Sixtus must unhesitatingly be included among the great Popes, but it is perplexing to read, as one often does, that he was "one of the greatest of the Popes." The work he accomplished in five years is far greater than most of the Popes achieved, or would have achieved, in twenty years, and at least the greater part of his reform-work in Rome and Italy was of considerable value. Yet even here we must not overlook his defects: he transgressed his own regulations when he would gratify his affections, he enforced reforms with harshness and violence, and he greatly lessened the value of his economic work by hoarding a vast sum for the purpose (apparently) of conducting a visionary grand campaign against Turks and heretics. His political attitude was, as I have shown, injudicious and irresolute. Both in character and statesmanship he falls far short of the greater Popes, and it is, perhaps, some indication of the evil plight of the Church that Sixtus V. should be the ablest man it could produce in a century of grave and persistent danger. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 312: See Dr. G.H. Putnam's _Censorship of the Church of Rome_ (2 vols., 1907), i., 168.] [Footnote 313: See, besides the work of Pallavicini already quoted, Paolo Sarpi's _Istoria del Concilio Tridentino_.] [Footnote 314: It is, however, true that the hostile Italian biographer, Gregorio Leti (_Vita di Sisto Quinto_, 3 vols., 1693), who tells this must be read with discretion; and we must use equal discretion in reading Tempesti's _Storia della Vita e Geste di Sisto V._ (1754), which is inspired by a contrary determination to praise Sixtus. I need recommend only the full and generally judicious biography of Sixtus which we owe to Baron de Hübner (_Sixte Quint_, 3 vols., 1870), remarking that in it the panegyrical tendency is more conspicuous than the critical. For a smaller biography M.A.J. Dumesnil's _Histoire de Sixte-Quint_ (1869) is excellent.] [Footnote 315: December 5, 1586.] [Footnote 316: Bull _Quum Sicut_, May 28, 1586. Bull _Quum Alias_, December 17, 1585.] [Footnote 317: Recent Popes had established what was, in effect, a system of life assurance. A large money-payment secured an income for life out of the proceeds of certain taxes. Sixtus multiplied these _Monti_ (as the funds were called) in order to obtain a large sum of money at once, and he thus mortgaged the resources of the Holy See. Ranke, whose chapters on Sixtus are amongst his best, heavily censures the Pope's finance.] [Footnote 318: I., 349.] [Footnote 319: See the author's _Candid History of the Jesuits_ (1913), pp. 110-113.] [Footnote 320: Bull _Cum Unoquoque_, January 1, 1586.] [Footnote 321: Bull _Qugæ Ordini_, 1589.] [Footnote 322: Bull _Cum Benigno_, 1585.]