What the Visconti and the Borgias practised in their secret chambers, the sculptors exposed in marble and the poets in verse.

All alike, however, were mistaken in supposing that antique precedent sanctioned this efflorescence of immorality.

No amount of Greek epigrams by Strato and Meleager, nor all the Hermaphrodites and Priapi of Rome, had power to annul the law of conduct established by the founders of Christianity, and ratified by the higher instincts of the Middle Ages.

Nor again were artists justified before the bar of conscience in selecting the baser elements of Paganism for imitation, instead of aiming at Greek self-restraint and Roman strength of character.

All this the men of the Renaissance felt when they listened to the voice within them.