There were no exactions, no new taxes.

Justice was fairly administered.

It was the whole care of the Pontiff to adorn the city.'[1] The prosperity which the Papal court brought to Rome was the main support of the Popes as princes, at a time when many thinkers looked with Dante's jealousy upon the union of temporal and spiritual functions in the Papacy.[2] Moreover, the whole of Italy, as we have seen in the previous chapters, was undergoing a gradual and instinctive change in politics; commonwealths were being superseded by tyrannies, and the sentiments of the race at large were by no means unfavorable to this revolution.

Now was the proper moment, therefore, for the Popes to convert their ill-defined authority into a settled despotism, to secure themselves in Rome as sovereigns, and to subdue the States of the Church to their temporal jurisdiction.
[1] See history of Porcari's Conspiracy (Muratori, vol.xxv.).
[2] Lorenzo Valla's famous declamation against the Donation of Constantine, which appeared during the pontificate of Nicholas, contained these reminiscences of the 'De Monarchia': 'Ut Papa tantum vicarius Christi sit et non etiam Caesaris ...

tune Papa et erit et dicetur pater sanctus, pater omnium, pater ecclesae.' The work was begun by Thomas of Sarzana, who ascended the Chair of S.
Peter, as Nicholas V., in 1447.