the Popes had not bethought them of providing in this way for their relatives.

Also, it may be remarked, there was an essential weakness in these tyrannies.

Since they had to be carved out of the States of the Church, the Pope who had established his son, say in Romagna, died before he could see him well confirmed in a province which the next Pope sought to wrest from his hands, in order to bestow it on his own favorite.

The fabric of the Church could not long have stood this disgraceful wrangling between Papal families for the dynastic possession of Church property.

Luckily for the continuance of the Papacy, the tide of counter-reformation which set in after the sack of Rome and the great Northern Schism, put a stop to nepotism in its most barefaced form.
[1] This classification must of necessity be imperfect, since many of the tyrannies belong in part to two or more of the kinds which I have mentioned.
[2] See Guicc.