and cardinals," an Italian debate between the Ferini and Antiferini,
the affirmers and deniers of the animal origin of man, the latter
of course taking up their ground on the Bible, from which Finetti
drew twenty-three objections to Vico. [1573] Duni found it prudent
to declare that he had "no intention of discussing the origin of
the world, still less that of the Hebrew nation, but solely that
of the Gentile nations"; but even when thus limited the debate
set up far-reaching disturbance. At this stage Italian sociology
doubtless owed something to Montesquieu and Rousseau; but the fact
remains that the Scienza Nuova was a book "truly Italian; Italian par
excellence." [1574] It was Vico, too, who led the way in the critical
handling of early Roman history, taken up later by Beaufort, and still
later by Niebuhr; and it was he who began the scientific analysis
of Homer, followed up later by F. A. Wolf. [1575] By a fortunate
coincidence, the papal chair was held at the middle of the century
(1740-1758) by the most learned, tolerant, and judicious of modern
popes, Benedict XIV, [1576] whose influence was used for political
peace in Europe and for toleration in Italy; and whom we shall find,
like Clement XIV, on friendly terms with a freethinker. In the same age
Muratori and Giannone amassed their unequalled historical learning;
and a whole series of Italian writers broke new ground on the field
of social science, Italy having led the way in this as formerly in
philosophy and physics. [1577] The Hanoverian Dr. G. W. Alberti,
of Italian descent, writes in 1752 that "Italy is full of atheists";
[1578] and Grimm, writing in 1765, records that according to capable
observers the effect of the French freethinking literature in the
past thirty years had been immense, especially in Tuscany. [1579]