laid down by Sarpi.

[4] This at least was accounted eccentric and barbarous in the
extreme. See Pontano, _de Immanitate_, vol. i. p. 326,
concerning Niccolo Fortibraccio, Antonio, Pontadera, and the
Riccio Montechiaro, who stabbed and strangled for the pleasure
of seeing men die. I have already discussed the blood-madness
of some of the despots.

While the imagination played so important a part in the morality of the
Italians, it must be remembered that they were deficient in that which
is the highest imaginative safeguard against vice, a scrupulous sense of
honor. It is true that the Italian authors talk much about _Onore_.
Pandolfini tells his sons that _Onore_ is one of the qualities which
require the greatest thrift in keeping, and Machiavelli asserts that it
is almost as dangerous to attack men in their _Onore_ as in their
property. But when we come to analyze the word, we find that it means
something different from that mixture of conscience, pride, and
self-respect which makes a man true to a high ideal in all the possible
circumstances of life. The Italian _Onore_ consisted partly of the
credit attaching to public distinction, and partly of a reputation for
_Virtu_, understanding that word in its Machiavellian usage, as force,
courage, ability, virility. It was not incompatible with craft and
dissimulation, or with the indulgence of sensual vices. Statesmen like
Guicciardini, who, by the way, has written a fine paragraph upon the
very word in question,[1] did not think it unworthy of their honor to
traffic in affairs of state for private profit. Machiavelli not only
recommended breaches of political faith, but sacrificed his principles
to his pecuniary interests with the Medici. It would be curious to
inquire how far the obtuse sensibility of the Italians on this point was
due to their freedom from vanity.[2] No nation is perhaps less
influenced by mere opinion, less inclined to value men by their
adventitious advantages: the Italian has the courage and the
independence of his personality. It is, however, more important to take
notice that Chivalry never took a firm root in Italy; and honor, as
distinguished from vanity, _amour propre_, and credit, draws its life
from that ideal of the knightly character which Chivalry established.
The true knight was equally sensitive upon the point of honor, in all
that concerned the maintenance of an unsullied self, whether he found
himself in a kin