vol.
iii.
[2] De Comines more than once notices the humanity shown by the Italian peasants to the French army.
The drunkenness and gluttony of northern nations for a like reason found no favor in Italy.

It disgusted the Romans beyond measure to witness the swinish excesses of the Germans.

Their own sensuality prompted them to a refined Epicureanism in food and drink; on this point, however, it must be admitted that the prelates, here as elsewhere foremost in profligacy, disgraced the age of Leo with banquets worthy of Vitellius.[1] We trace the same play of the fancy, the same promptitude to quicken and intensify the immediate sense of personality at any cost of after-suffering, in another characteristic vice of the Italians.
Gambling among them was carried further and produced more harm than it did in the transalpine cities.

This we gather from Savonarola's denunciations, from the animated pictures drawn by Alberti in his _Trattato della Famiglia_ and _Cena della Famiglia_ and also from the inductions to many of the _Sacre Rappresentazioni_.[2] [1] See Gregorovius, _Stadt Rom_, vol.viii.p.

225: 'E li cardinali comenzarono a vomitar e cussi li altri,' quoted from Sanudo.
[2] One of the excellent characteristics of Alfonso the Great (_Vespasiano_, p.