On the other hand it is impossible to prove that the despotisms of the fifteenth century were necessary to the perfecting of art and literature.

All that can be safely advanced upon this subject, is that the pacification of Italy was demanded as a preliminary condition, and that this pacification came to pass through the action of the princes, checked and equilibrated by the oligarchies of Venice and Florence.

It might further be urged that the Despots were in close sympathy with the masses of the people, shared their enthusiasms, and promoted their industry.

When the classical revival took place at the close of the fourteenth century, they divined this movement of the Italic races to resume their past, and gave it all encouragement.

To be a prince, and not to be the patron of scholarship, the pupil of humanists, and the founder of libraries, was an impossibility.