The Church had alienated the people from true piety.

Yet no new form of religious belief arose; and partly through respect for the past, partly through the convenience of clinging to existing institutions, Catholicism was indulgently tolerated.

At the same time the humanists introduced an ideal antagonistic to Christianity of the monastic type.

Without abruptly severing themselves from the communion of the Church, and while in form at least observing all its ordinances, they thought, wrote, spoke, felt, and acted like Pagans.

To the hypocrisies of obsolete asceticism were added the affectations of anachronistic license.
Meanwhile, the national genius for art attained its fullest development, simultaneously with the decay of faith, the extinction of political liberty, and the anarchy of ethics.