[Footnote *237: The Borgia entered as strangers into the cunning but childish game of deception and lying that made up Italian politics. Accepting the principles of the game, as all must who would play at all, they broke through its absurd conventions. It was this that caused them to be so universally hated. Savonarola, extraordinary though his success was, knew that the greatest statesman in Italy saw through his treason and his ambitions. The other politicians were beaten at their own game, and loudly proclaimed that they had been cheated. But, as Creighton reminds us, "Alexander dealt unscrupulously with unscrupulous men, and played for higher stakes than any of them dreamed of." Even his love for his children has been thrown in his face. Would it have been a virtue in him to hate them?] [Illustration: _Anderson_ POPE ALEXANDER VI. _Detail from a fresco by Pinturicchio in the Borgia apartments of the Vatican, Rome_] We have now reached a period when our narrative must be extended, and must include those great events which, besides revolutionising almost every state in Italy, ultimately affected the political relations of Western Europe. The fiery natures and turbulent spirits of the Italian republicans and condottieri had for many years expended their energies in petty broils and intestine struggles for mastery. Henceforward the bloody drama was to be varied by the introduction of a new class of actors; the battles of European ambition were to be fought on the sunny plains of the Peninsula; her flourishing cities were to be the spoil of victor and vanquished: the protracted struggle was destined to leave her strength prostrated, her wealth wasted, her nationality extinguished, her treasures of art defaced, the character of her people degraded, their political independence destroyed. Although, from 1466 to 1494, Italy had never remained very long free from intestine commotions, the seat of serious warfare was during that interval removed to Hungary, Turkey, and the Levant, and she enjoyed a comparative repose, under the balmy influence of which, letters and the liberal arts rose to high perfection. The invention of printing, the study of the classics, the revival of ancient literature and philosophy, the cultivation of vernacular poetry, and the adoption of these tastes at many of the minor courts, all tended to this happy result.