temporal power of the church has grown so formidable since the pontificate of Alexander VIth, as to make even France tremble; to drive her armies out of Italy and overwhelm the Venetians, though before this period not only the princes of that country but the poorest barons, and the most insignificant of the nobles, looked with indifference upon the bishop of Rome, at least in regard to his temporal power, I will not hesitate to reply, though the facts I may narrate are generally known.
Before Charles VIII. King of France, entered Italy, the sovereignty was divided between the King of Naples, the Pope, the Venetians, the Duke of Milan, and the Florentines: the political system of those princes, was confined, to the prevention of the entrance, of any foreign power into Italy, and the aggrandizement of any one of themselves at the expence of another.
Those who created the most discontent. were the Pope and the Venetians, and to restrain the excesses of the latter nothing less was necessary than a league between all the rest, as we have seen in the defence of Ferrara. As to the pope, his forces consisted of the Roman barons, who being divided into two factions, the Orsini and the Colonni, were always in arms to revenge their own quarrels, even under the eye of the pope, whose
