Yet it must never be forgotten that all this did not
hinder people from writing and speaking freely. The authors of the most
scandalous satires were themselves mostly monks or beneficed priests.
Poggio, who wrote the_Facetiae, was a clergyman; Francesco Berni, the
satirist, held a canonry; Teofilo Folengo, the author of the_Orlandino,
was a Benedictine, certainly by no means a faithful one; Matteo
Bandello, who held up his own order to ridicule, was a Dominican, and
nephew of a general of this order. Were they encouraged to write by the
sense that they ran no risks. Or did they feel an inward need to clear
themselves personally from the infamy which attached to their order? Or
were they moved by that selfish pessimism which takes for its maxim,
'it will last our time'. Perhaps all of these motives were more or less
at work. In the case of Folengo, the unmistakable influence of
Lutheranism must be added.
The sense of dependence on rites and sacraments, which we have already
touched upon in speaking of the Papacy, is not surprising among that
part of the people which still believed in the Church. Among those who
were more emancipated, it testifies to the strength of youthful
impressions, and to the magical force of traditional symbols. The
universal desire of dying men for priestly absolution shows that the
last remnant of the dread of hell had not, even in the case of one like
Vitellozzo, been altogether extinguished.
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