[Footnote *99: This hardly needs comment: it has become universally accepted as the truth. The _Prediche Volgari_ of Fra Bernardino afford ample evidence, as do the _Novelle_ generally. I shall therefore confine myself to referring to two English writers who have treated of this subject: WILLIAM HEYWOOD, _The Ensamples of Fra Filippo_ (Siena, 1902), pp. 118, 122 _et seq._ and 295 _et seq._, who gives an infinite number of authorities and is exhaustive in his evidence; VERNON LEE, _Euphorion_ (Fisher Unwin, 1899), pp. 25-109, who treats of it in two essays, _The Sacrifice_ and _The Italy of the Elizabethan Dramatist_, with exquisite understanding and the wide tolerance of a poet. Nothing is to be gained by going into this subject so casually as Dennistoun does. He speaks of the Italian genius without understanding either its strength or its weakness. He judges Machiavelli, for instance, or Cesare Borgia, as one might have judged an Englishman of the depressing age he himself lived in, and thus his judgment is at fault in regard to nearly every great man of whom he writes.] In no language, perhaps, does there exist a jest-book more disgustingly prurient or so full of sacrilegious ribaldry as the _Facetiæ_ of Poggio Bracciolini. Were such a work published now-a-days, the author would be hooted from society, and the printer laid hold of as a common nuisance. Though the parties to above half its obscene anecdotes are from the clergy or the monastic orders, there occurs throughout the foul volume no word of blame nor burst of indignation. Yet it was compiled for publication by a priest, the confidential secretary of pontiffs, and one of the stars of a literary age. If more direct evidence of dissolute habits among the clergy be required, it will be found in the reports of P. Ambrogio Traversari on his disciplinarian circuits among the Camaldolese convents, of which he was general from 1431 to 1434.[100] It would be loathsome to enter upon the details, but a generally lax morality among those specially devoted to religious profession must be considered as at once the occasion and the effect of much social perversion. The poison disseminated from such a quarter was sure to pervade all ranks, and the standard of public decency must have sunk low indeed ere monastic debauchery ceased to create universal scandal. When churchmen had become very generally latitudinarians in theology and libertines in morals, the corruption of their flocks need be no matter of surprise. It was in the beginning of the sixteenth century that these evils had reached their height, and the miseries of foreign invasion under the Medicean popes were even then regarded by many as judicial inflictions from Heaven. Hence was it, that, although Italy was supereminent among nations, although illustrated by the triumphs of mind, adorned by the productions of genius, and enriched by the gains of intelligent enterprise, she was