had no pedigree, merchants like the Medici, the son of a peasant like Francesco Sforza, a rich usurer like Pepoli, had almost equal chances with nobles of the ancient houses of Este, Visconti, or Malatesta.

The chief point in favor of the latter was the familiarity which through long years of authority had accustomed the people to their rule.

When exiled, they had a better chance of return to power than parvenus, whose party-cry and ensigns were comparatively fresh and stirred no sentiment of loyalty--if indeed the word loyalty can be applied to that preference for the established and the customary which made the mob, distracted by the wrangling of doctrinaires and intriguers, welcome back a Bentivoglio or a Malatesta.
Despotism in Italy as in ancient Greece was democratic.

It recruited its ranks from all classes and erected its thrones upon the sovereignty of the peoples it oppressed.

The impulse to the free play of ambitious individuality which this state of things communicated was enormous.
Capacity might raise the meanest monk to the chair of S.Peter's, the meanest soldier to the duchy of Milan.