Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 2.djvu/32

2 though he did not remain faithful to it; to what could he have been faithful? Was not his very nature immoral and perfidious to its core? But now and then at least he made as if he would blazon on his banner the motto Italia farà da se; this brought him a popularity which nowadays it is hard to understand, and made it possible for him, the most unrighteous man in Italy, to gain the victory over the most righteous man of his time and to stifle Savonarola's reforming zeal among the ashes at the stake.

The idea of a great reformation of the Church in both head and members had arisen since the beginning of the thirteenth century, and was the less likely to fade from the mind of nations since complaints of the evils of Church government were growing daily more serious and well-grounded and one hope of improvement after another had been wrecked. No means of bringing about this reform was neglected; all had failed. Francis of Assisi had opposed to the growing materialism and worldliness of the Church the idea of renunciation and poverty. But Gregory IX had contrived to win over the Order founded by the Saint to the cause of the Papacy, and to set in the background the Founder's original purpose. Thrust into obscurity in the inner sanctuary of the Order, this purpose, tinged by a certain schismatic colouring, developed in the hands of the Spirituales into the Ecclesia Spiritualis as opposed to the Ecclesia Carnalis, which stood for the official Church. Traces of this thought are to be found in Dante; we may even call it the starting-point, whence he proceeds to contrast his Monarchia with the political Papacy of the fourteenth century, and as a pioneer to develop with keen penetration and energy the modern idea of the State. The opponents of the Popes of Avignon in reality only fought against their politics without paying any attention to the moral regeneration of Christendom. Theological science in the fifteenth century raised the standard of reform against the dependence of the Papacy, the triple Schism, and the disruption of the Church. But she too succumbed, her projects foiled, at the great ecclesiastical conferences of Constance and Basel. Asceticism, politics, theology had striven in vain; the close of the Middle Ages on both sides of the Alps was marked by outbursts of popular discontent and voices which from the heart of the nations cried for reform, prophesying the catastrophe of the sixteenth century. None of these voices was mightier than Savonarola's, or left a deeper echo. He was the contemporary and opponent of the men who were to give their name to this epoch in Rome's history.

The House of the Medici passes for the true and most characteristic exponent of the Renaissance movement. We cannot understand the nature and historical position of the Medicean Papacy without an attempt to explain the character and development of this movement. The discovery of man since Dante and Giotto, the discovery of Nature by the naturalism of Florence, the revival of classical studies, and