by which acts were judged; and the man who could help his friends intimidate his enemies, and carve a way to fortune for himself by any means he chose, was regarded as a hero.  Machiavelli’s use of the word virtu is in this relation most instructive.  It has altogether lost the Christian sense of virtue, and retains only so much of the Roman virtus as is applicable to the courage, intellectual ability, and personal prowess of one who has achieved his purpose, be that what it may.  The upshot of this state of things was that individuality of character and genius obtained a freer scope at this time in Italy than during any other period of modern history.

    [1] ’Very few indeed have those been, whose motive for tyrannicide
    was a pure love of their country’s liberty; and these deserve the
    highest praise.’

[2] It is quite impossible to furnish a complete view of Italian society under this aspect.  Students must be referred to the stories of the novelists, who collected the more dramatic incidents and presented them in the form of entertaining legends.  It may suffice here to mention Bartolommeo Colleoni, Angelo Poliziano, and Pontano, all of whom owed their start in life to the murder of their respective fathers by assassins; to Varchi and Filelfo, whose lives were attempted by cut-throats; to Cellini, Perugino, Masaccio, Berni, in each of whose biographies poison and the knife play their parts.  If men of letters and artists were exposed to these perils, the dangers of the great and noble may be readily imagined.

At the same time it must not be forgotten that during this period the art and culture of the Renaissance were culminating.  Filelfo was receiving the gold of Filippo Maria Visconti.  Guarino of Verona was instructing the heir of Ferrara, and Vittorino da Feltre was educating the children of the Marquis of Mantua.  Lionardo was delighting Milan with his music and his magic world of painting.  Poliziano was pouring forth honeyed eloquence at Florence.  Ficino was expounding Plato.  Boiardo was singing the prelude to Ariosto’s melodies at Ferrara.  Pico della Mirandola was dreaming of a reconciliation of the Hebrew, Pagan, and Christian traditions.  It is necessary to note these facts in passing; just as when we are surveying the history of letters and the arts, it becomes us to remember the crimes and the madness of the despots who patronized them.  This was an age in which even the wildest and most perfidious of tyrants felt the ennobling influences and the sacred thirst of knowledge.  Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, the Lord of Rimini, might be selected as a true type of the princes who united a romantic zeal for culture with the vices of barbarians.[1] The coins which bear the portraits of this man, together with the medallions carved in red Verona marble on his church at Rimini, show a narrow forehead, protuberant above bushy eyebrows, a long hooked nose, hollow cheeks,