498 MISCELLANEOUS RECOLLECTIONS -II 



these facts as bearing on the claims of theologians and 

 ecclesiastics to direct education and control thought. 



Of this period, too, were sundry projects for special 

 monographs. Thus, during various visits to Florence, 

 I planned a history of that city. It had interested me in 

 my student days during my reading of Sismondi s &quot;His 

 tory of the Italian Republics, and on resuming my stud 

 ies in that field it seemed to me that a history of Florence 

 might be made, most varied, interesting, and instructive. 

 It would embrace, of course, a most remarkable period of 

 political development the growth of a mediaeval republic 

 out of early anarchy and tyranny ; some of the most cu 

 rious experiments in government ever made; the most 

 wonderful, perhaps, of all growths in art, literature, and 

 science; and the final supremacy of a monarchy, bring 

 ing many interesting results, yet giving some terrible 

 warnings. But the more I read the more I saw that to 

 write such a history a man must relinquish everything 

 else, and so it was given up. So, too, during various so 

 journs at Venice my old interest in Father Paul Sarpi, 

 which had been aroused during my early professorial life 

 while reading his pithy and brilliant history of the Coun 

 cil of Trent, was greatly increased, and I collected a con 

 siderable library with the idea of writing a short biog 

 raphy of him for American readers. This, of all projects 

 not executed, has been perhaps the most difficult for me 

 to relinquish. My last three visits to Venice have espe 

 cially revived my interest in him and increased my collec 

 tion of books regarding him. The desire to spread his 

 fame has come over me very strongly as I have stood in 

 the council-rooms of the Venetian Eepublic, which he 

 served so long and so well; as I have looked upon his 

 statue on the spot where he was left for dead by the emis 

 saries of Pope Paul V; and as I have mused over his 

 grave, so long desecrated and hidden by monks, but in 

 these latter days honored with an inscription. But other 

 work has claimed me, and others must write upon this 

 subject. It is well worthy of attention, not only for the 



