Once more, compare Guidiccioni's letter to M.Giamb.Bernardi Opp.

vol.i.
p.

102.
Some of the contempt and hatred expressed by the Italian satirists for the two great orders of S.Francis and S.Dominic may perhaps be due to an ancient grudge against them as a Papal police founded in the interests of orthodoxy.

But the chief point aimed at is the mixture of hypocrisy with immorality, which rendered them odious to all classes of society.

At the same time the Franciscans embraced among their lay brethren nearly all the population of Italy, and to die in the habit of the order was thought the safest way of cheating the devil of his due.
Corruption had gone so far and deep that it was universally recognized and treated with the sarcasm of levity.