52), are described with a naked sincerity that bears upon its face the stamp of truth.
[3] A famous passage from Agrippa (De Vanitate Scientiarum) deserves a place here.

After alluding to Sixtus IV, he says that many state officers 'in civitatibus suis lupanaria construunt foventque, non nihil ex meretricio questu etiam aerario suo accumulantes emolumenti; quod quidem in Italia non rarum est, ubi etiam Romana scorta in singulas hebdomadas Julium pendent Pontifici, qui census annuus nonnunquam viginti millia ducatos excedit, adeoque Ecclesiae procerum id munus est, ut una cum Ecclesiarum proventibus etiam lenociniorum numerent mercedem.

Sic enim ego illos supputantes aliquando audivi: Habet, inquientes, ille duo beneficia, unum curaturn aureorum viginti, alterum prioratum ducatorum quadraginta, el tres putanas in burdello, quae reddunt singulis hebdomadibus Julios Viginti.' [4] Very few ecclesiastics of high rank escaped the contagion of Roman society.

It was fashionable for men like Bembo and La Casa to form connections with women of the _demi-monde_ and to recognize their children, whose legitimation they frequently procured.

The Capitoli of the burlesque poets show that this laxity of conduct was pardonable, when compared with other laughingly avowed and all but universal indulgences.