temporal, in matters spiritual it is never deserted by its founder, had as yet sustained no shock in the universal opinion. It seemed as if the world, like Boccaccio's Jew, was only the more convinced of the divine essence of a religion which could remain so unshaken by the viciousness of its professors. The fire kindled by Savonarola seemed to die out with that which consumed his own substance; or threw forth only a few bickering and scattered sparkles which were far from portending the great conflagration at hand. Remorse for guilt, the pangs of sorrow, the restlessness of suffering, the fears of superstition, the dreams of enthusiastic devotion, conducted thousands from all the regions of then Catholic Europe to the capital of Christianity. It is computed that no less than two hundred thousand pilgrims entered Rome on this grand festival-the last which the church celebrated in her unity.

The dignity of danger, perhaps, gave zest to the devotion of the warlike populations which sent each their quota to the spiritual rendezvous. At no period of her stormy existence had Italy been so convulsed and devastated by almost all the evils which can befall a nation,-by foreign invasion and domestic strife, as at the period when we take up our chronicle.

In the South, the French, Spaniards, Turks, and Neapolitans, struggled for the possession of Naples and Sicily, and deluged the beautiful lands in dispute with their blood. In the North, the French and Venetians ravaged Lombardy. Milan, in a series of revolutions, alternately lost and regained independ

ence; numerous small states, among which were distinguished the polished dukedom of Ferrara, and the republics of Pisa, Lucca, and Sienna, with difficulty withstood subjugation to one or other of the mighty oppressors, their neighbours. In Tuscany, the Florentines, rent by furious factions, though protected by the French, were scarcely able to baffle the ambitious designs of the papal power, directed against them with the sagacity, perfidy, and merciless energy which distinguished the captain-general of the church, Cæsar Borgia, above all the politicians and commanders of the age.

This too famous leader was the natural son of Alexander VI., whom, to the scandal of the whole Christian world, he had raised to the highest honours which it was in his supremacy to bestow-honours which were far from satisfying the ambition of the recipient, to whom the princes of Italy ascribed the vast project of uniting its shattered sovereignties into an imperial crown for his own head. The great abilities which he had displayed in war, his unmatched subtlety, his courage, which seemed to defy both God and man, the unbounded ambition which he was known to cherish, justly rendered him the terror of Italy.

Nor was this magnificent project so visionary as modern historians have been inclined to consider it. The papal dominion in itself was one of the most extensive and powerful of all Italy, and was wielded by the intriguing and daring Alexander, a prince who, with all his vices, crimes, and inordinate lust of aggrandizement, possessed an extraordinary capacity. He was a Spaniard by birth, and to the sultry pas

sions of his native land was believed to add all the refinements in dissimulation and treachery which centuries of slavery had taught the Italians. Age might probably have moderated the violence of his character, but the expiring volcano was continually restirred into action by the no less vehement, but more subtle genius of Cæsar Borgia, to whose vast plans his father's co-operation was essentially neces

sarv.

Cæsar had been originally intended for the church, and during the lifetime of his elder brother, the Duke of Gandia, whose tragical and mysterious fate excites so gloomy a curiosity, he had worn the mantle of a cardinal. But the moment that assassination, perhaps involving a still blacker crime, had removed this shadow of an elder brother from his path, he threw off the purple, and seemed determined never again to resume it, unless as a king. His valour in the field, and the alliance of the French, soon raised him to a high rank among the Italian generals. The Pontiff created him his generalissimo, and by conferring upon him the Dukedom of Romagna, seemed to open the way to him of sovereignty.

But the chief obstacles to the execution of the vast designs of Cæsar Borgia were the very instruments which he was compelled to use. The papal power, like all the other sovereignties of Europe at the period, was feudal in all its ramifications. During the wars of the emperors and popes, the Roman barons had managed to usurp to themselves even greater privileges and more complete independence than any other nobility. The great possessions of the church

were held by them, with only a nominal submission, under the title of vicars. To break-to destroy the power of these nobles-became a great object of Cæsar's policy; to wrest back their usurpations was essential to the execution of his vaster plans. The animosities and factions among the nobility themselves assisted his projects, and his own subtle genius furnished him with innumerable engines.

Ages of mutual rivalry and wrongs had exasperated against each other the two most powerful Roman families, the Orsini and the Colonnas. With the impolitic aid of the former, the Borgias drove the latter into exile, and confiscated their immense possessions. Following up his successes, Cæsar, in two dreadful campaigns, distinguished by every species of barbarity, succeeded in destroying the power of nearly all the great families of Romagna. Meanwhile, Alexander crushed the rebellious spirit of the church by the exile, ruin, or death of a great many cardinals who opposed themselves to his tyranny, chiefly through resentment at the disappointment of the promises which he had made to secure his election.

While thus crushing their chiefs, Cæsar won, if not the affection, at least the goodwill of the common people, by substituting to the unbounded oppressions of their former masters a sway, which, however blood-thirsty and extortionate, was still a change for the better. The Roman nobility, like all that have been crushed, deserved their fate. The detail of their cruelties and oppressions form the blackest pages in the history of Italy. Dwelling in

vast fortresses, with unnumbered dependents existing only on war and plunder, they committed every species of disorder with perfect impunity-robbed, murdered, ravaged, made war on one another, and laughed to scorn the powerless suzerainty of a priest, even while reverencing to adoration his spiritual cha

racter.

With the aid of the French, Cæsar successfully pushed on his great project; but the Orsini and other powerful barons at length perceived their mistake in aiding him, even to the ruin of their enemies. Symptoms of disaffection daily increased, and when Cæsar's allies, the French, sustained their great defeats in Lombardy, an open combination was entered into against him. The tyranny and licentiousness of the French had provoked the miserable vanquished into revolt. Milan had succeeded in expelling the invaders, and welcomed back its unfortunate and bloodstained sovereign, Ludovico Sforza.

Far from aiding Cæsar in his designs on Tuscany, the French not only withdrew their troops from his service, but demanded that he should instantly march with his own to their aid. But the But the open defection of his most powerful adherents, and the uncertain tenure of his conquests, rendered Cæsar deaf to any promptings of gratitude. He remained among his conquests, busily engaged in cementing them, while the French generals awaited in inaction the arrival of their king with a new army with which he was preparing to ravage Italy.

Meanwhile the league against the Borgias assumed a formidable consistency. The dispossessed barons