“Throughout the Renaissance period the Papacy was engaged in pursuing purely secular objects and was without scruple in its pursuit of them. The Pope who had most resolutely set himself to the task of consolidating the states of the Church and of carving out of them an Italian principality for his own kindred was Sixtus IV. (1471-1484). It is not necessary to credit Sixtus IV with all those nameless vices and unspeakable abominations, which have been attributed to him in his own day and since. Such charges rest upon evidence, which is tainted and have been dismissed by Creighton as “not proven”. But whatever may have been the extent of his erudition and even of his private virtues, there can be no doubt that, as Pontiff, Sixtus IV used the Papacy to secure his private interests, enlisting without scruple and without remorse all the temporal and spiritual weapons at his command in the service of ambition, intrigue and the disquietude of Italy. With such an example before them the great dignitaries of the Church naturally sought their own interests, regardless for the most part of the spiritual obligations imposed upon them by their position. The most astounding luxury prevailed in high places at Rome. The most shameless effrontery was displayed in the means used to get money. The holiest relics, the most sacred services of religion were prostituted for the purposes of gain. The inferior clergy were for the most part sunk in ignorance and sloth. The monastic orders had lost their freshness and enthusiasm, the regular clergy were dull and formal, and in the meantime in Italy itself vice walked about naked and unashamed. Assassination was a legitimate political weapon and a legitimate instrument of private revenge. Abominable vices went unreproved. It did not need the gift of prophecy to enable any thinking and observant man to be assured that in the near future reaction or revolution was inevitable.”
Edward Lee Stuart Horsburgh in Girolamo Savonarola (London: Methuen & Company, 1901) 58-59.