an of beasts. But in seeking to distinguish its true character,
we must take notice of the highly wrought fantasy which seasoned both
their luxury and their jealousy, their vengeance and their lust.

[1] Italian literature is loud-voiced on this topic. The
concluding stanzas of Poliziano's _Orfeo_, recited before the
Cardinal of Mantua, the Capitoli of Berni, Bronzino, La Casa,
and some of the _Canti Carnasialeschi_, might be cited. We
might add Varchi's express testimony as to the morals of
Filippo Strozzi, Lorenzino de' Medici, Pier Luigi Farnese, and
Clement VII. What Segni (lib. x. p. 409) tells us about the
brave Giovanni Bandini is also very significant. In the Life of
San Bernardino of Siena, Vespasiano (_Vite di Illustri Uomini_,
p. 186) writes: 'L'Italia, ch' era piena di queste tenebre, e
aveva lasciata ogni norma di buoni costumi, e non era piu chi
conoscesse Iddio. Tanto erano sommersi e sepulti ne' maladetti
e abbominevoli vizi nefandi! Gli avevano in modo messi in uso,
che non temevano ne Iddio ne l'onore del mondo. Maladetta
cecita! In tanto eccesso era venuto ogni cosa, che gli
scellerati ed enormi vizi non era piu chi gli stimasse, per lo
maladetto uso che n'avevano fatto ... massime il maladetto e
abominando e detestando peccato della sodomia. Erano in modo
stracorsi in questa cecita, che bisognava che l'onnipotente
Iddio facesse un' altra volta piovere dal cielo zolfo e fuoco
come egli fece a Sodoma e Gomorra.' Compare Savonarola passim,
the inductions to the Sacre Rappresentazioni, the familiar
letters of Machiavelli, and the statute of Cosimo against this
vice (year 1542, Sabellii Summa. Venice, 1715; vol. v. p. 287).

The same is to some extent true of their cruelty. The really cruel
nation of the Renaissance was Spain, not Italy.[1] The Italians, as a
rule, were gentle and humane, especially in warfare.[2] No Italian army
would systematically have tortured the whole population of a captured
city day after day for months, as the Spaniards did in Rome and Milan,
to satisfy their avarice and glut their stolid appetite for blood. Their
respect for human life again was higher than that of the French or
Swiss. They gave quarter to their foes upon the battle-field, and were
horrified with the massacres in cold blood perpetrated at Fivizzano and
Rapallo by the army of Charles VIII. But when the demon of cruelt