A succession of such Pontiffs immediately prior to the breaking out of the Reformation, is of no slight historical importance. It would really appear as if the church were destined, by the losses it experienced, to learn the greatness of the danger to which its too worldly policy exposed it, and to be brought back by misfortune to its true, proper, and essential destination. Indeed at that time, the materials of political combustion were by no means wanting in Italy. Even in the absence of the Popes, a political fanatic, Rienzi, had excited a Revolution for the purpose of restoring the ancient Republic; and the internal feuds and civil wars of Florence were the effects of factions, almost inseparable from a state constituted like the Florentine Republic. In the last period of civil disorder, shortly after Lorenzo's death, a religious fanatic, the Dominican Savanarola--appeared at the head of a political Revolution; and his revolutionary principles were strangely mixed up with his religious tenets. Here evidently is a fact not undeserving of attention, if we would wish to form a right estimate of the state and circumstances of that age--it is that the very origin of this new species of fanaticism or heresy, and not its ulterior progress (as in the case of the Hussites,) was marked and accompanied by political commotions, and crimes against the state. When that bond of religious unity--that high fellowship of Christian feeling which had united the various states of Christendom, was in a great measure dissolved, the different powers of Europe (as is usually the case among neighbouring independent nations, when directed by separate views of policy) the different powers of Europe engaged in a system of alliances subject to various fluctuations, but all formed on the principle of a mere dynamical equilibrium--just as if government and social power, even under the influence of Christianity, were nought but a mere material weight--a mere lever of physical force. Ever since the expedition of Charles VIII. into Italy had provoked resistance, and occasioned a re-action, the dominion of that country, for which Spain and France contended with all their might, was a peculiar subject of jealousy between those states, and gave rise to many wars. The other powers that took an active part in this game of political alliances--this system of the balance of power,--were Venice, the Emperor Maximilian, and the Pope. How very much an active participation in affairs of so worldly a nature was unbefitting the last-named potentate, I need not stop to observe. That conduct gave occasion afterwards to a great public scandal. For instance, when the Pope had formed an alliance with the King of France against Charles V.; and to resent this, the Emperor's German army (among whom were a great many entertaining the opinions of Luther), had proceeded to the conquest of Rome; this was a fresh and mighty source of scandal at that momentous epoch.