It does not, however, follow therefore that the humanities of the race at large, in spite of superstition and bad government, were vitiated.
[1] I am of course speaking of the Renaissance as distinguished from that new phase of Italian history which followed the Council of Trent and the Spanish despotism.
We have positive proofs to the contrary in the art of the Italians.

The April freshness of Giotto, the piety of Fra Angelico, the virginal purity of the young Raphael, the sweet gravity of John Bellini, the philosophic depth of Da Vinci, the sublime elevation of Michael Angelo, the suavity of Fra Bartolommeo, the delicacy of the Della Robbia, the restrained fervor of Rosellini, the rapture of the Sienese and the reverence of the Umbrian masters, Francia's pathos, Mantegna's dignity, and Luini's divine simplicity, were qualities which belonged not only to these artists but also to the people of Italy from whom they sprang.

If men not few of whom were born in cottages and educated in workshops could feel and think and fashion as they did, we cannot doubt that their mothers and their friends were pure and pious, and that the race which gave them to the world was not depraved.

Painting in Italy, it must be remembered, was nearer to the people than literature: it was less a matter of education than instinct, a product of temperament rather than of culture.
Italian art alone suffices to prove to my mind that the immorality of the age descended from the upper stratum of society downwards.

Selfish despots and luxurious priests were the ruin of Italy; and the bad qualities of the princes, secular and ecclesiastical, found expression in the literature of poets and humanists, their parasites.