In Renaissance Italy, as in ancient Greece, a very high level of civilization was combined with a very low level of morals : both ages exhibit the greatest heights of genius and the greatest depths of scoundrelism, and in both the scoundrels and the men of genius are by no means antagonistic to each other. Leonardo erected fortifications for Cesare Borgia; some of the pupils of Socrates were among the worst of the thirty tyrants.
Source: Power, 1938.
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