century, contributed to
the substitution of aesthetic for moral or religious standards. Actions
were estimated by the effect which they produced; and to sin against the
laws of culture was of more moment than to transgress the code of
Christianity. Still, the men of the Renaissance could not forget the
creed which they had drawn in with their mothers' milk, but which the
Church had not adjusted to the new conditions of the growing age. The
result was a wild phantasmagoric chaos of confused and clashing
influences.

Of this peculiar moral condition the records of the numerous
tyrannicides supply many interesting examples.[1] Girolamo Olgiati
offered prayers to S. Ambrose for protection before he stabbed the Duke
of Milan in S. Stephen's Church.[2] The Pazzi conspirators, intimidated
by the sanctity of the Florentine Duomo, had to employ a priest to wield
the sacrilegious dagger.[3] Pietro Paolo Boscoli's last confession,
after the failure of his attempt to assassinate the Medici in 1513, adds
further details in illustration of the mixture of religious feeling with
patriotic paganism. Luca della Robbia, the nephew of the great sculptor
of that name, and himself no mean artist, visited his friend Boscoli on
the night of his execution, and wrote a minute account of their
interview. Both of these men were members of the Confraternita de' Neri,
who assumed the duty of comforting condemned prisoners with spiritual
counsel, prayer, and exhortation. The narrative, dictated in the
choicest vernacular Tuscan, by an artist whose charity and beauty of
soul transpire in every line in contrast with the fiercer fortitude of
Boscoli, is one of the most valuable original documents for this period
which we possess.[4] What is most striking is the combination of deeply
rooted and almost infantine piety with antique heroism in the young
patriot. He is greatly concerned because, ignorant of his approaching
end, he had eaten a hearty supper: 'Son troppo carico di cibo, et ho
mangiatccose insalate; in modo che non mi pare poter unir Io spirito a
Dio ... Iddio abbi di me misericordia, che costoro m' hanno carico di
cibo. Oh indiscrezione!'[5] Then he expresses a vehement desire for the
services of a learned confessor, to resolve his intellectual doubts,
pleading with all the earnestness of desperate conviction that the
salvation of his soul must depend upon his orthodoxy at the last. He
complains that he ought to have been allowed at least a mo