The dread of the Papal Interdict was still a reality.

Though the clergy of Florence, roused to retaliative fury, might fling back in the teeth of Sixtus such words as _leno matris suae, adulterorum minister, diaboli vicarius_, yet the people could not long endure 'the niggardly and imperfect rites, the baptism sparingly administered, the extreme unction or the last sacrament coldly vouchsafed to the chosen few, the churchyard closed against the dead,' which, to quote the energetic language of Dean Milman,[1] were the proper fruits of the Papal ban, however unjustly issued and however manfully resisted.
[1] Latin Christianity, vol.vi.p.

361.
The history of the despots and the Popes, together with the analysis of Machiavelli's political ethics, prove the demoralization of a society in which crimes so extravagant could have their origin, and cynicism so deliberate could be accepted as a system.

Yet it remains in estimating the general character of Italian morality to record the judgment passed upon it by foreign nations of a different complexion.

The morality of races, as of individuals, is rarely otherwise than mixed--virtue balancing vice and evil vitiating goodness.