The character of Alexander VI. as a man and as a sovereign admits of no question, and is thus forcibly summed up by Sismondi. "He was the most notoriously immoral man in Christendom; one whose debauchery no shame restrained, whose treaties no good faith sanctioned, whose policy was never guarded by justice, to whose vengeance pity was unknown."[*10] As a pontiff he must be tried by a different test, and those ecclesiastical writers, who attempt not to defend his morals or example, assert the orthodoxy of his faith and doctrine, and commend the wisdom of his provisions for maintenance of that religion which regarded him as its head. He was the first to establish the censorship of books,[*11] an important bulwark of the Roman Church; and among the orders which he instituted or protected was that of S. Francesco di Paolo. Nor can it be doubted that his ambitious nepotism eventually aggrandised the temporal possessions of the papacy, by quelling the mutinous barons of the Campagna, and by so crushing the more distant seigneurs as to render their states a speedy and easy prey to Julius II. On the other hand, the openly simoniacal practices which prevailed during his reign, the strong measures adopted to raise money for his private ends by a lavish scale of indulgences, and, generally, the unscrupulous employment of the power of the keys and the treasures of the Church for unworthy purposes, all tended to alienate men's minds, and to stir those doubts which the different, but not less injudicious, policy of his immediate successors ripened into schism. [Footnote *10: This is probably an exaggeration. Alexander VI. was without reticence in his sins, and so has not escaped whipping. I append a brief list of authorities for the Borgia:-- CERRI, _Borgia ossia Alessandro VI._ (1858). ANTONETTI, _Lucrezia Borgia in Ferrara_ (1867). SCHUBERT-SOLDERN, _Die Borgias und ihre Zeit_ (Dresden, 1902). CITADELLA, _Saggio di Albero Genealogico della Famiglia Borgia_ (1872). GREGOROVIUS, _Lucrezia Borgia_ (1874). ---- _Geschichte der Stadt Rom._, tom. VII. (1880). ALVISI, _Cesare Borgia_ (Imola, 1878). NEMEC, _Papst Alexander VI. eine Rechtfertigung_ (1879). LEONETTI, _Papa Alessandro VI._ (1880). D'EPINOIS, in _Revue des Questions Historiques_ (April, 1881). VEHON, _Les Borgia_ (1882). MARICOURT, _Le Procès des Borgia_ (1883). YRIARTE, _César Borgia_ (1887). ---- _Autour des Borgias_ (1891).] [Footnote *11: I am not quite clear what this means. The Inquisition was introduced into Italy in 1542, and the _Index Librorum Prohibitorum_ was established. But the congregation of the Index was not established till the Council of Trent. Magical books were prohibited as early as the Council of Nice, 325.]