It roused no sincere reaction, and stimulated no persistent indignation.

Every one acknowledged it; yet every one continued to live indolently according to the fashion of his forefathers, acting up to Ovid's maxim-- Pro magna parte vetustas Creditur; acceptam parce movere fidem.
It is only this incurable indifference that renders Machiavelli's comic portraits of Fra Alberigo and Fra Timoteo at all intelligible.

They are neither satires nor caricatures, but simple pictures drawn for the amusement of contemporaries and the stupefaction of posterity.
The criticism of the Italian writers, so far as we have yet followed it, was directed against two separate evils--the vicious worldliness of Rome, and the demoralization of the clergy both in their dealings with the people and in their conventual life.

Contempt for false miracles and spurious reliques, and the horror of the traffic in indulgences, swelled the storm of discontent among the more enlightened.

But the people continued to make saints, to adore wonder-working shrines, and to profit by the spiritual advantages which could be bought.