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A HISTORY OF THE PAPACY
427

the sources of information and suggestion have been fully explored. Nobody should stand better with Mr. Creighton than Ranke. The late John Richard Green used to complain that it was from him that he had learnt to be so dispassionate and inattentive to everything but the chain of uncoloured fact. In reserve of language, exclusion of all that is not history, dislike of purple patchwork and emotional effect, their ways are one. At the same time, the chapter on Savonarola has been more distinctly a labour of love than any other part of these volumes. Yet the essay on Savonarola, which is among Ranke's later writings, has not been suffered to influence the account of the friar's constitution and of the challenge. Burckhardt, the most instructive of all writers on the Renaissance, is missed where he is wanted, though there is a trace of him in the description of Caterina Sforza. The sketch of Gemistus Pletho is founded on Alexandre's edition of his Laws, irrespective of Schulze's later and more comprehensive treatise. Schulze is as well known to Mr. Creighton as Ranke or Burckhardt, and his studious exclusion needlessly raises a question as to whether this book is written up to date. It relates from the usual authorities the story of the ancient Roman corpse that was discovered in 1485, carried to the Capitol, and tumultuously admired by the enthusiasts of the revival. Another account, written by an eye-witness, at the time, has been published by Janitschek, and reproduced by Geiger in works only second to those of Voigt and Burckhardt. The Regesta Leonis X. should be an indispensable aid in the study of his pontificate, and should have roused a suspicion that the act confirming the legitimacy of Clement VII. has long been known, and that the page of Balan's Monumenta to which we are referred for it is misprinted. They also prove (p. 323) that the Bullarium Magnum cannot be trusted by critical scholars. In the character of Paul II. there is no notice of a statement made by Gregorovius (vol. vii. p. 212), whom Mr. Creighton has studied carefully, though not, I think, in the last edition.