not an acre of their own in Italy. It was during
their absence that the Italian Republics fell under the tyrannies, and
their dominions were divided among a swarm of petty princes. The famous
expedition of Cardinal Albornoz put an end to these disorders. He
recovered the territories of the Church, and became, by the AEgidian
Constitutions, which survived for ages, the legislator of Romagna. In
1376 eighty towns rose up in the space of three days, declared
themselves free, or recalled the princes whom Albornoz had expelled.
Before they could be reduced, the schism broke out, and the Church
learnt the consequences of the decline of the empire, and the
disappearance of its advocacy and protectorate over the Holy See.
Boniface IX. sold to the republics and the princes, for a sum of money
and an annual tribute, the ratification of the rights which they had
seized.

The first great epoch in the history of the temporal power after the
schism is the election of Eugenius IV. He swore to observe a statute
which had been drawn up in conclave, by which all vassals and officers
of State were to swear allegiance to the College of Cardinals in
conjunction with the Pope. As he also undertook to abandon to the
cardinals half the revenue, he shared in fact his authority with them.
This was a new form of government, and a great restriction of the papal
power; but it did not long endure.

The centrifugal tendency, which broke up Italy into small
principalities, had long prevailed, when at last the Popes gave way to
it. The first was Sixtus IV., who made one of his nephews lord of Imola,
and another of Sinigaglia. Alexander VI. subdued all the princes in the
States of the Church except the Duke of Montefeltro, and intended to
make the whole an hereditary monarchy for his son. But Julius II.
recovered all these conquests for the Church, added new ones to them,
and thus became, after Innocent III. and Albornoz, the third founder of
the Roman State. The age which beheld this restoration was marked in
almost every country by the establishment of political unity on the
ruins of the mediaeval independence, and of monarchical absolutism at
the expense of mediaeval freedom. Both of these tendencies asserted
themselves in the States of the Church. The liberties of the towns were
gradually destroyed. This was accomplished by Clement VII. in Ancona, in
1532; by Paul III. in Perugia, in 1540. Ravenna, Faenza, Jesi had, under
various pretexts, underg