Italy. 115 



monstrances, the army of the Holy Inquisitors was put in action, and 

 those professed ministers of the God of mercy and justice were so 

 zealous in behalf of the ecclesiastical supremacy and infallibility of 

 the Romish church, that in less than a century from their establish- 

 ment they actually destroyed by torture, poison, strangulation, and 

 fire, above 200,000 supposed Italian heretics. 



But neither the civil butcheries of the Guelphsand Ghibelines, nor 

 the terrific'power of the Inquisition, could again subject to the domi- 

 nion of ignorance and superstition the enlightened portion of Italy ; 

 and as the liberty of speech and conscience was totally extinct, the 

 Italian mind directed all its faculties towards the noble pursuit of 

 science, literature, and arts, and greatly contributed to the propaga- 

 tion of classic knowledge throughout Europe. In the mean time in 

 all the great cities, where either a university or a learned body ex- 

 isted, secret societies were established in order to keep alive and 

 even to promote the spirit of ecclesiastical reform, which had already 

 manifested itself, and had been scarcely choked by the blood of so 

 many martyrs. But as it would have been almost impossible to carry 

 on a written correspondence between the reformers scattered all over 

 Italy without being discovered and denounced by the Arguses of the 

 Holy Inquisition, the renowned " Scuola d'Amore" was instituted, by 

 means of which, under the apparent pretext of promoting the study 

 and improvement both of the Italian language and poetry, great 

 efforts were made towards the spreading of anti-papal principles, in 

 order to counteract and paralyze the baneful effects of the intrigues 

 of the Roman See and the brutality of its inhuman supporters and 

 cruel satellites. As at that epoch allegorical and mythological com- 

 positions and apologues were eagerly sought after by all classes of 

 readers, both poets and novelists made a good use of this opportunity 

 in behalf of their projects. Therefore it is that we discover in the 

 writings of these eventful times, that the most enlightened and 

 learned Italians of all classes and ages appear busily engaged in a 

 foolish puerile war against love and its tyrannical sway, sometimes 

 rapturously enamoured with their faithless Madonnas, and at other 

 times we find them bewailing in sorrowful rhymes the loss of their 

 prematurely dead mistresses. Consequently the works, both in prose 

 and verse, of the Italian adepts of the "Scuola d'Amore" such as those 

 of Guido Cavalcanti, Cino da Pistoja, Dante Alighiari, Cecco 

 d'Ascoli, Dante da Majano, Barberini, Frezzi, Fazio Degli Uberti, 

 Petrarca, Boccaccio, Sacchetti, &c. &c., are to be considered as the 

 mystic correspondence of the different ecclesiastical reformers, who 

 not only had their ramifications throughout Italy, but all over Europe. 

 To those zealous writers we certainly owe the first seeds of ecclesi- 

 astical reformation which afterwards produced wholesome fruits 

 under Luther and Calvin. 



These internal heavy calamities of Italy were also greatly height- 

 ened by the repeated incursions of the German, French, and Spanish 

 tyrants, who for centuries vied with each other in ravaging and op- 

 pressing that beautiful, unhappy country. Those foreign inroads 

 were, however, almost always undertaken either in consequence ot 

 the overgrowing pride and ambition of the Roman Pontiffs, or at the 



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