Introductory. 



not have been in error, would not have over-estimated the 

 significance of his epoch. 



A Roman who had just witnessed the decapitation of 

 a criminal for violating the laws and defying the majesty 

 of the state by refusing to burn incense to the gods and 

 to invoke the genius of the emperor, might have reflected 

 that the criminal was one of a class possessed by an 

 " exitiabilis superstitio" and a certain "odium hmnani 

 generis" who met together at night amidst the dead to 

 sing "charms" and adore with magic rites a crucified 

 malefactor represented with an ass's head, and who were 

 so rapidly and mysteriously increasing that no citizen 

 could feel quite sure he might not even himself be 

 seized unwittingly by this degrading and insane super- 

 stition, had such a Roman, so reflecting, considered 

 his era to be one critical for the empire, and himself a 

 witness of the commencement of a social cataclysm, he 

 would not have exaggerated the importance of the phe- 

 nomena surrounding him. 



A refined Florentine, revelling in the brilliancy of a 

 reviving Platonism (which was beginning to replace what 

 he deemed " narrow scholasticism," as the noble classical 

 architecture was banishing the endlessly repeated details 

 of the latest Gothic), and hospitably entertaining a 

 Spanish Jew whom mendacious conformity had failed 

 to screen from the jealous scrutiny of the Inquisition of 

 1495, and who in turn regaled his host with strange 



