We must remember, however, that this obscene literature was by no means so diffused as novels are at the present time, and also that Southern familiarity with whatever is natural also served to protect women.

Much was external, and was so treated that it had no effect whatever upon the imagination.

In the midst of the vices of the society of the cities there were noble women who kept themselves pure.
To form an idea of the morals of the great, and especially of the courts of that day, we must read the history of the Visconti, the Sforza, the Malatesta of Rimini, the Baglione of Perugia, and the Borgias of Rome.
They were not more immoral than the members of the courts of Louis XIV and XV and of August of Saxony, but their murders rendered them more terrible.

Human life was held to be of little value, but criminal egotism often was qualified by greatness of mind (magnanimitas), so that a bloody deed prompted by avarice and ambition was often condoned.
Egotism and the selfish use of conditions and men for the profit of the individual were never so universal as in the country of Macchiavelli, where unfortunately they still are frequently in evidence.

Free from the pedantic opinions of the Germans and the reverence for condition, rank, and birth which they have inherited from the Middle Ages, the Italians, on the other hand, always recognized the force of personality--no matter whether it was that of a bastard or not--but they, nevertheless, were just as likely to become the slaves of the successful.