In this chapter I shall not attempt a general survey of Italian society.[180] I shall content myself with supplying materials for the formation of a judgment by narrating some of the most remarkable domestic tragedies of the second half of the sixteenth century, choosing those only which rest upon well-sifted documentary evidence, and which bring the social conditions of the country into strong relief. Before engaging in these historical romances, it will be well to preface them with a few general remarks upon the state of manners they will illustrate. The first thing which strikes a student of Italy between 1530 and 1600 is that crimes of violence, committed by private individuals for personal ends, continued steadily upon the increase.[181] [Footnote 179: The last section of Loyola's _Exercitia_ is an epitome of post-Tridentine Catholicism, though penned before the opening of the Council. In its last paragraph it inculcates the fear of God: 'neque porro is timor solum, quem filialem appellamus, qui pius est ac sanctus maxime; verum etiam alter, servilis dictus' (_Inst. Soc. Jesu_, vol. iv. p. 173).] [Footnote 180: An interesting survey of this wider kind has been attempted by U.A. Canello for the whole sixteenth century in his _Storia della Lett. It. nel Secolo XVI_. (Milano: Vallardi, 1880). He tries to demonstrate that, in the sphere of private life, Italian society gradually refined the brutal lusts of the Middle Ages, and passed through fornication to a true conception of woman as man's companion in the family. The theme is bold; and the author seems to have based it upon too slight acquaintance with the real conditions of the Middle Ages.] [Footnote 181: Galluzzi, in his _Storia del Granducato di Toscana_, vol. iv. p. 34, estimates the murders committed in Florence alone during the eighteen months which followed the death of Cosimo I., at 186.] Compared with the later Middle Ages, compared with the Renaissance, this period is distinguished by extraordinary ferocity of temper and by an almost unparalleled facility of bloodshed.[182] [Footnote 182: In drawing up these paragraphs I am greatly indebted to a vigorous passage by Signor Salvatore Bonghi in his _Storia di Lucrezia Buonvisi_, pp. 7-9, of which I have made free use, translating his words when they served my purpose, and interpolating such further details as might render the picture more complete.]