The Medici Popes

From the frightful spectacle of poverty, barbarity and ignorance, from the oppression of illiterate masters, and the sufferings of a degraded peasantry, which the annals of England and France present to us, it is delightful to turn to the opulent and enlightened states of Italy, to the vast and magnificent cities, the ports, the arsenals, the villas, the museums, the libraries, the marts filled with every article of comfort or luxury, the factories swarming with artisans... With peculiar pleasure every cultivated mind must repose on the fair, the happy, the glorious Florence, the halls which rang with the mirth of Pulci, the cell where twinkled the midnight lamp of Politian, the statues on which the young eye of Michelangelo glared with the frenzy of a kindred inspiration, the gardens in which Lorenzo meditated some sparkling song for the May-Day dance of the Etrurian virgins...