ivity of Luther it is necessary to
understand the state of the Church in his day and the character of the
chief bishops of the Church. When reading modern censures of Luther's
attacks upon the papacy, one wonders why nothing is said about the thing
that Luther attacked. Catholic critics of Luther surely must know what
papal filth lies accumulated in the _Commentarii di Marino Sanuto,_ in
Alegretto Alegretti's _Diari Sanesi,_ in the _Relazione di Polo
Capello,_ in the _Diario de Sebastiano di Branca de Tilini,_ in the
_Successo di la Morte di Papa Alessandro,_ in Tommaso Inghirami's _Fea,
Notizie Intorno Rafaele Sanzio da Urbino,_ and others. Ranke worked with
these authorities when he wrote his _History of the Popes_. What about
the authorities which Gieseler cites in his _Ecclesiastical History_--
Muratori, Fabronius, Machiavelli, Sabellicus, Raynaldus, Eccardus,
Burchardus, etc.? A compassionate age has relegated the exact account of
the moral state of the papacy in Luther's days to learned works, and
even in these they are given mostly in Latin footnotes. In the language
of Augustus Birrell, they are "too coarse."

Luther's life (1483-1546) falls into the administration of nine Popes:
Sixtus IV, 1471-1484; Innocent VIII, 1484-1492; Alexander VI, 1492-1503;
Pius III, 26 days in 1503; Julius II, 1503-1513; Leo X, 1513-1521;
Hadrian VI, 1522-1523; Clement VII, 1523-1534; Paul III, 1534-1549.

Speaking of this series of Popes, the historian Gieseler says: "The
succession of Popes which now follows proves the degeneracy of the
cardinals (from among whom the Pope is chosen) as to all discipline and
sense of shame: they were distinguished for nothing but undisguised
meanness and wickedness; they were reprobates."

Of Sixtus IV he says: "His chief motive was the small ambition to raise
his family from their low estate to the highest rank." Infamous
transactions which resulted in the murder of Julian de Medici while at
high mass in church and the hanging of the archbishop of Pisa from a
window of the town hall by the exasperated people, wars, conspiracies,
alliances, annulments of alliances, in short, all the acts that fill up
the turbulent life of a crafty and grasping politician, are recorded for
his administration. He did not scruple to employ the authority of his
exalted office for the furtherance of his political schemes. Thus he
excommunicated Venice and formed a warlike alliance against the city.
But the Venetians re