But that such a deed should deserve the epithet “magnanimous,” should be considered to be indicative of greatness of soul, is a matter of opinion. Evidently the Twentieth Century considerably has curtailed and straitened the signification and the application which the word Magnanimity bore in the Fifteenth. Now, we call a man magnanimous who, at huge self-sacrifice, does noble deeds. Then, Messer Niccolo Machiavelli thought that startling actions, good, or bad, proclaimed the greatness of their agent’s soul! The Lord Julius P.P. II was not without His flatterers. No man is, if he can pay. Literary petits maîtres like Messer Baltassare Castiglioni found it profitable to address the Terrible Pontiff in terms like these: “O Pater, O Pastor populorum, O “O Father, O Shepherd of the Maxime mundi people, O Supreme Arbiter, humanum qui genus omne Master of the world, Who rulest all regis; the human race; Iustitiae pacisque Dator Giver of Justice, Peace, and placidaeque quietis, tranquil Ease, Credita Cui soli est vita salusque Thou to Whom alone is committed the hominum; life and salvation of men; Quem Deus Ipse Erebi fecit caelique Whom God Himself has made Lord of potentem, heaven and hell, Ut nutu pateant utraque regno Tuo;— That either realm might open at Thy nod— “When the spiritual authority of the Popes came thus to be expressed in Latin verse, it was impossible not to treat them as deities. The temptation to apply to them the language of Roman religion was too great; the double opportunity of flattering their vanity as pontiffs, and their ears as scholars, was too attractive to be missed.”[86]