e the two Cardinal nephews of
Gregory XIII. had each about 10,000 a year. At the same epoch Paolo
Giordano Orsini, Duke of Bracciano, enjoyed an income of some 25,000,
his estate being worth 60,000, but being heavily encumbered. These
figures are taken from the Reports of the Venetian envoys. If we may
trust them as accurate, it will appear by a comparison of them with the
details furnished by Ranke, that Gregory's successors treated their
relatives with greater generosity.[76] Sixtus V. enriched the Cardinal
Montalto with an ecclesiastical income of 100,000 scudi. Clement VIII.
bestowed on two nephews--one Cardinal, the other layman--revenues of
about 60,000 apiece in 1599. He is computed to have hoarded altogether
for his family a round sum of 1,000,000 scudi. Paul V. was believed to
have given to his Borghese relatives nearly 700,000 scudi in cash,
24,600 scudi in funds, and 268,000 in the worth of offices.[77] The
Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi, nephew of Gregory XV., had a reputed income
of 200,000 scudi; and the Ludovisi family obtained 800,000 in _luoghi di
monte_ or funds. Three nephews of Urban VIII., the brothers Barberini,
were said to have enjoyed joint revenues amounting to half a million
scudi, and their total gains from the pontificate touched the enormous
sum of 105,000,000. These are the families, sprung from obscurity or
mediocre station, whose palaces and villas adorn Rome, and who now rank,
though of such recent origin, with the aristocracy of Europe.

Sixtus V. died in 1590. To follow the history of his successors would be
superfluous for the purpose of this book. The change in the Church which
began in the reign of Paul III. was completed in his pontificate. About
half a century, embracing seven tenures of the Holy Chair, had sufficed
to develop the new phase of the Papacy as an absolute sovereignty,
representing the modern European principle of absolutism, both as the
acknowledged Head of Catholic Christendom and also as a petty Italian
power.

[Footnote 75: Sarpi writes: 'In my times Pius V., during five years,
accumulated 25,000 ducats for the Cardinal nephew; Gregory XIII., in
thirteen years, 30,000 for one nephew, and 20,000 for another; Sixtus
V., for his only nephew, 9,000; Clement VIII., in thirteen years, for
one nephew, 8,000, and for the other, 3,000; and this Pope, Paul V., in
four years, for one nephew alone, 40,000. To what depths are we destined
to fall in the future?' (_Lettere_, vol.