On the Wednesday in Holy week I visited the Seven Churches with M. de Foix[118] before dinner and spent about five hours in making the round. I know not why some people should profess to be shocked when they hear this or that prelate accused of vicious practices, when these practices are well known. This very day, in the churches of Saint John Lateran and of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, I saw written in a most prominent place the history of Pope Sylvester II.[119] in which the worst is recorded of him. The circuit of the city from the Porta del Popolo to the Porta de S. Paolo, which I made several times, can be accomplished in three or four hours going at foot pace. That part which lies beyond the river may easily be traversed in an hour and a half. Amongst other pleasures which I enjoyed in Rome during Lent, mention must be made of the sermons. There were many excellent preachers, for instance the renegade rabbi who preached to the Jews on Saturday afternoons in the church of the Trinità. Here was always a congregation of sixty Jews who were bound to be present. This preacher had been a famous doctor amongst them, and now he attacked their belief by their own arguments, even out of the mouths of their rabbis and from the words of the Bible. He had admirable skill and knowledge of the subject, and of the languages necessary for the elaboration of the same. There was another who preached before the Pope and cardinals, named Padre Toledo, a man of extraordinary ability in depth of learning, in appositeness of expression, and in mustering of his arguments, and a third who preached at the church of the Jesuits was distinguished for the beauty of the language he used, the two last being members of the Jesuit society. It is wonderful how great is the part occupied by this College in the Christian economy, and my belief is that never before has there existed any confraternity which has risen to such eminence, or which may sway so powerfully the destinies of the world, supposing that it should be able to prosecute its designs in the future. It occupies well-nigh the whole of Christendom; it is a nursery of men distinguished in every department of high affairs, and the institution of our Church which the heretics of our day have most to fear.