There Pius II.

pronounced a Latin speech of welcome, while Bessarion delivered an oration when the precious member was deposited in S.Peter's.

In this passion for reliques two different sentiments seem to have been combined--the merely superstitious belief in the efficacy of charms, which caused the Venetians to guard the body of S.Mark so jealously, and the Neapolitans to watch the liqifaction of the blood of S.
Januarius with a frenzy of excitement--and that nobler respect for the persons of the mighty dead which induced Sigismondo Malatesta to transport the body of Gemistus Pletho to Rimini, and which rendered the supposed coffin of Aristotle at Palermo an object of admiration to Mussulman and Christian alike.

The bones of Virgil, it will be remembered, had been built into the walls of Naples, while those of Livy were honored with splendid sepulture at Padua.
Owing to the separation between religion and morality which existed in Italy under the influence of Papal and monastic profligacy, the Italians saw no reason why spiritual benefits should not be purchased from a notoriously rapacious Pontiff, or why the penalty of hell should not depend upon the mere word of a consecrated monster.

The Pope as successor of S.Peter, and the Pope as Roman sovereign, were two separate beings.