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The history of the popes, from the close of the middle ages : drawn ...

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382<br />

HISTORY OF THE POPES.<br />

countrymen, and he well understood that if <strong>the</strong> new ideas<br />

took strong root in <strong>the</strong>ir easily heated imagination <strong>the</strong>re was<br />

every reason to fear that <strong>the</strong> sword and dagger would soon be<br />

<strong>drawn</strong> by citizen against citizen, and by city against city, and<br />

<strong>the</strong> struggles <strong>of</strong> Guelph and Ghibelline would be renewed with<br />

all <strong>the</strong>ir horrors and with redoubled fury.^ It can hardly be<br />

doubted that <strong>the</strong> victory <strong>of</strong> Protestantism would have given<br />

to Italy as well its Thirty Years' War. <strong>The</strong> country-side<br />

would have become a wilderness, and <strong>the</strong> lover <strong>of</strong> art can only<br />

tliink with horror <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> fate that would have overtaken <strong>the</strong><br />

masterpieces <strong>of</strong> Raphael and Michelangelo if a war against<br />

sacred im<strong>ages</strong> had broken loose in <strong>the</strong> privileged sanctuary<br />

<strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> arts. <strong>The</strong> resoluteness and energy <strong>of</strong> Pius V. saved his<br />

country <strong>from</strong> being ba<strong>the</strong>d in streams <strong>of</strong> blood. Politically,<br />

Italy was broken up, but he preserved to her one bond <strong>of</strong><br />

union, her common religious thought and outlook. At <strong>the</strong><br />

same time he preserved to her—a thing which in <strong>the</strong> absence<br />

<strong>of</strong> political importance was her strength—<strong>the</strong> unchallenged<br />

glory <strong>of</strong> being and remaining <strong>the</strong> supreme school <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> arts<br />

in Europe.<br />

^ Through <strong>the</strong> Bishop <strong>of</strong> Narni he invited <strong>the</strong> ItaHan princes<br />

to help Charles IX. against <strong>the</strong> Huguenots in <strong>the</strong> following terms :<br />

" Potersi mentre i tumulti son lontani, i principi de sudditi lor<br />

prevalere : ma<br />

quando s'aventassero questi mostri in Italia,<br />

quale infermita, et difficulta patiscano gli stati col mezzo dell'<br />

heresie proverebbero. La cui pestilenza pur troppo sparsa per<br />

r Italia poco piu vi ponesse pie, esser facil cosa da imaginare quel<br />

fuoco fosse per accendere ne cervelli Italiani." Catena, 69.

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