Note 617 — Chapter VIII · INTELLECT AND FAITH.

For a luminous presentation of the influence of Humanism on the policy of the Church in the fifteenth century, see Creighton’s History of the Popes, II. 333 sqq. It was one of the complaints of Savonarola that learning and culture had supplanted religion in the minds of those to whom the destinies of Christianity were confided until they had become infidels—“Vattene a Roma e per tutto il Cristianesimo; nelle case de’ gran prelati e de’ gran maestri non s’attende se non a poesie e ad arte oratoria ...Essi hanno introdotto fra noi le feste del diavolo; essi non credono a Dio, e si fanno beffe dei misteri della nostra religione” (Villari, Storia di Savonarola, Ed. 1887, I. 197, 199).