without doubt either ruin or a scourge is now impending over it.  And since some men are of opinion that the welfare of Italy depends upon the Church, I wish to put forth such arguments as occur to my mind to the contrary; and of these I will adduce two, which, as I think, are irrefutable.  The first is this:  that owing to the evil ensample of the Papal Court, Italy has lost all piety and all religion:  whence follow infinite troubles and disorders; for as religion implies all good, so its absence implies the contrary.  Consequently, to the Church and priests of Rome we Italians owe this obligation first—­that we have become void of religion and corrupt.  But we also owe them another, even greater, which is the cause of our ruin.  I mean that the Church has maintained and still maintains Italy divided.  Of a truth no province ever was united and prosperous, unless it were reduced beneath the sway of one republic or one monarch, as is the case with France and Spain.  And the reason why Italy is not in this condition, but has neither commonwealth nor monarch for her head, is none other than the Church:  for the Church, established in our midst and exercising a temporal authority, has never had the force or vigor to extend its sway over the whole country and to become the ruling power in Italy.  Nor on the other hand has it been so feeble as not to be able, when afraid of losing its temporalities, to call in a foreign potentate, as a counterpoise in its defense against those powers which threatened to become supreme.  Of the truth of this, past history furnishes many instances; as when, by the help of Charlemagne, the Popes expelled the Lombards; and when in our own days they humbled Venice by the aid of France, and afterwards drove out the French by calling in the Swiss.  So then the Church, being on the one hand too weak to grasp the whole of Italy, and at the same time too jealous to allow another power to do so, has prevented our union beneath one head, and has kept us under scattered lords and princes.  These have caused so much discord and debility that Italy has become the prey not only of powerful barbarians, but also of every assailant.  And this we owe solely and entirely to the Church.  In order to learn by experience the truth of what I say, one ought to be able to send the Roman Court, armed with like authority to that it wields in Italy, to take up its abode among the Swiss, who at the present moment are the only nation living, as regards religion and military discipline, according to the antique fashion; he would then see that the evil habits of that Court would in no long space of time create more disorders than any other misfortune that could arise there in any period whatever.’  In this scientific and deliberate opinion pronounced by the profoundest thinker of the sixteenth century, the Papacy is accused of having caused both the moral depravation and the political disunion of Italy.  The second of these points, which belongs to the general