nth. Tom Coryat, the
eccentric English traveler, gives a curious account of the splendor and
refinement displayed by the demi-monde of the lagoons, and Marston
describes Venice as a school of luxury in which the monstrous Aretine
played professor.[3] Of the state of morals in Florence Savonarola's
sermons give the best picture.

[1] Infessura, p. 1997. He adds: 'Consideratur modo qualiter
vivatur Romae ubi caput fidei est.' From what Parent Duchatelet
_(Prostitution dans la Ville de Paris,_ p. 27) has noted
concerning the tendency to exaggerate the numbers of
prostitutes in any given town, we have every reason to regard
the estimate of Infessura as excessive. In Paris, in 1854,
there were only 4,206 registered 'filles publiques,' when the
population of the city numbered 1,500,000 persons; while those
who exercised their calling clandestinely were variously
computed at 20,000 or 40,000 and upwards to 60,000. Accurate
statistics relating to the population of any Italian city in
the fifteenth century do not, unfortunately, exist.

[2] _Memoirs,_ lib. vii. 'C'est la plus triomphante cite que
j'ai jamais vue, et qui plus fait d'honneur a ambassadeurs et
etrangers, et qui plus sagement se gouverne, _et ou le service
de Dieu est le plus solemnellement faict.'_ The prostitutes of
Venice were computed to number 11,654 so far back as the end of
the 14th century. See Filiasi, quoted by Mutinelli in his
_Annali urbani di Venezia._

[3] Satires, ii.

But the characteristic vice of the Italian was not coarse sensuality. He
required the fascination of the fancy to be added to the allurement of
the senses.[1] It is this which makes the Capitoli of the burlesque
poets, of men of note like Berni, La Casa, Varchi, Mauro, Molsa, Dolce,
Bembo, Firenzuola, Bronzino, Aretino, and de' Medici, so amazing. The
crudest forms of debauchery receive the most refined and highly finished
treatment in poems which are as remarkable for their wit as for their
cynicism. A like vein of elaborate innuendo runs through the _Canti
Carnascialeschi_ of Florence, proving that however profligate the people
might have been, they were not contented with grossness unless seasoned
with wit. The same excitement of the fancy, playing freely in the
lawlessness of sensual self-indulgence and heightening the consciousness
of personal force in the agent, rendered the exercise of ingenuity