634 CONCLUSION. her offspring, the monster Minotaur. Here you see confusion, blackness, and horror. It is not a city, but a den of spectres and goblins, the common sink of all vices, the hell of the living. Here God is despised, money is worshipped, the laws are trodden under foot, the good are ridiculed till there scarce is one left to be laughed at. A deluge is necessary, but there would be no Xoah, no Deu- calion to survive it. Avignon is the woman clothed in purple and scarlet, holding the golden bowl of her abominations and the un- cleanness of her fornications. He returns to the subject again and ao-ain with undiminished wrath, and he casuallv alludes to one of the cardinals as a man of a nobler soul, who might have been good had he not belonged to the sacred college. The mocking spirit of Boccaccio is equally outspoken. From the highest to the lowest, every one in the papal court is abandoned to the most abom- inable vices. The sight of it converts a Jew, for he argues that Christianity must be of God, seeing that it spreads and flourishes in spite of the wickedness of its head.* Gregory XL was the fiercest persecutor of heresy in the four- teenth century, incessantly active against Brethren of the Free Spirit, "Waldenses, and Fraticelli. He could boast that even as his namesake and prototype, Gregory IX., had founded the Inquisi- tion, so he had restored it and had extended it into Germany. Yet, with all this zeal for compelling unity of faith, St. Birgitta was divinely commissioned to convey to him this message from the Lord: " Hear, O Gregory XI., the words I say to thee, and give unto them diligent attention! Why dost thou hate me so? Why are thy audacity and presump- tion so great against me that thy worldly court destroys my heavenly one? Proudly thou despoilest me of my sheep. The wealth of the Church which is mine, and the goods of the faithful of the Church, thou extortest and seizest, and givest to thy worldly friends. Thou takest unjustly the store of the poor and lavishest it without shame on thy worldly friends. What have I done to thee, O Gregory ? Patiently have I suffered thee to rise to the high-priesthood, and I have foretold to thee my will by letters divinely sent to thee, warning thee of
- Petrarchi Lib. sine Titulo Epistt. vii., viii., ix., xii., xvi. — Decamerone, Giorn.
I. Ncv. 2. Petrarch's wrath at the papal court is explicable if there is truth in the dis- gusting story alleged in explanation of the enigmatical allusions in his Can- zone xxti. — " Mai non vd 1 piiL cantor corn 1 io soleva."
