Excerpt from A History of the Papacy During the Period of the Reformation, Vol. 3: The Italian Princes, 1464-1518 The period of history with which these volumes are concerned has called forth in late years a great amount of literature. The Italian Renaissance has been dealt with in its literary, artistic, social, and religious aspects by specialists of great merit; and its leading personages have been made the subjects of many ex cellent biographies. Perhaps one result of this special treat ment has been to unduly isolate this period and exaggerate some of its characteristics it has been regarded as entirely abnormal, its large historic features have been blurred by the mass of details, and its place in the development of human affairs has been somewhat obscured. I have striven to treat it with the same sobriety as any other period, and, while endeavour ing to estimate the temper of the times, I have not forgotten that that temper affected chroniclers as much as it affected those who were the subjects of their chronicles. If the writers of the Middle Ages are to be reduced to the scientific View of historical progress which we now adopt, the same treatment ought in all fairness to be applied to the literary men of the Renaissance. The credulity displayed in the gossip of the one has to be appraised as carefully as the credulity of the miraculous records of the other. I have attempted to found a sober View of the time on a sober criticism of its authorities. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.