§ 67. THE KEVIVAL OF PAGANISM. 615
To licentiousness were added luxury, gaming, the vendetta or the law of blood-revenge, and murder paid for by third parties. Life was cheap where revenge, a licentious end or the gain of power was a motive. Cardinals added benefice to benefice in order to secure the means of gratifying their luxurious tastes.^ In the middle of the 16th century, Italy, says Burckhardt, was in a moral crisis, out of which the best men saw no escape. In the opinion of Symonds, who has written seven volumes on the Renaissance, it is " almost impossible to overestimate the moral corruption of Rome at the beginning of the 16th century. And Gregorovius adds that " the richest intellectual life blossomed in a swamp of vices." 2
Of open heresy and attacks upon the_E>apal prerogatives, popes were intolerant enougliy as was quickly proved, when Luther appeared and Savonarola preached, but not of open immorality and secret infidelity. In the hierarchical interest they maintained the laws of sacerdotal celibacy, but allowed them to be broken by prelates in their confidence and employ, and openly flaunted their own bastard children and concubines. And unfortunately, as has been said, not only did the Humanists, with some exceptions, fall in with the prevailing
disgust did we attempt to depict the unbounded vice of Roman society in the corrupt times of Leo X. The moral corruption of an age, one of the best of whose productions has the title of Syphilis, is sufficiently known." Bandello, as quoted by Burckhardt, says: "Nowadays we see a woman poison her husband to gratify her lusts, thinking that a widow may do whatever she desires. Another, fearing the discovery of an illicit amour, has her husband murdered by her lover. And though fathers, brothers and husbands arise to extirpate the shame with poison, with the sword, and by every other means, women still continue to follow their passions, careless of their honor and their lives." Another time, in a milder strain, he exclaims : " Would that we were not daily forced to hear that one man has murdered his wife because he suspected her of infidelity ; that another has killed his daughter, on account of a secret marriage ; that a third has caused his sister to be murdered, because she would not marry as he wislied ! It is great cruelty that we claim the right to do whatever we list, and will not suffer women to do the same."
1 Burckhardt-Geiger, II. 172 sqq. ; Pastor, III. 128.
2 Burckhardt-Geiger, II. 153 ; Symonds, Bev. of Learning, p. 406 ; Gregorovius, viii, 282.
610 THE MIDDLE AGES. A,D. 1294-1517.
licentiousness: there even was nothing in their principles to prevent its practice. As a class, the artists were no better than the scholars and, if possible, even more lax in regard to sexual license. Such i^tatements nre, roade not in the spirit of bitterness toward the Church of the Middle Ages, but in deference to historic fact, which ought at once to furnish food for reflection upon the liability of an ecclesiastical organization to err and even to foster vice as well as superstition by its prelatical constitution and unscriptural canons, and also to afford a warning against the captivating but f ajlacious theory that literature and art, not permeatedjby the j)rincigles of the Christian faitli» have the power to redeem themselves or purify society. They did not do it in the palmy days of Greece and Rome, nor did they accomplish any such end in Italy.
In comparing our present century with the period of the Renaissance, there is at least one ground for grateful acknowledgment.^ The belief in astrology, due largely to the risej^f astronomical science, has been renounced. Thomas Aquinas had decided that astrology was a legitimate art when it is used to forecast natural events, such as drought and rain, but when used to predict human actions and destiny it is a daemonic cult.2 At an early period it came to be classed with heresy, and was made amenable to the Inquisition. In 1321, Cecco d'Ascoli, who had shown that the position of libra rendered the crucifixion of Christ inevitable, was obliged to abjure, and his astrolabe and other instruments were burnt, 1327, by the tribunal at Florence. In spite of Petrarca's ridicule, the cult continued. The Chancellor D'Ailly gave it credit. Scarcely a pope or Italian prijice or republic_gf the latter part of the I^enalssance period who did not have his astrologer or yield to the delusion in a hu-gcr or smaller measure, as, for example, Sixtus IV., Julius II. and I.co X., as wfU as Paul III. at a period a little later. Julius 11. delayed his coronation several weeks, to Nov. 26, 1503, the lucky day announced by the as-
1 See Burckhardt-Geiger, II. 236 sqq. ; Art. Astrologic in Wetzer-Welte, I. 1526 sqq., by l'a.stor ; and Lea, Inijuisition, III. 437 sqq.
2 Summa, II. 2, 95; Migne's ed., III. 729-731.