Without an appreciation of the Italian character and a knowledge of conditions in the peninsula before and during the Renaissance it is impossible to understand how such men as Sixtus IV. and Alexander VI. could have been chosen to fill the chair of St. Peter. * * * * * By the end of the fifteenth century the Papacy had almost entirely lost its sacred character and had become a political prize for which all the powerful families contended. It was an office to which any cardinal, regardless of his fitness, might aspire. Like Naples, Florence, Milan, Perugia, and all the other petty despotisms of the peninsula, it was a secular principality with the sole difference that its head had certain priestly functions to perform and that he was an elected not an hereditary sovereign. Owing to this latter fact it was the most corrupt of all at this time, and its corruption was all the more vile and hideous because of the contrast between the theoretical sacredness and the actual baseness of its head. In the course of the centuries the Papacy had evolved the astonishing and absurd fiction that the occupant of St. Peter’s chair had the right to make and unmake sovereigns at will; and princes and potentates made a pretence of yielding to this doctrine, knowing that the Church, being able to control the thoughts, actions, and conscience of the ignorant masses, by the terror it inspired, was the strongest ally they could have to maintain them in their usurped and illegitimate domination over those whom they called their subjects and whose subjection had always originated in acts of violence on the part of their masters. The Papacy was the greatest office in Christendom. It enjoyed a vast income; the patronage, the benefices at its disposal, were innumerable, and during the period of the Renaissance they were usually sold to the highest bidder. Owing to the vast power of the Pope as the arbiter of the destinies of mankind beyond the grave, as well as in this world, his friendship and support were sought by all the potentates of Europe. Being human, it is quite natural that he was always ready to profit by this circumstance. The humblest priest might aspire to the great office, and if he was sufficiently astute and corrupt might attain it. During the fifteenth century in the election of the supreme head of the Church votes were bought and sold even more brazenly than they are to-day on the occasion of the election of a United States senator, and the rabble made bets on the result just as they now do on the outcome of a political contest. Giustinian records the odds that were given on the election of Giuliano della Rovere against his rivals.