noble families which claimed a feudal origin carried on wars for pay by contract in the interest of burghers, popes, or despots.  Of these conditions not one was conducive to the sense of honor as conceived in France or England.  Taken altogether and in combination, they could not fail to be eminently unfavorable to its development.  In such a society Bayard and Sir Walter Manny would have been out of place:  the motto noblesse oblige would have had but little meaning.[5] Instead of Honor, Virtu ruled the world in Italy.  The moral atmosphere again was critical and highly intellectualized.  Mental ability combined with personal daring gave rank.  But the very subtlety and force of mind which formed the strength of the Italians proved hostile to any delicate sentiment of honor.  Analysis enfeebles the tact and spontaneity of feeling which constitute its strongest safeguard.  All this is obvious in the ethics of the Principe.  What most astounds us in that treatise is the assumption that no men will be bound by laws of honor when utility or the object in view require their sacrifice.  In conclusion; although the Italians were not lacking in integrity, honesty, probity, or pride, their positive and highly analytical genius was but little influenced by that chivalrous honor which was an enthusiasm and a religion to the feudal nations, surviving the decay of chivalry as a preservative instinct more undefinable than absolute morality.  Honor with the northern gentry was subjective; with the Italians Onore was objective—­an addition conferred from without, in the shape of reputation, glory, titles of distinction, or offices of trust.[6]

    [1] Ricordi politici e civili, No. 118, Op.  Ined. vol. i.

[2] See De Stendhal, Histoire de la peinture en Italie, pp. 285-91, for a curious catalogue of examples.  The modern sense of honor is based, no doubt, to some extent on a delicate amour propre, which makes a man desirous of winning the esteem of his neighbors for its own sake.  Granting that conscience, pride, vanity, and self-respect are all constituents of honor, we may, perhaps, find more pride in the Spanish, more amour propre in the French, and more conscience in the English.

    [3] Gargantua, lib. 1. ch. 57.

    [4] See, however, what I have already said about Castiglione
    and his ideal of the courtier in Chapter III.  We must remember
    that he represents a late period of the Renaissance.

[5] It is curious to compare, for example, the part played by Italians, especially by Venice, Pisa, Genoa, Amalfi, as contractors and merchants in the Crusades, with the enthusiasm of the northern nations.

[6] In confirmation of this view I may call attention to Giannotti’s critique of the Florentine constitution (Florence, 1850, vol. i. pp. 15 and 156), and to what Machiavelli says about Gianpaolo Baglioni (Disc. i. 27), ’Gli