920 



ON THE REVIVAL OF LITERATURE. 



horizon of Italy, where, as I have already observed, it shot forth its earliest 

 twinklings, it pointed, as with the finger of reprobation, to the abominable 

 abuses of the church, and stung to the quick in the satires and brilliant wit of 

 Dante, Petrach, and Boccacio ; the first of whom, in his incomparable " Divina 

 Connnedia," assigned, without scruple, situations and torments in hell to not 

 less than three or four of the most debauched or most despotic of the popes, 

 apportioning their sufferings to their respective vices and degrees of tyranny 

 while on earth ;* the second of whom characterizes the papal court, in one of 

 his sonnets by the name of Babylon, and declares that he has quitted it for 

 ever, as a place equally deprived of virtue and of shame, the seat of misery, 

 and the mother of error; and the last of whom made it his direct object, in 

 his very popular and entertaining work, the " Decamerone," to expose the 

 whole priesthood to ridicule and contempt; his entire argument consisting of 

 the debaucheries of the religious of both sexes. As learning advanced, these 

 attacks became more frequent; and as the art of printing established itself, 

 the assaults of the more celebrated writers, of Poggio, Burchiello, Pulci, and 

 Franco, were published at Antwerp, Leipsic, and in other parts of the Con- 

 tinent, as well as in France and Italy; till at length the church, becoming 

 sensible of her danger, and, at the same time, equally sensible of her utter 

 inability to repel the shafts that were levelled against her, attempted, like the 

 grand tyrant of the present day,t to suppress the voice of truth and of pub- 

 lic feeling by severe denunciations and punishments; and hence, in the tenth 

 session of the Council of Lateran, immediately before the elevation of Leo 

 X. to the pontificate, decreed, that no one under the penalty of excommuni- 

 cation should dare to publish any new work, without the approbation either 

 of the ordinary jurisdiction of the place, or of the holy inquisition. 



Such denunciations, however, had by this time, in a very considerable de- 

 gree, lost their authority ; and even Leo himself, in the zenith of his potency 

 and popularity, and in many respects not popular without reason, fell a sacri- 

 fice to practices whi('h, however supported by custom, are equally repugnant 

 to religion and common sense. 



I have already described a part, though comparatively but a small part, of 

 the enormous expenses into which the prodigal but refined magnificence of this 

 genuine descendant of the Medici was annually plunging him. His taste for 

 luxury was unbounded ; his foreign diplomacy was conducted upon a scale of 

 still greater splendour than his domestic court or his literary establishments; 

 while he was at the same time in the regular disbursement of almost incalculable 

 sums for embellishing the Vatican, and augmenting its library with manu- 

 scripts collected from every quarter of the globe, and in completing the im- 

 mense fabric of St. Peter's church, commenced by his predecessor Julius II. 

 The vast revenues of the apostolic see, both temporal and spiritual, were 

 incompetent, by their ordinary channels, to these wide and multifarious de- 

 mands : he had exhausted the pontifical treasury ; and, following an exam- 

 ple which had too often been furnished by his predecessors, he fell into the 

 absurdity of granting a sale of indulgences for its repletion. 



Indulgences were a ticklish subject in the worst of times ;J and in the times 

 before us the more conscientious and enlightened churchmen were as little 

 disposed to endure them as the laity. In this respect, the feelings of Eras- 



* Those whom he has more especially signalized by tbeir sufferings in the infernal regions are, Pope 

 Nicholas III., whom the poet finds tortured in the gulf of Simony, Pope Boniface VIII., and Pope Clement 

 V. The confession of Nicholas III. is peculiarly striking, who at first mistook Dante, in his transitory 

 visit, for his own successor in the papal chair, whom he had been long expecting;— 

 " Poi sospirando, e con voce di pianto 

 Mi disse : Dunque che a me richiedi ? 

 Be di saper ch'io sia li col cotanto 

 Che tu abbi per6 la ripa scorsa, 

 Sappi, ch'io fui vestito del gran manto," &c. 



Inferno, canto xix. 



tNapoleon Buonaparte ; the day alluded to being, as already observed, 1813. . ,„ 



I Yet the Council of Trent has long since established their use as a part of wholesome discipline, by 

 formally decreeing that " the power to grant indulgences by Jesus Christ, and the use of them, is bene- 

 ficial to salvation." 



