid for those centuries of corruption and
national weakness which were soon to follow.

Chapter VII

Women in the Later Renaissance

The age of Lorenzo de' Medici--that bright fifteenth century--in the
history of the Italian peninsula was signalized by such achievement and
definite result in the intellectual emancipation of the minds of men,
art and poetry were given such an impetus and showed promise of such
full fruition, that he who would now conjure up the picture of that fair
day is well-nigh lost in wonderment and awe. But in this love of art and
worship of the beautiful it soon becomes apparent that pagan influences
were stealing into daily life, and that the religion of the Christian
Church was fast becoming an empty form which had no value as a rule of
conduct. Blind faith in the power of the Vicar of Christ to forgive the
sins of this world still remained, and in that one way, perhaps, did the
Church manage to exist throughout this period; for men, sinful and
irreligious and blasphemous as they certainly were, were none the less
so impressed with the possibilities of suffering in a future state that
they insisted upon priestly absolution--which they accepted with
implicit confidence--before setting out upon their journey into the
Unknown. The most terrible crimes were matters of common occurrence and
were allowed to go unrebuked, at least by the moral sentiment of the
co