be added the apology written by Lorenzino de'
Medici, after the murder of his cousin Alessandro in 1536.[1] He relies
for his defense entirely upon arguments borrowed from Pagan ethics, and
by his treatment of the subject vindicates for himself that name of
Brutus with which Filippo Strozzi in person at Venice, and Varchi and
Molsa in Latin epigrams, saluted him. There is no trace of Christian
feeling in this strong and splendid display of rhetorical ability; nor
does any document of the age more forcibly exhibit the extent to which
classical studies had influenced the morality of the Renaissance.
Lorenzino, however, when he wrote it, was not, like Boscoli, upon the
point of dying.

[1] It is printed at the end of the third volume of Varchi, pp.
283-95; compare p. 210. A medal in honor of Lorenzino's
tyrannicide was struck with a profile copied from Michael
Angelo's bust of Brutus.

The last thing to perish in a nation is its faith. The whole history of
the world proves that no anomalies are so glaring, no inconsistencies so
paradoxical, as to sap the credit of a religious system which has once
been firmly rooted in the habits, instincts, and traditions of a race:
and what remains longest is often the least rational portion. Religions
from the first are not the product of logical reflection or experiment,
but of sentiment and aspiration. They come into being as simple
intuitions, and afterwards invade the province of the reason and
assimilate the thought of centuries to their own conceptions. This is
the secret of their strength as well as the source of their weakness. It
is only a stronger enthusiasm, a new intuition, a fresh outburst of
emotional vitality, that can supplant the old:--

'Cotal rimedio ha questo aspro furore,
Tale acqua suole spegner questo fuoco,
Come d'asse si trae chiodo con chiodo.'

Criticism from without, internal corruption, patent absurdity, are
comparatively powerless to destroy those habits of belief which once
have taken hold upon the fancy and the feeling of a nation. The work of
dissolution proceeds in silence and in secret. But the established
order subsists until the moment comes for a new synthesis. And in the
sixteenth century the necessary impulse of regeneration was to come, not
from Italy, satisfied with the serenity of her art, preoccupied with her
culture, and hardened to the infamy of her corruption, but from the
Germany of the barbarians she despis