[1] Latin Christianity, vol. vi. p. 361.

The history of the despots and the Popes, together with the analysis of Machiavelli’s political ethics, prove the demoralization of a society in which crimes so extravagant could have their origin, and cynicism so deliberate could be accepted as a system.  Yet it remains in estimating the general character of Italian morality to record the judgment passed upon it by foreign nations of a different complexion.  The morality of races, as of individuals, is rarely otherwise than mixed—­virtue balancing vice and evil vitiating goodness.  Still the impression produced by Renaissance Italy upon observers from the North was almost wholly bad.  Our own ancestors returned from their Italian travels either horrified with what they had witnessed, or else contaminated.  Ascham writes:[1] ’I was once in Italy myself; but I thank God my abode there was but nine days; and yet I saw in that little time, in one city, more liberty to sin than ever I heard tell of in our noble City of London in nine years.  I saw it was there as free to sin, not only without all punishment, but also without any man’s marking, as it is free in the City of London to choose without all blame whether a man lust to wear shoe or pantocle.’  Robert Greene, who did so much to introduce the novels of Italy into England, confesses that during his youthful travels in the south he ’saw and practiced such villany as it is abominable to declare.’[2] The whole of our dramatic literature corroborates these witnesses, while the proverb, Inglese Italianato e un diavolo incarnato, quoted by Sidney, Howell, Parker, Ascham, shows how pernicious to the coarser natures of the north were the refined vices of the south.  What principally struck our ancestors in the morality of the Italians was the license allowed in sensual indulgences, and the bad faith which tainted all public and private dealings.  In respect to the latter point, what has already been said about Machiavelli is enough.[3] Loyalty was a virtue but little esteemed in Italy:  engagements seemed made to be broken; even the crime of violence was aggravated by the crime of perfidy, a bravo’s stiletto or a slow poison being reckoned among the legitimate means for ridding men of rivals or for revenging a slight.  Yet it must not be forgotten that the commercial integrity of the Italians ranked high.  In all countries of Europe they carried on the banking business of monarchs, cities, and private persons.

[1] The Schoolmaster; edn. 1863, p. 87.  The whole discourse on Italian traveling and Italian influence is very curious, when we reflect that at this time contact with Italy was forming the chief culture of the English in literature and social manners.  The ninth satire in Marston’s Scourge of Villanie contains much interesting matter on the same point.  Howell’s Instructions for forreine Travell furnishes the following illustration:  ’And being