After seeing them at
work at Prato, Rome, and elsewhere, it is not easy to take any interest
of the higher sort in Ferdinand the Catholic and Charles V who knew
what these hordes were, and yet unchained them. The mass of documents
which are gradually brought to light from the cabinets of these rulers
will always remain an important source of historical information; but
from such men no fruitful political conception can be looked for.
The Papacy
The Papacy and the dominions of the Church are creations of so peculiar
a kind that we have hitherto, in determining the general
characteristics of Italian States, referred to them only occasionally.
The deliberate choice and adaptation of political] expedients, which
gives so great an interest to the other States is what we find least of
all at Rome, since here the spiritual power could constantly conceal or
supply the defects of the temporal. And what fiery trials did this
State undergo in the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth
century, when the Papacy was led captive to Avignon! All, at first, was
thrown into confusion; but the Pope had money, troops, and a great
statesman and general, the Spaniard Albornoz, who again brought the
ecclesiastical State into complete subjection. The danger of a final
dissolution was still greater at the time of the schism, when neither
the Roman nor the French Pope was rich enough to reconquer the newly-
lost State; but this was done under Martin V, after the unity of the
Church was restored, and done again under Eugenius IV, when the same
danger was renewed.
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