undeniable, and extended to the landscape-painting of the
Italians, but without preventing the characteristic interest of the
Italian eye for nature from finding its own expression.

On this point, as in the scientific description of nature, AEneas Sylvius
is again one of the most weighty voices of his time. Even if we grant
the justice of all that has been said against his character, we must,
nevertheless, admit that in few other men was the picture of the age and
its culture so fully reflected, and that few came nearer to the normal
type of the men of the early Renaissance. It may be added
parenthetically that even in respect to his moral character he will not
be fairly judged if we listen solely to the complaints of the German
Church, which his fickleness helped to balk of the council it so
ardently desired.

He here claims our attention as the first who not only enjoyed the
magnificence of the Italian landscape, but described it with enthusiasm
down to its minutest details. The ecclesiastical state and the South of
Tuscany--his native home--he knew thoroughly, and after he became pope
he spent his leisure during the favorable season chiefly in excursions
to the country. Then at last the gouty man was rich enough to have
himself carried in a litter through the mountains and valleys; and when
we compare his enjoyments with those of the popes who succeeded him,
Pius, whose chief delight was in nature, antiquity, and simple but noble
architecture, appears almost a saint. In the elegant and flowing Latin
of his _Commentaries_ he freely tells us of his happiness.

His eye seems as keen and practised as that of any modern observer. He
enjoys with rapture the panoramic splendor of the view from the summit
of the Alban hills--from the Monte Cavo--whence he could see the shores
of St. Peter from Terracina and the promontory of Circe as far as Monte
Argentaro, and the wide expanse of country round about, with the ruined
cities of the past, and with the mountain chains of central Italy
beyond; and then his eye would turn to the green woods in the hollows
beneath, and the mountain lakes among them. He feels the beauty of the
position of Todi, crowning the vineyards and olive-clad slopes, looking
down upon distant woods and upon the valley of the Tiber, where towns
and castles rise above the winding river. The lovely hills about Siena,
with villas and monasteries on every height, are his own home, and his
descriptions of them a