These are the families, sprung from obscurity or mediocre station, whose palaces and villas adorn Rome, and who now rank, though of such recent origin, with the aristocracy of Europe.
Sixtus V.died in 1590.

To follow the history of his successors would be superfluous for the purpose of this book.

The change in the Church which began in the reign of Paul III.

was completed in his pontificate.

About half a century, embracing seven tenures of the Holy Chair, had sufficed to develop the new phase of the Papacy as an absolute sovereignty, representing the modern European principle of absolutism, both as the acknowledged Head of Catholic Christendom and also as a petty Italian power.
[Footnote 75: Sarpi writes: 'In my times Pius V., during five years, accumulated 25,000 ducats for the Cardinal nephew; Gregory XIII., in thirteen years, 30,000 for one nephew, and 20,000 for another; Sixtus V., for his only nephew, 9,000; Clement VIII., in thirteen years, for one nephew, 8,000, and for the other, 3,000; and this Pope, Paul V., in four years, for one nephew alone, 40,000.