The Nineteenth Century , No 182, Apr 1892 [‎104v] (213/244)

698
THE NINETEENTH
April
questa nota.' They were divided in regard to Boccaccio, some
deeming him incurable, but wishing to recall the censure. The Arch
bishop of Ragusa opined: 4 A mio parere era meglio lasciarlo sub
silentio, e non ne parlare ne in bene ne in male.' The difficult labour
of making the Decameron inoffensive to pious ears was completed in
1573, and after some hesitation the ingenious revision was allowed to
appear. Thereupon, on the 3rd of August, the secretary of the Index
wrote to Machiavelli's representatives, authorising them to do as
much for him, with such omissions as were found sufficient in
(xuicciardini. Five years later Victorius informed the Cardinal at the
head of the affairs of the Index that the works had been thoroughly
revised and waited approbation—' levatone tutto quello che potesse
dispiacere alia Santa Romana chiesa.' With increasing rigour it was
required that names of ill repute should be cancelled altogether.
Students of the classics were not to know that they were reading
notes by Camerarius, Stephanus, or other Protestants ' quorum
omnium et singulorum ubique prorsus memoria ex quibuscunque
libris abradenda est.' A common injunction was: ' Deleantur in
primis omnia nomina hsereticorum in toto libro ;' ' Delendum est
nomen Molinsei;' ' Dele : Nicolai Macchiavelli.' The family were
prepared to suppress a name which concealment could not obscure ;
but when at last they were informed that a pseudonym must be
substituted for it, they understood that, in the altered times, their
labour had become vain ; and the purified Machiavelli, part of which
exists in the hands of the Minister of Public Instruction, has never
seen the light.
This exceptional asperity can hardly have been provoked by the
sayings against Rome, because, in the case of Gruicciardini, these were
easily got over; nor by the famous argument that Christianity makes
inferior citizens, for nearly the same thing may be read in the works
of a religious Italian, afterwards Pope : ' Si vide ITtalia decadere total-
mente da quanto le aveva procacciato un brillante splendore. . .La
mollezza s'impadroni dei corpi e degli spiriti, e la Nazione Italiana
divenne effeminata.' But Machiavelli's writings made it apparent
that the accepted code of private morality does not govern national
and international life. A problem long disguised by confounding
property with sovereignty, and church with state, opened like an abyss
before the feet of men. Whether politics are a godless occupation,
independent of ethics, or possess a distinct morality technically adapted
to special needs and conditions, the consequences were as formidable
to Rome as the Reformation. A law discovered and fashioned by man
threatened to restrict, if it did not supersede, the law revealed by
God. There was a new legislator and a usurped authority; and the
danger of a rival power, the danger latent in Copernicus, became
manifest in Grotius. If a false policy or a foolish tax could do more
for the replenishment of Hell than private vice, the laws which direct