He tries to demonstrate that, in the sphere of private life, Italian society gradually refined the brutal lusts of the Middle Ages, and passed through fornication to a true conception of woman as man's companion in the family.

The theme is bold; and the author seems to have based it upon too slight acquaintance with the real conditions of the Middle Ages.] [Footnote 181: Galluzzi, in his _Storia del Granducato di Toscana_, vol.
iv.p.34, estimates the murders committed in Florence alone during the eighteen months which followed the death of Cosimo I., at 186.] Compared with the later Middle Ages, compared with the Renaissance, this period is distinguished by extraordinary ferocity of temper and by an almost unparalleled facility of bloodshed.[182] [Footnote 182: In drawing up these paragraphs I am greatly indebted to a vigorous passage by Signor Salvatore Bonghi in his _Storia di Lucrezia Buonvisi_, pp.

7-9, of which I have made free use, translating his words when they served my purpose, and interpolating such further details as might render the picture more complete.] The broad political and religious contests which had torn the country in the first years of the sixteenth century, were pacified.

Foreign armies had ceased to dispute the provinces of Italy.

The victorious powers of Spain, the Church, and the protected principalities, seemed secure in the possession of their gains.