d of vestals, in place of an emperor there was a
pope. In details of speech, costume and mode there were further
differences. Otherwise Rome was as pagan, murderous and gay. In the thick
air of the high-viced city the poison of the antique purple dripped.

But into the toxic a new ingredient had entered, a fresh element, a modern
note. In the Rome of Nero a sin was a prayer. In the Rome of Leo X it was
a taxable luxury. Anything, no matter what, was lawful provided an
indulgence were bought. The Bank of Pardons was established for the
obvious proceeds, but the latter were sanctified by their consecration to
art. Among the results is St. Peter's.

It was in a very different light that Luther contemplated them. The true
founder of modern society, radical as innovators must be, dangerous as
reformers are, it was with actual fury that he attacked the sale, attacked
confession, the entire doctrine of original sin. The hysteria of
asceticism was as inept to him as the celibacy of the priesthood; love he
declared to be no less necessary than food and he preached to men, saying,
"If women are recalcitrant, tell them others will consent; if Esther
refuse, let Vashti approach."[60]

Beauty, emerging meanwhile from her secular tomb, had uttered a new Fiat
Lux. Spontaneously as the first creation there resulted another in which
art became an object of worship. Suddenly, miraculously yet naturally,
there sprang into being a race of sculptors inferior only to Pheidias, a
race of painters superior even to Apelles, real artists who were great men
in an epoch really great. It was said of Raphael that he had resuscitated
the corpse of Rome. Benvenuto Cellini was absolved of a murder by Paul III
on the ground that men like him were above the law. Julius II launched
anathemas at any sovereign who presumed, however briefly, to lure from him
Michel Angelo. Charles V, ruler of a realm wider than Alexander's, stooped
and restored a brush which Titian had dropped, remarking as he did so,
that only by an emperor could an artist be properly served.

The epoch in which appeared these exceptional beings and with them
lettered bandits comparable only to tigers in the gardens of Armide--the
age which produced in addition to them, others equally, if differently,
great, approached in its rare brilliance that of Pericles. Even Plato was
there.

"Since God has given us the Papacy," said Leo X, "let us enjoy it." In the
enjoyment he had Plato for aid.