Nor does Italy present a more encouraging picture. Ariosto, one of the
few names, ancient or modern, who is allowed on all hands to occupy the
first rank of Literature, is, I suppose, rightly arraigned by the author
I have above quoted, of “coarse sensuality.” Pulci, “by his sceptical
insinuations, seems clearly to display an intention of exposing religion
to contempt.” Boccaccio, the first of Italian prose-writers, had in his
old age touchingly to lament the corrupting tendency of his popular
compositions; and Bellarmine has to vindicate him, Dante, and Petrarch,
from the charge of virulent abuse of the Holy See. Dante certainly does
not scruple to place in his Inferno a Pope, whom the Church has since
canonized, and his work on Monarchia is on the Index. Another great
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