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THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY: A MAGAZINE OF Literature, Science, Art, and
Politics VOLUME XCIII {From January, 1904--Number DLV. and
February, 1904--Number DLVI.}

BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN AND COMPANY The Riverside
Press, Cambridge 1904


COPYRIGHT, 1903 AND 1904 BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY

The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A. Electrotyped and
Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company

FRA PAOLO SARPI.

I.

A thoughtful historian tells us that, between the fourteenth
century and the nineteenth, Italy produced three great men. As
the first of these, he names Machiavelli, who, he says, "taught
the world to understand political despotism and to hate it;" as
the second, he names Sarpi who "taught the world after what
manner the Holy Spirit guides the Councils of the Church;" and as
the third, Galileo, who "taught the world what dogmatic theology
is worth when it can be tested by science."

I purpose now to present the second of these. As a MAN, he was by
far the greatest of the three and, in various respects, the most
interesting, for he not only threw a bright light into the most